Engineering Jobs

For you engineers out there -

I can tell you your worst nightmare: you go to bed one night as a competent secure in your technical competence, and you wake up the next morning as a technological dinosaur. All your strong technologies are now quaint footnotes in the history books and you’re faced with re-learning a whole new repertoire of technologies. You open up the morning paper and you see a want ad like this:

Job Description:

As a member of a project team responsible for designing, coding, unit/integration testing web services applications using Java, XML, or SQL. Understanding of system development lifecycle processes and rapid development cycles with the ability to independently code, test and implement solutions based on user requirements and as directed by project leadership. Ability to plan, manage and lead UML design sessions. Exceptional user facing skills and client relationship skills.

Required Experience/Technologies:

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or other physical science
• 7+ years of professional Java development experience with at least 3 years J2EE
• J2EE, XML, SQL, hands-on database development (JDBC)

• Jakarta Struts (Front Controller with JSP’s) or EJB2.0

• At least two of the following technologies: SOAP, SAX/DOM, JMS,
• XML Schema or DTD, Stateless Session Beans
• 5 years UML design modeling experience
• mandatory, RUP, UML
• WebSphere certification preferred

How in the world did this happen - how did you fall so far behind do quickly? Well, don’t feel too bad, the technology changes so quickly that you’re running the Red Queen’s race: you have to run as hard as you can to stay in the same place, and to make any progress you have to run twice as fast. On the average, major technologies change every eighteen months, and only a few of the new ones have any staying power. If it’s any comfort, I’ve been away from active engineering for sixteen months, and it’s difficult even to read the technical literature any more, let alone be productive.

So, what can you do about this? I offer three recommendations, all of them hard to implement:

1. Stay Informed

   Don’t let yourself fall behind! Spend at least 4 hours per week keeping yourself up to date by reading technical journals or survey books (the O’Reilly series are excellent) so that you’re at least aware of emerging technologies. Make learning part of your job!

2. Learn to spot winners and losers

   You can’t learn every new technologies, so you have to be selective and choose the ones that seem to have some staying power (three or more years) and those that are fads of the moment.

3. Learn to learn fast

   You have to become very good at picking up new technologies on the fly, with minimal training. Luckily, if you’ve been in the business for long this won’t be very hard, because most new technologies are simply repackaging of old concepts that you’re already familiar with.

As I said, none of these is easy, but if you’re to have a multi-decade career in engineering you’re going to have to learn to deal with constant and accellerating technology change. Sorry, but that’s just the way it will be.

About the Author
Bruce Taylor is the Owner and Principle of Unison Coaching, and provides corporate and executive coaching to a wide variety of businesses including engineering, human resource, consulting, and recruiting firms. Mr Taylor has extensive background in Psychology, Human Resources, and Software Engineering. He holds a Masters degree in Computer Science from Duke University, a Masters in Psychology from the University of Massachusetts, and a Certificate in Job Stress and Healthy Workplace Design from the University of Massachusetts. He can be reached at http://www.unisoncoaching.com or bruce_taylor@unisoncoaching.com.

Share This

The widespread use of the Internet has not only changed the way that people communicate and obtain daily information, but it has also changed the manner in which people are schooled. Gone are the days of packed lecture halls and number two pencils, instead many universities are now offering online degrees to students from all over the world. However convenient these online degrees may be, though, there are still some things you should look for in the online degrees available to you via the internet.

Many universities have been created around offering online degrees and other traditional colleges and universities are now offering online degrees, too. Whether you are looking to attend a traditional school or obtain any online degrees, it is important to look only at universities that are accredited. It may not seem important at first, as you may think all online degrees are the same, but in fact, attending an unaccredited university can keep you from getting certain jobs or prohibit you from taking certification exams. For instance if you are looking for online degrees in education, you must attend an accredited university in order to obtain your teaching certification in most states. There are six agencies that accredit schools offering both traditional an online degrees. They are the Middle States, New England, North Central, Northwest, Southern, and Western accrediting associations. Before you look at the online degrees at any school, make sure they are accredited through one of these organizations.

Besides accreditation, you should also check out the technology that any school offering online degrees uses. Make sure that your computer is going to be able to use the technology or that it will not cause your computer to crash. For instance, if you are looking at online degrees and have a Mac, you should make sure your program is Mac compatible. Also, be wary of colleges offering online degrees that are “experimenting” with new technologies. Sometimes they have a number of glitches, so make sure that there are other options to gain the information you will need for your online degrees.

Online degrees sound great, and many universities are building the technology to offer distance learning programs. Yet, some universities still require you to use other mediums to obtain your online degrees besides your computer. Some programs require you to use video or telephone conferencing that are less effective. The best online degrees are earned from universities that are fully taught online. Being fully taught via the internet also means that you should look at online degree programs that are taught by qualified professors. Many online programs only hire local teachers that may not be the best professors in their field, or they hire fine professors who have little knowledge on how to use the internet effectively. Check into the faculty before you obtain your online degrees in order to be sure you are getting a quality education.

If you are looking to get quality teaching with online degrees, then you need to research each school carefully. Talk to other students and look into several universities offering both traditional programs and online degrees. Compare the curriculum and class size of varying universities offering online degrees. Find class sizes that are small so that you will be assured of individual attention. Also, check into how the school will help you finance obtaining your online degrees. Graduation rates and career placement numbers are also indications of the quality of any online degrees that the school offers.

Read the rest of the article here: Online Degrees.

Download the Home Based Business Manual (Free $97 Value!) and receive valuable tips, strategies and techniques designed to grow a very successful Home Based Business.

Charles Fuchs is an established Six Figure Income earner and one of the top online marketer’s. He specializes in showing people the fastest way to Starting a business.

Share This

The official definition is “the art and science of getting people to comply to your wishes” which is why it is so fascinating and addictive to people who desire control or power. It is essentially an art in its own right, as very few people can manipulate people, whilst the person not knowing they are being manipulated.

One notorious master of Social Engineering is the famous hacker Kevin Mitnick. Kevin used his skills to gain access to some of the largest corporations in the world. Kevin now does seminars on computer security, helping people avoid some tricks he actually perfected.

One example Mr. Mitnick uses, delightfully illustrates Social Engineering. Kevin picks his target and then carefully waits for weeks on end for a snow storm. When a snow storm occurs, Kevin rings the security guard, distrought, complaining he cannot get to the office to complete a project. He asks the security guard to enter the computer room, and type in a simple command (which unkown to him, creates an administrator account). Mitnick thanks the guard for the help on the ‘project’ and asks him to print out a file list and return to his office. Mitnick then rings the guard, tells him to throw the file list in the bin, thereby framing the security guard. Mitnick has access to all the information he needs and more.

With people so worried about software vulnerabilitys, they fail to see that a person can compromise a whole system and render millions of dollars spent on security utterly useless. Although ‘Social Engineering’ is not a widely used term, you have probably heard of ‘phising‘, which impersonate companys or people, to gain passwords. One such company, Ebay, is particularly a target for attack. The problem is even if it is from sender X@Y.com, it can still be impersonated, to look like it came from Y@X.com

Social Engineering is also popular through phone attacks, like “Hi I am John at Microsoft Security, we had a report of fake windows versions in the area, please read us your Windows serial, so we can identify it.” The hacker the uses the fake serial number and ships it with thousands of fake copys of Windows, thus leaving the trail of evidence pointing to the victim.

Nothing can fully stop Social Engineering, but companies must educate staff and governments and the general public, about these kind of attacks and how to avoid them. Awarness is the key to thwarting all the would be hackers.

This Article was written by Neil Grogan (Duey Finster)

About the Author
Neil is a computer expert who runs an information site all about technology and security.

For More Information: http://www.dueyfinster.eu

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ©2005 dueyfinster.com

Share This