Working in IT:(My) past, (the) present and (your) future

Daniel Bryant (@taidevcouk)

IAT Ltd (@iatltd)

London Java Community (@ljcjug)

Me…

(My) past

My career on a single slide…

1990: Got my first computer (64k memory - booyah!)

2000: Undergrad Computing and IT

– Placement year working for UK Government

2004: MSc Internet Computing

2005: PhD Artificial Intelligence

2008: Freelance Software Development

– Worked for quite a few IT startups

2013: Chief Technology Officer at IAT Ltd

Personal career highlights

Playing with cool tech daily

– And getting paid for it!

Seeing my software used

Travelling the world

Visiting high-profile tech offices

Meeting amazing people!

– Tech legends

My “light bulb” moments…

Large organisations (government) vs startups

Contractors vs "permies"

Getting involved in Open Source Software

Joining London Java Community

– and other User Groups

My “match strike” moments…

Learning the fundamentals

Teaching / public speaking

Taking risks

Choosing to be “professional”

Leading a team

(The) present

Chief Technology Officer

Quite a varied job– Development

– Architecture

– Operations

– QA / Support

– Team Leading

– Presales

– Industry research

– Evangelism

www.fortuityconsulting.com/cto/web-chief-technology-officer-cto-job-description.html

The current state of programming…

Reference: bit.ly/1hCpwCO

Java is dead, long live Java!

(Your) future

What are the “cool cats” doing?

Strong foundations for the future…

Fundamentals– Craftsmanship

– Team work

– “Generalising specialists”

– DevOps (Cloud)

The rise of the “lean enterprise”– Business fundamentals

– “Lean” thinking

If I had to gamble…

IoT and M2M– The next disruptive tech

Big Data– Math, statistics

– Machine Learning

– Programming (Java + Python)

– DevOps (Cloud)

– Infographic design

– Storytelling

In Summary

A career is (maybe) for life… choose wisely

Learn from experience…

Have a serious think about what you want to do

Take action to gain experience

– Work experience

– Internships

– Open source projects

– Anything!!

Software Craftsmanship: leanpub.com/socra

…and learn from others

Engage with the community– Join User Groups

– Talk to like-minded people

– www.meetup.com/Londonjavacommunity

Take part in hackdays– Take advantage of free teaching

– The London tech scene is amazing

Find mentors

– www.meetup.com/grad-dc

Thanks for listening

Contact me:– @taidevcouk

– www.linkedin.com/in/danielbryantuk

”Chuck Norris Doesn’t Do DevOps…” (7pm 13/03/14)– www.meetup.com/Londonjavacommunity/events/168168722

Thanks to – LJC (www.meetup.com/Londonjavacommunity/)

– www.recworks.co.uk & www.epoints.com