With everything that has been happening on Wall Street it is easy to think that the entire economy is failing. Fortunately, this is not true, and as reported in the article, Local Tech Firms Gain From Wall Street Pain, some industries are actually benefiting from the chaos.  Prior to the credit crunch investment banks were the largest employers of technology professionals in the city.  They had the upper hand when luring potential candidates; offering them bigger salaries and better benefits.  While Wall Street has laid off over 20,000 workers in the last half of the year, the tech industry has added over 1,000 jobs and now has a new pool of workers to choose from.  Although the economy is in an overall slump, revenue in the tech industry continues to grow, as does the need for additional staff.

One of the biggest advantages any professional can develop is to become very business savvy.  Today IT professionals are not being hired solely because of their technology expertise.  Companies are looking for candidates who understand the industry they are working in and the business at hand. Lynn Haber at Datamotion had a great article titled, IT Jobs: The Growing Need for Business Skills, that stresses the growing importance of business knowledge for IT professionals.  By understanding the business you are working in, IT professionals are able to develop better tools and programs by knowing exactly how they will be applied within the business.  The best way to develop business savvy is through experience, so if you are developing your 5-10 year career plan, make sure you are planning plenty work within the industry that drives you.

Last week Apple announced they would begin the iPhone Developer University Program.  This is a big step for Apple to help assure strength and growth of their iPhone Apps platform.  Currently the number of quality iPhone developers has been limited to those developers who have tested and toyed with Apple’s SDK program on their own and some with the support of their company.  The program will allow accredited higher education programs to develop official courses on iPhone and iPod touch programming.  Almost immediately following the announcement of the program, it was reported that Stanford University would be taking advantage of the program with the announcement of their new course, iPhone Application Programming.  As mobile technology continues to grow more developers will be need, providing new job avenues for aspiring programmers worldwide.

That is it for this week.  Check back next week for another update.