JDJ Industry Newsletter inadvertently did just that last week when it opened up the can of worms known as the Current State of the Java Job Market.

No sooner had the latest edition of the JDJ Industry Newsletter, published weekly by Java Developer's Journal, been released to Internet technology influentials and Java developers worldwide than its lead item was picked up by Slashdot.com, the massively-visited geek site favored by techno-savvy Netheads and ordinary "Java joes" alike.

The issue, broadly speaking, was whether by 2003 there will or won't be a shortage of experienced Java developers. A Gartner report, we noted, had claimed there would be. But Javaland was having no truck with such a conclusion: on the contrary, many developers said, times have never been tougher, rougher, or more comprehensively dispiriting for Java developers of every stripe, from the beginner just leaving college to truly object-savvy with long and distinguished pedigrees.

"Javology" Is Not a Precise Science

"Javology" isn't a precise science, let alone "Jobology" - but it seemed as if the Java developers participating were split broadly into two camps, those who felt that the job dearth was principally a dearth of jobs for inexperienced Java developers...and those who maintained that the famine extends to jobs for experienced developers too.

From all sides of the country, new contributions to our online debate have been pouring in. Here we bring a first selection of some of the liveliest. . .and most informative.

It's the Economy, Stupid

An expert on wurfl--WAP Universal Resource FiLe--with Java and JSP, Laszlo Nadai (lnadai@jnet1.com), angrily jibes: " 'Elvis is alive!' says Gartner...just where are these numbers coming from?"

"I have 25+ years of consulting experience," Laszlo continues, "am SUN-certified, crazy about (and KNOW) Java and just got a FoxPro job. I sent out 60+ Java-related resumes, and got not even one courtesy-response / e-mail / phone-call."

"People...who have been on the same job for 5-6 years...don't understand our position," Laszlo concludes. "Consultants, don't try to judge our knowledge/skills...because you are not out there looking for an assignment. This is NOT about being good or bad programmer it's about our economy."

Ron Terry (ron-t@austin.rr.com) tells a similar tale. "I was unemployed for a full year," he says, "and was lucky to stumble into my current position: a contract for only 60% of what I was making before. I'm no hacker either: I've been actually developing in Java since 1996, and I understand OO design better than most developers I've met." So Terry is highly skeptical of any notion that there are plenty of Java jobs around.

Similar skepticism comes from Dan Nelson (dnsolo@aol.com) who mocks: "Java Skills Shortage Set for 50% by 2003...What a joke! I'm a Sun Certified Java Programmer and I've been looking for a job for 3 months. Articles like this are written by people who haven't got a clue."

"I've had to become a 'day trader' on the stock market just to survive during these difficult times!" adds Nelson, dramatically. "My advice to other 'out of work' Java professionals is to stop wasting your time looking for a job and do something else instead. When the market picks up then they'll be even more competition and so you'll have even less chance of getting the salary and job description that you want. The companies out there know there's a job shortage are currently getting away with paying peanuts."

"I'm going to set up my own Java software company," Nelson declares, "and go for private work, at least that way I'll be in control of my own destiny. That's a lot better than being at the mercy of a pack of IT recruitment agents!"

"Employers Want Innovative Programmers"

Nelson's strategy meets with the approval of John Davies (john@c24.biz). "There's no such thing as a good Java programmer with nothing to do," asserts Davies. "If all you Java programmers that have been out of work for 2-6 months are as good as you say you are, then why are we not seeing hundreds of new ideas and products coming from you?"

Davies is adamant: "Employers want clever innovative programmers and 2 months is more than enough time to write something interesting. Write a book for heaven's sake, I've written two; it's great for getting you jobs."

"Let's be clear about this," he insists, "if you are a good programmer then you are never short of work and ideas. ...There is no such thing as a good programmer with nothing to do; Java, J2EE and its various APIs are the best thing that's happened to the IT community for decades. If you're good and out of work then make the most of it, write some good code!"

That's just what Michael Miranda (mikefreda@hotmail.com) intends to do. This is a "good opportunity," he says, adding: "It seems like there is a bunch of Java talent just waiting to be unleashed. This would be a great opportunity for all of us to start developing some new independent Java applications to seed the next Java explosion."

It's All Just a Question of Being an 'Advanced' Programmer...Or Is It?

"I think the key here is ADVANCED programmers," says Sal Distefano (smdistefano@hotmail.com). "I see job offers on a weekly basis. If you're an entry/low level Java programmer, you're pretty much left high and dry."

"On the other hand," notes Distefano, "If you have *experience* with J2EE application development and design/architecture, you can find a job. [Especially] if you're an advanced Java programmer with J2EE experience - and even better if you're experienced with BEA WebLogic or WebSphere."

Jerason Banes (jbanes@techie.com) vigorously disagrees. His story contradicts 100% Distefano's hypothesis about advanced Java being the key.

"I am a developer who was one of the original promoters of the Java language," Banes explains. "I was Java, before Java was coooooolllll. In the past I've was a lead programmer and chief architect for a million hit a day Web site. I was an early adopter of servlets, JSP, and EJB. Before Java, I gained a great deal of experience in C/C++, VB, and COBOL. I've contributed to a large number of open-source projects. My references are awesome (just about anyone who gets around to them is impressed). When it comes down to it, I'm a damn good developer, and I've got the goods to prove it."

"What have I gotten? I've spent 9 months in the Madison, WI area, looking for a new job after I moved back from San Francisco. (The business I was with voluntarily closed down business after the Board felt that it wasn't worth pushing after 9/11.) And I'm only asking $50,000 yr! (Down from $115,000.) 95% of the jobs I submit to, don't even bother calling for an interview. Of the ones that do, it never gets much farther than an interview with the HR dept."

"So what's the root of the problem? I've found that employers (especially HR departments) are looking for individuals with an EXACT match to their skill sets. They think that somehow the economic downturn allows them to do this. So if I've used WebLogic, Oracle 9i, JBoss, Silverstream, and a host of other J2EE servers, it won't work because I don't have WebSphere. Even worse is when they want you to have years of experience with a certain IDE! That's just a ridiculous requirement. Then if they see you've been out of work for awhile, they wonder why."

"This has led a lot of businesses to change their requirements constantly," suggests Banes, "looking for the silver bullet that's going to get them the people they need. One week it's J2EE, next week .NET. A certain large insurance company managed to piss off a many a placement firms by requesting positions for a project that suddenly disappeared, only to reappear later as an Extreme Programming project, only to be remodeled into an IBM style project, and on and on."

"My opinion is that it will take quite a while for these businesses to starve from lack of talent. They're too wrapped up in "meeting the requirements" to notice the hole they are digging."

Then, echoing to the recurring theme of our Java Jobs Special (informal) survey, Banes reveals: "The job market has angered me enough to where I've decided to give up on them. Instead, I've started my own business."

"In the long run I can't say whether it will work out (http://www.datadino.com), but all the programming talent has to go somewhere. If businesses won't hire it, then we developers are going to find our own outlets. Unlike the dot-com and corporate giants, our businesses will be cheaper to run, faster to respond, and more maneuverable. By the time the sleeping giants wake up, they'll either topple, or pay a pretty penny to acquire the competition."

To which all at JDJ-IN join in saying: may the force be with you, Jerason!

The Both-And World Begins Here? J2EE and .NET

Lee Hall (Lhall@javafoundry.com) is finding that the sleeping giants are still snoozing too. "Last week I got 18 hours of work (my first paid work for over three months) - doing Visual Basic," he recounts. "I'm starting to see lots of posts for job openings that require 'J2EE and .NET experience.' As with the other technology postings, there are probably dozens of applicants for each of these few jobs, but folks with this odd combination of experience are in the happy minority compared with us 'normal' Java developers who are competing with hundreds (or maybe thousands)."

"It's probably too late," Lee says, thinking aloud, "but as with stock market investments, I would have been wise to try to diversify my experience instead of putting all my eggs in the J2EE basket."

Hall's experience shows that for an ordinary 'Java Joe' like him (his own description), the economics of employment are tough. "A couple of recruiters called last week," he explains, "but the focus was my rate (which I never seem to make low enough) rather than my qualifications. I think everyone is trying to figure out what the market will bear. If I continue to be out of work until my unemployment runs out - which I'm trying to fend off with these little odd jobs - my rate will drop to what I would be making as a clerk at Wal-Mart (if those jobs will even be available by then)."

"That may be what the market will drop to," Hall adds. "Sadly, by the time the technology job market reaches that mark, it is likely that companies that presently have (relatively) high-paid IT staff will start jettisoning them to take advantage of the lowered expectations of folks like myself.

Hall ends on a philosophical note. "Technology hype was as bad for the Java development community as it has been for most NASDAQ investors. I remember resisting it at first; but eventually I just went along with the crowd."

An Employer's Version: Inside View

David Avraamides (davida@saghill.com), as CTO of a medium-sized hedge fund, seemed an excellent person to ask for a inside view of the Java recruitment process from an employer's perspective. "My process is really just the result of cherry-picking good ideas from other firms I've worked at: GE, Goldman Sachs, and Microsoft," he says.

"I'm looking for people who not only know technology and programming, but are passionate about it. I start by giving recruiters specific skills I'm looking for and/or writing a job description that is a little bit different than the rest. Then I screen resumes looking for skills, education, projects, etc. that catch my eye. Nothing too scientific, but you get a feel. There are certain red flags that catch my eye: someone claiming to be an expert in Java, VB, C/C++, SQL, Perl, Fortran, XML, x86 assembly, etc. No one is an expert in all of those, its simply window dressing and it gives me an impression of someone who is either arrogant or thinks he/she can snow people."

"Once I find some good candidates," Avraamides continues, "I set up phone screens. I have a list of about 20 questions that cover programming, operating systems, data structures, networking, software engineering, organization, interest, etc. Most questions require some explanation and some depth of knowledge, like 'Explain the security model for an operating system you are familiar with, for example, what happens during login and how does the O/S determine if you are allowed access to a file or directory?' Questions like this force people to think a little bit and they also show if the person takes the time to really learn about the environment they work in, or do they just do what they are told. I avoid questions like 'What is the first parameter to CoCreateInstance?' All that shows is if the person has used it recently or enough times to commit it to memory. It doesn't demonstrate that they understand what it does. A better question would be 'Why did Microsoft need to come out with a new version of CoCreateInstance (CoCreateInstanceEx)?'"

The process does not end there. "If they do well on the phone screen, we bring them in for a round of interviews that begins with a written test. It covers Java, C, C++, Perl, SQL, VB, computer science/operating systems, math and logic. There are 5-10 questions in each area and we usually give the person about 90 minutes. I never expect anyone to know all those topics, its just a way to probe their knowledge in some different areas. If I'm looking for a Java guy, I'm not that concerned if they ace the VB or Perl sections - knowledge of those areas would be icing on the cake. But I think a Java programmer that has a strong foundation in C/C++ is a very different programmer than one that doesn't. Some typical questions are: 'In Java, what is reflection and what can it be used for?' or 'In SQL, explain what a foreign key is and how it is used.'"

"Then we have a round of interviews with some of the other programmers and maybe one of our quants and one of our traders. If they do well, we'll also give them a take-home programming problem (taken from the ACM annual programming challenge). It usually takes people 1-2 hours, but its useful to see their code for a problem you know well. On the phone I'll walk through their solution and ask them some questions about it. Yeah, they could get help, but that's usually apparent with a couple of detailed questions.

It may sound like a lot, but the places I've worked at that I thought had really great people all had tough, thorough recruiting processes. Also, using a repeatable process (phone screen, quiz and programming problem) allows you to compare candidates more objectively."

"The Problem Is Not With Java"

JDJ-IN thanks David Avraamides for taking the time and trouble to share these details. But for this feedback round-up we'll give the last word to Lee Hall. "The problem is not with Java. Or with our skills - if you're reading JDJ, it shows you have more than a passing interest in Java."

"The problem is the buyer's market we are in, where the prices are still adjusting downward. An important characteristic of this market is that 'quality' is now secondary to 'price' because the majority of buyers (the HR managers - not the project leads) don't understand the long-term value of developer quality."

Hall adds, not without some bitterness based on personal experience of time and energy wasted: "What I would really like to see (on '60 minutes,' if possible) is an expose on fraudulent headhunters /consulting firms. I'm sure that there are good, honest companies in that industry; but some of them (perhaps the majority) are like scalpers or carpetbaggers. They are posting jobs that they MIGHT be able to get, not that they actually have the authority to hire for. We all get very frustrated when they flash jobs that are just rumors."

Amen to that.

This is the first in a series of "Feedback Specials" on the issue of Java & Jobs. Join the discussion yourself right here.