As everyone who’s recently tried to hire developers or interaction designers knows, there’s an acute talent shortage in the US. This should be worrisome to everyone, given the importance of software to nearly all aspects of the economy, but is especially troubling for firms like Atomic Object that provide innovation services in software product development. And of course it matters greatly to companies seeking to innovate through software. A recent article in Forbes goes so far as to say that we’re seeing the rise of Developeronomics, an economic system based on the critical need for software and the scarcity of development talent.
The market is beginning to react to the disparity between supply and demand with new forms of training and education. Universities still matter, I believe, and I’m sure they are trying to increase their output, but there are a host of creative new attempts to address the shortage. Some are aimed at particular sorts of people, some are designed to address the perceived shortcomings of a computer science degree.
Here are a few of the new programs, all for development, I’ve heard about in the last month. I’m much less familiar with training programs for interaction design, but I guess there must be something brewing there, too.
Craftsmanship Academy is an intense 6 month training program, followed by a one year apprenticeship. Ken Auer has been mentoring and training developers for years. It seems that Craftsmanship Academy is a formalization of this work.
The governor of the State of Michigan, Rick Snyder, recently announced that the State will be developing a program to train programmers and piloting it in three cities. The Shifting Code program is run by the Michigan Economic Development Program and is a recognition of the fact that the talent shortage is hurting our economy. No details yet on this one.
Jen Meyers spoke about Girl Develop It at the SCNA conference this year. GDI trains women in programming. Given the paucity of women in university programs, this grass roots, bootstrapped effort is going after the 50% of the population that is nearly lost to the profession.
The software craftsmen at 8th Light have a very strong and well-defined apprentice program. I’m not sure on the details, but I know these guys and know how seriously they take their apprentice program. People accepted into it are very lucky.
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Phil Kirkham
December 9, 2011Nice to read about these ideas to solve the problem – any ideas as to *why* there is this talent shortage in the first place ?
Lane Halley
December 9, 2011There’s a Quora thread on the IxD shortage. “Why is there such a stunningly short supply of designers in Silicon Valley right now?” http://b.qr.ae/UXshortage
Lane Halley
December 9, 2011Resources for training in interaction design include:
Cooper U http://www.cooper.com/#services:education
Adaptive Path http://adaptivepath.com/work/services/in-house-training
User Interface Engineering http://www.uie.com/
I’m a recent (and proud) graduate of this 12-week course in graphic design. I found it an excellent augmentation to my skills in UX
http://shillingtonschool.com/
Anonymous
January 14, 2012This isn’t too surprising. Nothing can grow forever, including the availability of technical talent. The best businesses recognize natural limitations and find creative ways around them.
One way is new ways to increase talent like the examples mentioned above. We have a long way to go in the general public’s understanding of the value of software development skills. The way development businesses build teams will also have to change. This includes a readiness to work with the best developers wherever they are and a focus on training and building skill over finding existing skill.
The other way is with “technology”. The industrial revolution is an example of using technology to increase output without increasing the number of people required and many other industries have gone through various forms of this. When increasing demand causes the cost of human input to increase it’s worth investing in technology that lets us do more with less people. In the case of software development that can include better development processes, business processes, training, tools, platforms, and more.
At the highest skill levels it will always be hard to find the right people, although the growing number of simpler tasks may be met by an increase in the number of people who learn the basics. Businesses that get to the best solutions before everyone else will have an advantage. And our industry has a plenty of documentation showing that adding people isn’t the best solution :)
Meeting the growing demand for software professionals | Atomic Spin
May 31, 2012[…] licensing of software engineers. The gap between supply and demand has given rise to a host of non-traditional, private sector training […]