Prepare for a burst of IoT job opportunities
If industry watchers have it right, the world will soon be brimming with opportunities for developers and designers who understand how to build solutions for Internet of Things (IoT). It may be time to re-align skills to meet this next wave.
For starters, Gary Atkinson, director for emerging technologies for ARM, predicts that there will soon be a million and a half developers for embedded IoT devices within the next five years. As relayed by Richard Wilson in Electronics Weekly, the prime opportunities will be in the mobile and web application space.
In a recent Computer Business Review report, Joao Lima describes the five skills most in demand for IoT solutions: programming, user interface, analytics, hardware engineering and artificial intelligence.
Darshana Sugathan provides some advice for developers looking to get into the IoT game."While the popularity of IoT undoubtedly heralds an exciting time for programmers and designers alike, it can be pretty challenging to understand which skills you need to develop in order to come out on top in the era of IoT. This is simply because IoT itself is so vast and complex that pinning down a single skill is certainly not easy."
Sugathan says developers and designers need to build their expertise in devices, cloud, and analytics. Of course, expertise in building solutions that run within devices will be a key skill area, requiring the ability to build connectivity solutions around mobile, WiFi, Bluetooth, and micro electro mechanical systems.