IT jobs are without a doubt some of the highest paying jobs with information architects, data-security analysts and UX designers taking home $100,000 or more a year. But then again, these are high demand; high expertise jobs so don’t jump with joy as yet. But like every job and IT industry to be specific, not everyone commands such higher salaries. There are a large number of IT professionals who at some point of their career feel that their salaries have hit a standstill. Even if you are an IT professional and a great one at that, your technical expertise alone may not help you exceed the IT earning barrier. To continuously exceed your salaries, you need to work hard and smart. Here is how you can exceed the earning barrier in IT.

·         Gain Business Knowledge and Move Up The Management Ladder: IT departments for the most part are considered a part of “back office” operations. What this means is that despite being a core part of the business, IT professionals do not often get enough say in revenue generating components of the business and as a result seldom have a chance to take up senior management roles.  So if you do not want to stay content with a project manager or senior project management salary, invest time and money in gaining business knowledge. It could be through a formal business degree, online training courses or just by keeping your eyes and ears open while in the organization. Having the technical experience with business knowledge will instantly make you stand apart and open the doors for you to draw senior management salaries. For example, a survey conducted highlighted that CIOs were the biggest salary winners which clearly demonstrates the value of technical and business knowledge

·         Gain expertise on the “Hot” Technologies and Keep Learning: Say you are an expert in Java and draw a respectable salary in the industry. However, someone with less years of experience than you joins the organization and draws a higher salary than you! Why you ask. It could very well be because he/she is an expert in say big data technology such as Hadoop. Information Technology is one of the most dynamic industries with new technologies and languages coming up every now and then. When a new technology comes to the foray and gains traction, there is an instant demand-supply gap created which means that those with the specific skill sets are in a position to demand high salaries. If you have to break the IT earning barrier, always be ready to reinvent yourself by learning new technologies and this way you will be well positioned to jump on the high paying opportunities in the IT industry

·         Work On Your Own Side Projects: This one might seem controversial but let me clarify that I do not mean doing freelance work because even though your organization may never find out, it is ethically in breach of contract with your contract. If you have been lucky enough to be trained in some web based technologies such as Java, .NET or even HTML etc. spare sometime after office to build your own side projects. They could be very small projects tackling some problem that only you might have but there are multiple benefits of developing side projects. Worst case scenario, you will improve your technical skills. On the up side, you might end up creating your own business. A lot of technology start-ups were actually side projects the founders tinkered on with while they were employed full-time. You may not always succeed but there is no downside to the same

 Unlike traditional online courses that charge a fee, limit enrollment and provide credit or certification, Moocs (massive open online courses) are usually free or low cost and can host hundreds of  thousands global participants.  Although MOOC have been around for years in the form of collective techie learning gatherings, participation in 2012 has ballooned at a rapid pace likened to FaceBook in its heyday.  According to The Year of the MOOCarticle in the New YorkTimes, edX, a nonprofit start-up backed by Harvard and MIT, had 370,000 registrants in the fall of its first official courses. This paled in comparison to the amount of students that Courseraattained in its first year of online learning opportunities, 1.7 million!

Will MOOCs Replace education as we know it?

Like any new trend, massive participation in online classes has its challenges. Lynda Weinman has ample experience when pointing out that they are by no means a replacement for formal education.  As a former digital animator, special effects designer and classroom college teacher, Linda paved the path for an earlier version of MOOC education in the mid 90’s when she founded Lynda.comas an aide to her own students. Over four million students and 2,200 courses later she’s confident when clarifying that many of the collegespartnered with Lynda.com use the tutorials as added features to their existing courses.  When asked in an interview with ReadWriteBuilders, if high technical companies look at online programs in terms of advancement as a supplement to traditional education or as a way for people to further their careers, Lynda feels that “it’sjust one example of something that you can do to enhance your attractiveness to potential employers. But [it’s also important to have] a portfolio and body of work, references that actually work out, showing that you had success in the past.”

MOOC Benefits:

I will begin our blog on Java Tutorial with an incredibly important aspect of java development:  memory management.  The importance of this topic should not be minimized as an application's performance and footprint size are at stake.

From the outset, the Java Virtual Machine (JVM) manages memory via a mechanism known as Garbage Collection (GC).  The Garbage collector

• Manages the heap memory.   All obects are stored on the heap; therefore, all objects are managed.  The keyword, new, allocates the requisite memory to instantiate an object and places the newly allocated memory on the heap.  This object is marked as live until it is no longer being reference.
• Deallocates or reclaims those objects that are no longer being referened. 
• Traditionally, employs a Mark and Sweep algorithm.  In the mark phase, the collector identifies which objects are still alive.  The sweep phase identifies objects that are no longer alive.
• Deallocates the memory of objects that are not marked as live.
• Is automatically run by the JVM and not explicitely called by the Java developer.  Unlike languages such as C++, the Java developer has no explict control over memory management.
• Does not manage the stack.  Local primitive types and local object references are not managed by the GC.

So if the Java developer has no control over memory management, why even worry about the GC?  It turns out that memory management is an integral part of an application's performance, all things being equal.  The more memory that is required for the application to run, the greater the likelihood that computational efficiency suffers. To that end, the developer has to take into account the amount of memory being allocated when writing code.  This translates into the amount of heap memory being consumed.

Memory is split into two types:  stack and heap.  Stack memory is memory set aside for a thread of execution e.g. a function.  When a function is called, a block of memory is reserved for those variables local to the function, provided that they are either a type of Java primitive or an object reference.  Upon runtime completion of the function call, the reserved memory block is now available for the next thread of execution.  Heap memory, on the otherhand, is dynamically allocated.  That is, there is no set pattern for allocating or deallocating this memory.  Therefore, keeping track or managing this type of memory is a complicated process. In Java, such memory is allocated when instantiating an object:

String s = new String();  // new operator being employed
String m = "A String";    /* object instantiated by the JVM and then being set to a value.  The JVM
calls the new operator */

There are a lot of articles you will find on the internet that talk about the tenants of having a successful professional career. From soft-skills to job relevant skills, there is an unending list of the do’s and don’ts for establishing a great career. However, a successful career in information technology commands some specific efforts and focus. As a result, it is critical to focus on these 4 key tenants that can help you establish a promising and successful career in Information Technology.

·         Be Multi-lingual– This is the analogy of Steve Job’s famous quote ‘Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish’ as it applies to Information Technology. Gone are the days when you could train yourself on a specific programming language say Java or C++ and code your way to a successful career. The best programmers of today and tomorrow are pushing the limits and becoming experts in one of more languages. Knowing more than one programming language instantly makes you more employable since you can add value to multiple projects that require different languages. If you need proof, IT professionals knowing more than one language can attract a salary premium of £10,000 . Additionally, there is no telling how dynamic technology is and by being open to constantly learning new languages you will position yourself to get technology jobs that did not exist a few years ago

·         Go Beyond the ‘How’, Focus On ‘Why’: A common theme with most information technology professionals is their ability to figure out the HOW or, in other words, applying their technical know-how in achieving the solution to a problem. This is especially true when you are working for a service based IT organization where your key job is to develop a solution for the client’s business problem. Yes, you are and will get paid to be good at the ‘How’ but to advance a career in IT; it will help you immensely to also start focussing on the ‘Why’. This stems from a famous quote by Einsten “If I were given one hour to save the planet, I would spend 59 minutes defining the problem and one minute resolving it”. In essence, spend time in understanding ‘Why’ are your trying to solve the problem before you get down with figuring out the ‘How’ part. The reasons for developing this mindset are two-fold. One, you will instantly distinguish yourself from thousands of other IT peers who are content with the ‘How’ part. Two, there is a good chance that you want to get ahead in your career not only as a programmer but as a system architect or a business solution consultant. This is where the habit of asking the right questions pertaining to why a certain IT solution is requires will help you build the right solution.

·         Focus on the impact and results (Financial impact):This may not apply to IT professionals who are early in their careers but is paramount for senior IT professionals. For the most part, IT departments are required to make sure that the systems and the solutions function as desired and help the business run efficiently. In other words, the key metric for success for most IT professionals is being extremely good at technology, languages and Quality Assurance. However, the times are changing! No longer is the Chief Information Officer (CIO) in charge of making IT decisions. With organizations closely guarding the ROI of their investment in technology, CIOs are increasingly required to be cognizant of the financial benefits of technology so that they can justify the spending on IT. No wonder than that CFOs are increasingly pressurizing CIOs to get their act together