Start-ups and multi-billion-dollar corporations in Silicon Valley are seeking IT professionals from applications developers familiar with Ruby on Rails to project managers skilled in overseeing implementations of social networking programs.
Web 2.0 applications developers, networking engineers specializing in security and wireless technology, Java developers, SAP and Oracle engineers, and wireless and mobile application developers are among the most in-demand professionals in the region, say local recruiters and tech executives.
"It's an employees market right now," says David Verba, a co-founder of online Web services Emmet Labs.com, a San Francisco start-up that's been searching for Web application developers. "Contract rates are high, and it's hard to find good talent because they get snapped up so quickly. Four years ago, it was more of a buyer's market. I would have had more candidates (applying for a job) than I could screen myself."
San Francisco and Silicon Valley are home-base for numerous venture capitalists, who are investing plenty in Web 2.0 development. The Internet Web application startup market continues to be strong, says Verba. What is even more encouraging about this market is that Web application development languages don't work well under the offshore outsourcing model, since they require a high degree of collaboration, says Verba. Consequently, employers are paying a premium for IT professionals who live locally.
The 2009 Dice salary survey found Valley IT workers were the best paid in the nation, with an average salary of $93,876 - almost $20,000 ahead of the national average and an average of 3.95 percent higher than the previous year. In addition, the 2008 Robert Half Technology Salary Guide saw strong demand for Web developers, business intelligence analysts and network security administrators.
Silicon Valley isn't just a good market for full-time employees. Contract workers on with development and front-end software engineering skills can make an average $100 to $150 an hour if they're hired directly by a company, Verba says. "There seems to be a solid jump in pay scale," adds Verba. "The job market in Silicon Valley and in San Francisco is actually pretty strong and doesn't show signs of abating."
Recruiters from Manpower and Robert Half Technology echo Verba's observations. Rickey Furukawa, a Manpower recruiter with more than eight years experience in Silicon Valley's IT sector, agrees salaries paid to IT contract workers "are good for this area." In many cases, his clients find hiring contract workers is easier than going through the process of getting budget approval for a full-time employee. In other instances, it's easier to justify transitioning a contractor to a full-time position after the person’s been brought into a company and created a strong track record.
Furukawa is seeing a strong demand for IT workers in specific areas from both startups and enterprise-level corporations. Needed are software developers, architecture-related systems experts, project managers with specific experience in a certain verticals, and quality assurance and testing engineers, particularly those with at least six to 12 months of experience in this area
"You can’t just have a computer science degree because there is a certain methodology they need to have as a foundation," observes Furukawa.
Furukawa isn't seeing many job requests for systems administrators or help-desk technicians "We do get some, but not in the volume that we saw during the dot-com days," he says. Frank Han, a vice president at recruiter Robert Half Technology in San Jose, Calif., sees demand for those who combine systems administrator skills with a specialty such as virtualization. "It's a very hot trend," he says, and one that he sees continuing. "Companies are competing to secure experienced candidates with virtualization skills," he says.
At least 34 percent of 200 San Francisco Bay CIOs ranked virtualization as "in-demand" for their IT departments, according to the Fourth Quarter 2008 Robert Half Technology IT Hiring Index and Skills Report. That's slightly higher than the 32 percent national average, which is based on a national survey of 1,400 executives.
Mobile and wireless expertise is also in demand, says Han. The reason? Companies are moving to the next stage of the IT workplace evolution: making sure mobile workers can get their work done regardless of their location. Forty-seven percent of the 1,400 CIOs interviewed as part of the national survey listed "wireless network management" as one of the most in-demand job skills in their IT departments. The same percentage of San Francisco Bay CIOs ranked wireless network management in high demand.
Sixty five percent of the San Francisco Bay CIOs surveyed cited "network administration" as a technical skill in top demand, while 16 percent of the San Francisco CIOs said "networking" as the single job area experiencing the most growth in their IT departments, while 14 percent cited information security as a top growth area.
"The more talented individuals in this space are hard to come by. People with great skills in networking, security and mobile are just hard to find," Han says.
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