By Kyle E.
One of the most common questions a college student will ask a friend or family member regarding IT work is “what is a _______?” The blank is filled in with “systems administrator“, “analyst“, or one of the many position titles in use today. The answers usually begin with “well, ughh,…“, followed by a long pause. The longer the person has worked in the field, the longer that pause usually will be. We all know it’s because the answer is becoming more and more convoluted, obscure and vague, with each passing year. The industry continues to evolve (or devolve, depending upon your view), and so do the terms and meanings.
Get used to it. It’s the future.
That’s right. All the ITIL and CMMI idealism aside, businesses run on the bottom line. Period. If more can be accomplished with less (resources, cost, effort, etc.) then it will be. That train left the station years ago. Business analysts laid it out for us on the daily news reports, but we were too busy putting out fires at work to notice. The last two years however have proven to be sobering. It’s like someone turned on the light and now we can really see the roaches scurrying off to hide. The essentials? Employers made more profits, but are less inclined to pour that down the ranks to improve services, capabilities and morale.
A fairly common example is the recent layoff announcement from Walmart. While profits are up, they still want to “balance” their “resources”. Nice. Although, this is somewhat unique in terms of the scope and scale of both the employer and the attention, it’s not uncommon in the ranks of companies in the bottom half of the Fortune 5000 either. But the names are pretty familiar: Microsoft, HP, IBM, Cisco, EMC, Broadcom, HTC, and more. The IT industry felt some serious pains in 2014, and 2015 is shaping up to be fairly the same.
In short, the world economy is going in two directions at once: Some better, and some worse. The richest get richer, while the poorest are still getting poorer. The rest of us in the middle are finding it increasingly difficult to claw our way upward. This isn’t opinion, it’s fact. The general market trend has shown business revenues and profits on the rise since Q2-2014, yet wages are stagnant, relative to previous years, even when adjusted for inflation and other economic pressures. 2015 looks to continue in the same direction, with some dampening due to world affairs (environmental events, civil unrest, terrorism, oil trade, and so on).
Automation is coming from one end. Consolidation of worker roles is coming from the other.
What the numbers don’t clearly show however is the gradual, but increasing trend of squeezing more from a limited workforce. We used to associate this with non-professional jobs. The clerks, waiters, construction workers, and so on. But the professional fields are feeling it as well. Less paid overtime. Longer (unpaid) work hours. Working on what was once considered “personal” time. Remote access from home on the weekends and weeknights. Trying to keep up. Most IT professionals I’ve discussed this with (about 46 since Q1 2014 actually), express the same concerns and complaints:
- I’m expected to do more with fewer staff than I had a year or two ago
- I’m expected to do more as an individual than can be done during my official work hours
- I’m now spending more time putting out fires than trying to be proactive
- Projects are on the decline. Troubleshooting and maintenance are top priority
- Decisions are being made without my input more than in previous years
- Decisions are being made without the proper employees present
- Paid training is being reduced or eliminated in favor of pushing personal time for training
A careful look at the above graphic posted by the Economist shows meager gains for even the highest end (U.S.). Economists from all sides of the philosophical table agree that 1.5% is below what it should be for Q4-2014 to Q2-2015.
So, what’s all this have to do with IT job titles?
Well, it means that they no longer apply as they did ten years ago.
In the past, an “Administrator” did just that: They administered systems. As in, keep them running. Fix the breaks. Apply prophylactic measures to avoid future breaks, and so on. An “Engineer” focused on building new systems, which would be “operationalized” by handing them to the administrators when tested and ready. The “Architects” designed the systems for the engineers to build. The “Analysts” focused on identifying problems, lining up possible solutions, and working with the Architects and Engineers to vett the alternatives and choose the optimal path.
Not any more.
In 2015, it’s much more common to find an “Administrator” doing the work of an analyst, architect and engineer all by their self. Businesses have learned that these IT nerds really like what they do. So much so, that they can shovel more on top of them and they’ll eat it up like a project challenge in college. Staying up late and working on weekends, and loving it the whole time. Smiling and nodding as they see the IT geeks enjoying this chance to take on more. That worked fine for about five years on average. Lately however, IT professionals are smelling the rat and are beginning to ask questions.
The downside is that with the economy in the state it is in the U.S. now, the unemployment rate is low enough to favor employers. It’s not difficult to find a pool of candidates to replace unhappy staff when they begin to make noise. Keep in mind that “good” candidates are not the top priority any more for most employers. “Good enough” is the top choice. As long as they meet the paper metrics (education, certifications, clearances, etc.) they’re in. This too is a very common concern among the professionals I’ve spoken with. They’re seeing more hires done with less IT oversight in many cases as well. Non-IT management personnel are now more likely to be screening and interviewing candidates for IT positions than in years past.
One comment from a network engineer working for an East coast U.S. city government said this:
“The last six hires in our department (IT) were picked from a stack of applications, screened and hired without anyone from IT being involved. The results are mixed. Two have turned out to be decent enough. But the other four don’t know what ‘diskpart’ is, and they’re supposed to have Microsoft certifications. Sad.”
A colleague working for a large defense contracting company said this:
“In general, the staffing is insufficient to meet the demands placed on it by executive management. My group has enough work to keep eight skilled workers busy 24/7, yet we can’t grow above four. It’s impossible to keep up, let alone get in front of new things coming down the road. It’s all about squeezing profits now.”
Another engineer working for a large retailer added:
“If you keep your foot on the gas pedal too long, something is going to overheat and break eventually. In our case, it’s been security. As long as we remain understaffed, we have too much to do each day to attempt to explore things that need attention. That means we remain in a break/fix mode and never in a progressive, improvement mindset. Efficiency suffers. Security suffers too. Eventually, customers will see that and then it’s too late.”
Asked if their job titles truly match their daily job duties, roughly 85% said “no”. Of the remaining 15%, none were emphatic about “yes”, but were actually cautious to say “pretty much” or “sort of”.
Going forward, from now through 2020, unless something drastic emerges to change the path, we can expect to see more merging and combining of job duties and less focus on clearly-defined titles. For some it began long ago, with “programmer-analyst” and “evangelist” titles, which often allow very broad definitions of actual duties and roles. For others, they remain comfortably in line with the 1990’s era of strictly defined titles. But as competition places increased pressure on companies to cut costs, raise profits and become leaner, they too will start seeing the fat trimmed. And when the next downturn occurs in the economy, expect that to turn into meat cutting and bone cutting. Ouch!
If you happen to work for Google, Microsoft, Facebook or one of the more cutting-edge organizations, the rules are self-written. All of what I stated above is focused primarily on the Fortune 5000 employers, municipalities, non-profits, and so on. The folks hammering away 9-to-5 (or 7am-to-8pm, but only paid for 9-to-5), are the ones being squeezed to get out ahead of the competition. As if it wasn’t tough enough already to accept the fact that our jobs in the IT world is essentially to automate ourselves into being unneeded, the temperature is being increased gradually to do more with less. It’s a classic example of the boiling frog syndrome.
Cheers!
Kyle is a senior analyst for a Washington think tank, who advises federal agencies, and Fortune 100 businesses in the area of information technology trends.
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