Bren:Alumni

After I read the ‘World is Flat’, I’ve began to think about my software job more in the view of the global economy. Basically, when barriers of entry fall in between countries, what is to stop your job to go to another country?

Well, I am going to take a far simpler example for this blog entry. What happens if a younger person takes your job? The reason this thought process sort of came up was the hiring of our interns.

Basically we are going to hold off the full time hiring, and instead leverage the passion and energy students in school have to help develop our software product.

So far, we have hired three interns. But one of them is amazingly experienced for his age. Calling him an intern really wouldn’t do him justice, but since he’s in school, he gets that title.

Funny thing I realized after a couple days is in Ruby on Rails this guy knows way more than me. In the Java world I probably be the top dog in skillset, but since we aren’t using that language, my specific technical skills in that domain aren’t relevant.

As for my situation, I’m not concerned that he’s going to take my position since I am co-founder of the company. Furthermore for my situation I am actually happy he is around because I would prefer to surround myself with smarter people, even if they are younger than me.

But regardless this is an important situation to ponder in any company you work at. The first hard question you should ask is..

Are you easily replaceable?

In any company you work at, you are doing some service to your employer. And it could be the chance that some new kid out of college could take your job if you aren’t offering some real solid value to your company.

And each scenario is different. Say if you worked for the US Government and you had a secret clearance, you obviously aren’t replaceable easily because in order for people to touch your job they need a clearance first.

Another scenario is legacy. Say you worked at a company for years and years, and you have gotten buddy buddy with the entire management staff. There probably is a low chance you would be canned since you’ve built up strong relationships with everyone.

A subquestion to being easily replaceable is..

What are the barriers of entry of someone to do your job?

If you are in the medical profession, obviously some person with a bio degree isn’t going to take your job without the proper credentials and education.

Again to the government example. The secret clearance is a huge barrier of entry since it is difficult and time consuming to get.

If your job has low barriers of entry.. I suggest you navigate yourself in a position where your job title has high barriers of entry.

For those software people I would say moving into software architecture or software project management. For everyone else, I think it’s worth being proactive in your career in examining what might happen in the future and what you can do to avoid being caught flat footed in the future.