The Next Job, Part II: Know Your Stuff

Aside from computing, my other passion has always been medicine. In fact, I was a pre-med student for two semesters when I first started college, but decided to pursue computer engineering instead because I would start making money sooner (5 years compared to surgery's 13 years). In the back of my mind, I've always thought I might make the jump back to medicine, perhaps in a position that integrates computing.

With the prospect of unemployment in March 2015, I wondered whether this was the opportunity to consider a medical career. I reasoned that if my wife's job could support the family wholly for a few years, I might return to school and start out as a nurse, working my way towards surgery. Possibility. The harder I considered this, I became convinced that your 30's are the last opportunity to settle into your last career, one that will take you into a comfortable retirement. Yes, you still have another 30 years before retirement age, but it is much harder to change careers after your 30's. You surely can change jobs within your career, but not many more times. Age discrimination is on the rise, as well as a growing younger and immigrant labor force that will make the labor market highly competitive. Old dogs cannot learn new tricks.

In the end, I decided to stick with computing as my career. In fact, I also determined that I would be really good at it that even in my 50's, I'll still be markatable with tons of relevant experience. Having learned what skills were in demand for jobs I could qualify for, the next step was to determine which skills I already have, which ones I needed to spruce up, and which ones I need to attain. Out of 55 skills, I decided to focus on 25 of the most requested, and gave myself a year (until July 2015) to master them. Even with the birth of our son and off-schedule sleeping routines, I still manage 2-4 hours of quiet study in the mornings while everyone else sleeps, so I have a chance to pursue this goal.

The Next Job, Part I: Skills In Demand

I'll be the first to confirm that there is no such thing as "job security". It used to be that if you did something unique or very few people did what you do, you were safe. It used to be like that for me, until our company was bought out by another. Suddenly everything changed, and my position is scheduled for elimination in March 2015. Never mind that what I did will remain, probably assigned to somebody that has no experience with it.

But I'm not one to bemoan spilled milk: I quickly came up with a strategy for landing my next job. It comprises of 4 steps: (1) determining what skills are "hot" in the industry, (2) reviewing the skills I have, (3) attaining any new compelling skills, and (4) determining how I'll identify my next job. That last step is important: you don't want to apply for anything that comes across your radar just because you have the skills it requires.

For the last 4 months, I have tallied the general categories of skills or qualifications in jobs posted at Dice, Glassdoor, SimplyHired, Indeed, Careerbuilder, and LinkedIn. The jobs match a general search query "java+web+developer+software+engineer", and I only tallied the ones I could reasonably apply for, even if I did not have all the required skills. Additionally, I got a torrent of job matches arrived via the armies of IT recruiters out there, almost as soon as I posted on the first job site. Fortunately, their matches are closer to what I am looking for (except for the relocation).

Below are the results of what's hot in my nexus (step 1), skills that I should know if I will be highly marketable. They are sorted by relative importance, with must-haves at the bottom. It says, for example: "there is three times as much demand for ORM frameworks (such as Hibernate) than there is for portal technologies (such as portlets or iFrames)" among the jobs I could do. The data shows that I should care little about the skills at the top; the ones at the bottom are my best bet. The next question then is: which of these skills do I have (am I sure about or expert at)? Future blog post.

The Oxygen Experiment

Although Mozy was 9 days late, he was born with a condition called respiratory insufficiency, which is more common in premature babies than those who are full term (and late). He even spent a night in the NICU to stabilize the condition. Its causes range from high altitude (thin air) to insufficient surfactant, or inefficient surfactant conversion at birth (when the lungs switch from breathing amniotic fluid to breathing air. That first cry plays a huge role in the conversion, helping lungs expand and fill with air). Whatever the case, he needed oxygen for 3 weeks, a slow 1/16mLH administered by nasal tube.

At 2 weeks old, we did the first overnight test to see if the lungs had matured more. Basically the pediatrician puts in an order with a home oxygen supply company, who loan you a pulse oximeter. You are supposed to monitor over at least a 6-hour period with the subject off oxygen, then send in results. The pediatrician usually calls within a couple of days with her observations. Even though I thought the numbers looked good, we were crushed when the pediatrician told us Mozy's numbers were to borderline to get him off the oxygen. For the next test a week later, I really wanted to see the numbers myself, and ensure that the oxygen machine we had at home was working.

At 3 weeks old, we did the second test. This time, I sat for the first three hours (between feedings) and recorded the numbers every minute (180 readings). Either I'm a bad parent for conducting experiments on my kid, or I miss the lab environment at university, or I'm just a nerd. Either way, the first 60 readings were while he was on oxygen so I could see how efficiently his lungs were performing: 98% saturation on average. So the darn oxygen machine was doing its job; I couldn't blame that if this test failed.

Without oxygen, I took 120 readings and plotted them thus:

As can be seen, he had mostly 95% saturation (median and average are both 95%) over that period. The normal range is 94% and above, according to NIH. In fact, he was above the threshold 88% of the time! I would have been so surprised, or even reject the results, had the pediatrician called and said the second test was a failure too. I'd show her my numbers and demand to see hers. My first 3 hours would have had to match her set for me to accept her conclusion (which would mean that Mozy slowly deteriorates in lung function the longer he is off oxygen). But thank God the pediatrician confirmed our expectation: Mozy did not need to be on oxygen anymore, everything looked great.

You can't imagine the freedom: no more noisy oxygen maker or a slacking a line from it wherever the baby is taken. No more oxygen canisters when we travel, and irritation on his upper lip from the oxygen tube. He had grown strong enough to rip the tube off his face, and it worried us how hazardous that could be. Better sleep!