Need a career suggestion for a decision I want to make.

[Monica Shiralkar]

Need a career suggestion for a decision I want to make.

All my career experience is in Java (around 5 years). Since last 8 months I have been put to do Hadoop work involving Bigdata,Hadoop,Hive,Hbase. It is good to work on these new big technologies but since these do not involve much java, I am getting Out Of Touch in java-j2ee. I might end up just being Jack of all trades.I told about this to my Resourcing Manager but he said as long as I am in this company now I have to either do Big Data projects (If they come) and not java projects.

Which option should I go with?

First Option: Search for a job in java-j2ee outsite the company and keep updating and practicing my java skills?

Second Option: Continue with Big data technologies (In which case I might get out of touch with java-j2ee) and let it go on like this.

Thanks.

[chris webster]

Well, it's your career, so you need to decide your own priorities and goals e.g. what kind of work do you want to be doing, and how do you want your career to develop in the next few years?

If you want to be a mainstream JEE developer doing mainstream JEE work in a big job market full of mainstream JEE developers, then go back to JEE - it's unlikely this job market will disappear any time soon, but you may not find it especially interesting in the long run. Or you might move into Java enterprise architecture (there seems to be no shortage of jobs for Java architects) or project management instead.

If you want to develop specialist skills in a relatively new area of technology that is still in its early stages of growth, then stick with Big Data. There is a risk that your JEE skills may become a little rusty, although you already have a lot of Java experience behind you, so this might not be too much of a problem for at least a couple of years. More importantly, there is also the opportunity to become one of a relatively small number of specialists in a new market. And this might even be the key to finding that job abroad you've been looking for.

If it were me, I'd be inclined to take a chance on the Big Data route (well, I'm a DB developer anyway ), but be prepared to switch back in a year or two if it doesn't work out. Learning new stuff is rarely a bad move in this industry, but you need to make your own decision.

[Jayesh A Lalwani]

Do you enjoy your work in Hadoop/Bigdata? There are not many people who are experts in those technologies. Also, these technologies are tied in the cloud computing platforms, which are probably going to grow a lot in the next 5-10 years. If you enjoy working in those technologies, you might be able have a fruitful career ahead of you. Even if those particular set of technologies don't survive, you will still find it useful to learn semi-soft skills that come with those technologies.

It all depends, on whether you see yourself in this particular technology stack for the next 10 years. If that thought makes you want to pull your hair out, change, otherwise stay.

IMO, cloud computing platforms is like the wild, wild west out there. Every provider does it's own thing. In time, the cloud providers would start standardizing their services, and probably at some point, we will have standard APIs. The technology stack that you are working on now are poised to be a major players in that process.

[Monica Shiralkar]

Thanks all. I would like to know one thing. Chris,I think I am deciding by your suggestion(continue with Big Data).Now as you said If i continue with big data my Java may get little rusty, is it possible that if I keep practicing java on weekends can it be compensated to some extent?Is there a way to minimize this loss ?

[Jayesh A Lalwani]

Well, the good thing about Java is that it changes so fast that if you miss out on a particular technology, you may not have to learn it ever. At one point in my career I was doing Struts and Ajax when the whole EJB thing started. Then I went to work for a search engine company . By the time I was done, the whole EJB thing had passed by. So, I went straight from Struts to Spring. No need to learn EJBs!

I think I got lucky.

[chris webster]

Monica. Shiralkar wrote:Chris,I think I am deciding by your suggestion(continue with Big Data).Now as you said If i continue with big data my Java may get little rusty, is it possible that if I keep practicing java on weekends can it be compensated to some extent?Is there a way to minimize this loss ?

I'm the wrong person to ask about this, as my Java is very rusty (I'm mostly a DB developer)!

But you seem to have a solid foundation of Java experience that you won't forget in a hurry. You may forget the details of some specific APIs etc (which may change and which you can look up when you need them anyway), but you are not likely to forget the fundamentals of how to write good code. Provided you keep yourself up to date with current developments in Javaland (by reading, practicing at home or on non-work projects etc), I would think your experience would help you to get back up to speed in Java pretty quickly if necessary, even if you haven't officially worked on any Java projects for a year or two. Several years without doing any Java might be more of a problem, but by then you'll be a Big Data expert and you won't have to worry about boring JEE jobs anyway!

Jayesh wrote:By the time I was done, the whole EJB thing had passed by. So, I went straight from Struts to Spring. No need to learn EJBs!

You are definitely one lucky guy!

[vijay jamadade]

its one of the niche technology with less resources in market so i think big data will be a good option. Working in java for almost 6 years i am trying to switch to some product like it. but not getting chance. i will say you are lucky then !!!

[Sumit Bisht]

Monica. Shiralkar wrote:is it possible that if I keep practicing java on weekends can it be compensated to some extent?Is there a way to minimize this loss ?

You said it yourself
Besides, Big data is both challenging as well as interesting technology that will yield you rich dividends for future as Vijay said. As a java developer, I'd kill to be in big data right now.

[Monica Shiralkar]

Thanks everyone. I had asked this question few months back and continued with Big data but now due to some reasons I think I need to reaccess the situation:

* In Bigdata everyone is telling me that I can get good package and earn a lot of money but I what I feel is in Big Data work sometimes you have no one to help you. You have to struggle continously alone.Sometimes I have to code 1-2 java classes in many months which is such less.There are other things in Hadoop which makes one struggle where as java coding is less.
* Another thing is my priority is not just money.I want to be able to work with certain amount of proficiency and easy. If someone gives me 2 offers one with more salary and trouble and other with lesser salary and work I am comfortable in, I will choose the second.
My priority is to work with comfort in something I know even at the cost of not earning huge money.

Any suggestions will be appreciated.Thanks