Fantastic Open Source Institution

Here is an article about Seneca College's School of Computer Studies that explains how their embrace of open source software has paid huge dividends for their students.

I have stated over the years that open source software provides an institution the opportunity to become relevant again. There was a time when computer science majors thought it was a waste to be in school, because the things they were learning were out of touch with what was happening in "the real world". Well, that no longer needs to be the case. And, Seneca is a perfect example of that. They are allowing their students to engage in an open source project in a meaningful way, and thus their students are well prepared after their time spent at this institution. Kudos to you Seneca College for realizing the benefits open source software can have on the relevance of an institution of higher learning. Hopefully, we will see more colleges and universities south of the Canadian border following your lead.

Good Summation of the Job Market

Here is a survey that was released last week that provides an update on the labor market at the moment. There are a lot of them out there, but this one lines up pretty strongly with what we have been seeing. In a nutshell, it is fairly stale at the moment. Periodically, there are small signs of life, but the sense of urgency from corporations is not there at the moment. Thus, the positions that are open tend to remain open for a period of time. Hopefully, this mind set will change as we move into the third quarter.

Developer Salary Update

A few weeks ago, Datamation came out with an article that summarized salary levels for IT professionals over the last five years. Now, they have revealed the salary levels of developers over the last five years. The data can be found here .

What it shows is not a lot of overall movement in salary levels during this period of time. And, in the case of software engineers, it shows that the average salary of a developer in a large corporation actually went down a little over 10%. Minimum gain for those in mid-sized organizations.

I know their data spans a greater swath than that of ours, but our findings would be much different. While the few year span after stock market crash of '01 would show salary levels remaining level, we did see a jump in compensation in '05 -'07. Given the current economic climate, we have once again seen things level off. But, throughout that five year time frame, the average salary of Linux/open source professionals has increased 10+% in most cases. And, in some particular areas of open source, the increase is even a little bit greater. So, perhaps this is just happening in the areas that we have worked in. However, I ultimately believe it is just a simple supply/demand situation. We will be curious to see if the trend continues once the economy gets back on its feet.

Another Linux Certification Article

Here is a new article from InforWorld discussing Linux certifications. It is always interesting to hear different view points. I know I have written about this in the past, but this is my brief take on Linux certifications as it relates to the article.

1. All in all, they are correct about who gets better mileage out of a Linux certification. It benefits the individuals with less experience the most. But, no matter your level of experience, I have never seen an instance where it hurts the candidates application.
2. As much as I like the idea of a vendor neutral certification, we definitely see more interest in vendor specific certifications. For whatever rhyme or reason, companies like the idea of having the certification for the software they have installed.
3. Lastly, I have never seen an instance where a Linux certification is seen as a red flag. Ultimately, if you are trying to cover up your lack of Linux exposure with the addition of a Linux certification (somewhat of an oxymoron), this lack of knowledge should become apparent during the interview process.

As always, there are situations that are outside the norm. This is just a general take on what we have seen in the marketplace over the years.

Articles on the new Linux.com

Just wanted to do a little self plug and mention that the series of articles that I wrote for the new Linux.com site are live. You can access them in the career guide section here .

Updated Article on IT Salary Levels

Here is an article by James Maguire at Datamation detailing out the trends of IT compensation over the last five years. Interesting to see the fluctuations. Can not completely figure that out, however, we do not spend the bulk of our time in traditional corporate IT. Most of it is spent on the development side. So, I will be interested to see those numbers when they come out.

From our vantage point, over the last nine years, we watched a plateau lead to a jump in salary levels back to a plateau. Perhaps you are seeing a little downward pressure at the moment given the economic situation, but we have not seen the fluctuations that have taken place in some of these categories. Nonetheless, if you are interested in seeing where you are at compared to the industry averages, take a peek.

Follow our Most Recent Jobs on Twitter

Our twitter page (https://twitter.com/hotlinuxjobs) will include all the latest openings that we receive. It is a great way to keep up-to-date on all of our latest job openings.