Forbes : 10 Highest-Paying Tech Jobs In The U.S.

[George Toft]

Thanks for posting.

IMHO, the future is not in tech, as this article defined it, but closely 
related: Identity and Access Management (IAM) and Privileged Access 
Management (PAM), Mainframe operations (yes, mainframes are still here), 
Red Team (ooooh - sexy :) ), and Data Analytics and Machine Learning.  
The pay is definitely comparable to this article's top 5, if not higher.

Whereas I liked being a sysadmin, my job got shipped to Argentina for 
$6/hr (last I heard, they were up to $10/hr).  That's a really bad place 
to be.  If you want to live a nice lifestyle ... and I've been saying 
this since 2005 ... you have to do something that can't be off-shored.  
Do something that must be done in this country.  Lately, this has come 
to mean:

1. Be inquisitive.  How can I make this cheaper, faster, less 
resource-intensive?  Why did it break?  How do I keep it from ever 
breaking again?  Will this failure happen elsewhere?  Three principles 
for success: Make it easier for the User; make it cheaper; make it more 
efficient.

2.  Challenge the status quo.  Just because it has always been this way 
doesn't mean it's the best way now.

3. Write the solutions flowcharts.  If you follow a script (AKA 
flowchart) to arrive at solutions to problems, you can be replaced by an 
AI, specifically, an expert system, and in 5 years, a Generative AI like 
Bard or ChatGPT.  Expert systems been around since the 60's.  Hell, I 
wrote an AI (simple machine learning) in 1990 that corrected spelling 
errors at the command line based on user performance.  You need to be 
the one generating the flow chart for the folks to follow.

4. Be able to create metrics on everything you do.  "If you can't 
measure it, you can't manage it" is the mantra of management this 
decade.  I've had to become really creative with my metrics to show 
improvement over time, especially when I begin to alter User behavior 
before I figured out the metric.  Oopsies.  I've also discovered how to 
create metrics that track the adoption and consumption of our services, 
which helps management when they choose insane paths like replacing a 
Gartner Magic Quadrant product some some Open Source stuff that's 
"freeeee."  For those that don't know me, I've been an OS advocate since 
1998, but there ain't no such thing as a free lunch and when Managers 
see $0.00 licensing costs, they oftentimes fail to understand the local 
engineering effort required to meet that Proprietary product's 
capabilities.  Yes, this is my hot topic this week as I battle three 
levels of management on a fool-hardy decision whose ramifications they 
don't understand.

I'm in the process of changing careers.  The biggest problem I see is 
the total lack of people that can do the above.  Our replacements don't 
exist.  My whole US team is within 5 years of retirement/resignation and 
we have nobody to replace us.  Wanna thrive in the next 20 years, be the 
one that can do the above.  Be our replacements.

BTW - I just had a film in the First Annual AIFilmFest and I interrupted 
the film to sound the alarm about Generative AI taking over junior level 
jobs.  But I rant ...

Cheers!

George Toft

On 12/2/2023 7:30 AM, Keith Smith via PLUG-discuss wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Found thins interesting:
>
> https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackkelly/2023/12/01/these-are-the-10-highest-paying-tech-jobs-in-the-us/?sh=276f0e8c515a 
>
>
> Keith
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