High Tech

Throughout my 12 years of working in the technology industry I've been interrogated at length by customers, friends and family alike as to how they can transition into what appears, on the surface at least, to represent one of the most exciting careers on the market. Enticed by the apparent allure of easy money, client golf, unlimited logo-ware and stock options, these unsuspecting fools sit perched on the periphery peering enviously at what they believe to be the panacea of employment. Such is not the case.

Brian-drain be damned, the last ten years has distilled the riff-raff and bit players out of the technology sector. In the 80 s, when entry-level PCs were 5 digit investments, shrink-wrapped software produced Everest sized margins, and commoditization and consolidation had yet to enter the IT lexicon, if you had the where-with-all to format a floppy you were reasonably assured of a well-paid role of some form in this burgeoning new field. As the industry matured however, Darwinism began weeding out the weaker players in parallel to society revering all things digital; a combination that began attracting many of the brightest lights our educational system could produce.

By entering a knowledge-based industry your view of the world will be transformed forever! Traditional business logic and metrics are no longer relevant; 100% year over year growth becomes passe and double-digit quarter over quarter growth the norm. Your future plans, emotionally and financially entwined in your stock options, ebb and flow in direct relation to the whimsical musings of a short be-speckled bean-counter chartered with managing/manipulating the US economy. You watch helplessly as Alan Greenspan casts his doom and gloom opinions about like fairy dust, transforming your freedom 45 plan into freedom 6/49.

Other experiences to look forward to:

1) Your heart rate mirroring the movements of the Nasdaq index.

2) Your unsuccessful attempts at coordinating the births of your children to follow the conclusion of your company s fiscal year.

3) Falling into an uncontrollable fit of hysteria at your spouse s random suggestion that you string your three weeks of holiday time together.

4) Being enticed to move south; where you ll be presented with the opportunity to dole out $600,000 for a 35 year old tear-down who s fate should be decided by the blade of a bulldozer, not the scandalous manipulations of an over-zealous real estate agent taking stock options in lieu of commissions.

Change is Good will inevitably become your mantra-du-jour as product positioning and industry trends change quicker than a Vancouver weather forecast. Your competitors will evolve and mutate more often than a Taiwanese flu-bug and what you diligently research and study today will be of marginal value in six months time. If this isn t frightening enough to the risk averse among you, the company that hires you is unlikely to remain the organization that employs you long term. Stories abound of unfortunate individuals being acquired by the same organization multiple times (analogous to re-marrying your ex-spouse I ve been told). And while sabbaticals are becoming more popular, they are generally only available at a point in one s career when the alternative to 7 weeks of trekking the Himalayas is a 6 months residential program courtesy of the Ministry of Health. (Potentially the only tangible benefit our existing NDP government has offered BC s technology community to date).

Albeit oversimplified, the above is a relatively truthful snippet of what to expect should you opt to shed the safety and security of your traditional bricks and mortar employment for the wild and wooly world of the Internet. No doubt there are those of you in the reading audience that have either pondered a switch to a technology or knowledge based company, or enviously salivated over the latest Time magazine dot.com poster-child billionaire. So, prior to embarking on your newfound path to early retirement, ponder these tidbits of experience from a somewhat seasoned IT vet (complete with scars), then choose wisely.

High Tech

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