Dowsing Linux jobs and skills | Hacker News Reader

Dowsing Linux jobs and skills

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Java #1 sought after Linux skill? Interesting, though author qualifies this with his POV: "I was initially surprised that Java was the most referenced skill area, even over Android and C++. But then when I thought about it, it seems that Java is everywhere you look these days, even if it isn't called Java (such as Red Hat's Ceylon language and Android's Dalvik virtual machine). This also seems to enforce the notion that Mono--and C#-- development is falling more out of favor on the Linux desktop."

Yes, it does seem weird. A lot of people claim to "know Linux" when their job is to develop server applications on Eclipse running on Windows and they eventually copy some WAR (via Samba, of course) to a Linux production box. They don't know anything about Linux userspace or the UNIX API; they write once and run somewhere else.

Once, I was tasked with providing a native library to a team writing a Java application. They told me they developed on Windows and deployed to Linux. A few weeks before their app was set to go live, they deployed to production and my library didn't work. Why? Their production platform was actually Solaris. "Same thing, right?"

Wrong.

"write once and run somewhere else" == WORSE - my Tuesday has been made

Yes, guys who develop all day in Windows, look vaguely lost at a command line (constantly forgetting their place in the dir structure, not knowing the basics of rsync or scp, not knowing how to unzip a jar, etc) always call themselves Linux experts. Calling all Unix-like systems "Linux" is a common problem as well, unfortunately.

But I run into Linux "sysadmins" with all of the same issues. There's a real problem with a lack of competence in this industry, IMO.

"""But then when I thought about it, it seems that Java is everywhere you look these days, even if it isn't called Java (such as Red Hat's Ceylon language and Android's Dalvik virtual machine). """

Actually, it's mostly Java itself, which is huge in the enterprise/banking/etc world.

I highly doubt that Android (Davlik) jobs make any difference in Java being #1 sought after Linux skill, and Ceylon even less so.

Job postings about Android mention itself specifically, not Linux, and job posts about Ceylon do not exist statistically speaking.

One thing it's lacking is actual demand/supply values. Here in the UK the demand for Linux skills is quite high. The banks, stock exchanges, hedge fund and the range of online business and startups out there are increasingly Linux based and all competing for skills. At the same time, tighter immigration laws in the UK make it harder to get skills from abroad. The result is that it's good to be an EU citizen looking for a Linux job in the UK at the moment.

I think a similar problem would be skewing the Java skills demand level on Linux. A lot of applications out there are Java based, and a lot of it's done on Linux. But like for Java, the requirement is often not for a very high level of skill on Linux systems running Java applications.

The demand for Linux skills might be quite high, but the rates some of the personnel leasing companies are quoting are silly-low.

Quoting to the Linux programmers/sysadmins, or quoting to the companies?

To the sysadmins.

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