My name is Alex. I am based in Singapore. I work as a computer programmer with 20 years on Power Builder, Oracle sql and pl/sql and Unix shell scripting.
My problem is that Power Builder is extremely outdated. There are job openings on Oracle sql/plsql and Unix shell scripting. But these openings also require other skills like Java, C#, etc. So, I have just started learning Java and also plan to do J2EE, Spring, Hibernate, etc.
I am not sure whether I am going on the right path. Is there any other technology that would be most suitable for me, like data-science, cloud computing, data-analysis, AI, UX/UI, etc which I should also focus on ?
Thanks
ALex
Hi
My name is Alex. I am based in Singapore. I work as a computer programmer with 20 years on Power Builder, Oracle sql and pl/sql and Unix shell scripting.
My problem is that Power Builder is extremely outdated. There are job openings on Oracle sql/plsql and Unix shell scripting. But these openings also require other skills like Java, C#, etc. So, I have just started learning Java and also plan to do J2EE, Spring, Hibernate, etc.
I am not sure whether I am going on the right path. Is there any other technology that would be most suitable for me, like data-science, cloud computing, data-analysis, AI, UX/UI, etc which I should also focus on ?
While there's always a market for people who are strong in middle and back end programming, careers today are increasingly moving towards needing full stack development skills.
By learning Java and related technologies you are certainly adding a lot of value to your skill set by expanding your knowledge of the middle and back end tiers of applications to cater to how larger enterprise applications are architected on the server side, so it's definitely a step in the right direction.
In addition, since Powerbuilder must have made you pretty strong with front ends as well, I'd recommend considering that you modernise your front end skills and aim to turn yourself into a full stack developer by also learning a more current front end skill such as AngularJS, which is very popular in Singapore. Javascript, Bootstrap and HTML5 would round out the set further.
UX and UI design skills are also highly sought after these days, so that's another direction in which you could re-channel all your strong front end experience towards, as a valuable add-on to actually being able to develop online applications completely from front to back.
Your efforts to become a full stack developer may naturally take you towards development on the cloud, so it may just be a matter of time before you encounter it, at which point you couldd pick up that skill as well. Data science and data analytics are a completely different area, so if you may find it more practical, given your extensive experience in software development, to just bring your software skills up to date instead of trying to switch career tracks completely at this stage of your career into analytics or data science.
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Mario
Alex