From the Inside March/April 2014

There has been an issue that our community has been battling for years — the The lack of junior and entry level developers. One of the things that I noticed this year at the Spectrum Conference was that the age demographic of our senior developers is dropping. What this tells me is that our junior level developers are becoming our senior level developers.

The lack of junior level developers has been a hindrance to the adoption of MultiValue technologies, as well as a constant question that new CIO, CTO, and CEO bring up whenever they contemplate moving from their stable, but CTI (Command Line Interface) MultiValue system to something else.

We hear this all the time: "I can hire .NET/JAVA/etc. programmers directly out of college and they will already know how to do 'X'." I can hear you screaming at me already… it's more than just that you dummy! We all know that what these people are really stating is more than just this question, but it is an easy thing to pick at.

What businesses want most is something that helps the bottom-line, has good total cost of ownership (TCO), and is easy to train new developers on. Unless you are dealing with someone who thinks SAP is the correct solution.

As MultiValue DBAs and developers, we know that TCO of MultiValue Databases and Applications is much lower, not to mention the ease and speed to alter the business rules, processes, and data schemas. As the database providers add new features, APIs, and handle the general Buzzword compliance, what is lacking from MultiValue Databases and technologies has more to do with its advantages over our competitors instead of an IT buzzword or trend disadvantage they are trying to fill.

The question then becomes, why is it so are hard to find junior or entry level developers or DBAs? Since it takes so long to bring new developers up to speed on the business practices, new hires are expected to have some knowledge and training in the environments they are hired to work in. That takes time and money as well, so businesses expect other sources to do this for them, and in turn expect the new developers to just exist.

To address this, International Spectrum has created a training program through existing college Internship programs. What is this you ask?

International Spectrum is working with college students that already have some training in development, to bring them up to speed on MultiValue databases and philosophies. In the process of this training, we are evaluating coding, communication, and documentation standards and quality.

What does this mean for you? Well, your business will get access to junior level programmers who have worked with MultiValue tech and databases at an entry level.

What do we we need from you? Sponsorships. Just like with other companies, the time and resources needed to train new developers still exists. The advantage that International Spectrum has is that we can train multiple people at once, in the same way, and not have to worry about running your day to day business.

To find out more about this program, and how you can help support it and make it grow, the just go to the following link:

http://www.intl-spectrum.com/internship/

NATHAN RECTOR

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