Top tech skills for 2019

Udemy has put together the top 10 tech skills for 2019, based on the fastest-growing skills people are learning on the site. Here is the list:

1. Solidity: Solidity is the skill that is trending the most on Udemy in 2019. The rise in Solidity can be explained by the rise of Blockchain. Developers use Solidity to develop smart contracts such as crowd funding, blind auctions, voting, and multi-signature wallets for Ethereum- a public decentralized blockchain platform.

2. Houdini Software: Houdini Software is a hero in the world of special effects, video games, and VR animated films. This 3-D animation software is mathematics and physics based. So, IT professionals proficient in programming and algorithms find it easier to master Houdini.  Using this software, special effects artists transform physical elements. A highlight of Houdini is that specific special effects can be created without the need of additional plug-ins.

3. PHP Security: 79% of websites are powered by PHP- according to W3Techs.  However, the market dominance carries along, a threat of cyber security breaches. According to Acunetix, a cyber security firm, vulnerabilities arise due to bad coding habits or lack of knowledge of PHP security. Programmers well-versed in PHP security secure their PHP web applications.

4. TensorFlow: TensorFlow is an open source machine learning framework. With the help of TensorFlow’s open source library, developers can implement deep learning and neural network models, and algorithms with less difficulty.  For example, TensorFlow can train deep neural networks for image recognition, word embeddings, and natural language processing.

5. Functional Programming:  Functional programming concepts are predominant in most large application codebases.  It is based on lambda calculus, developed to study computations with functions. With functional programming, testing and debugging of the code is considerably easy. So is parallel or concurrent programming.

6. Google Cloud: Now days, enterprises are preferring multi-cloud providers. Google cloud has an edge in the deep learning and big data space because of Google’s expertise in AI and its TensorFlow. Many IT cloud architects who want to have ‘multi-cloud’ skills choose to master Google Cloud skills as well.

7. Alteryx: Alteryx, a new data science and machine learning platform redefines the way data science is applied to the business setting.  With AI and machine learning propelling data science, Alteryx is gaining strong momentum this year.

8. Apache Camel: Apache Camel is an open source Java framework that addresses the challenges developers face with integration, especially when dealing with large enterprise applications.  Apache Camel has several tools that help in routing the data within an application and between applications.

9. Programming Fundamentals: With demand for programmer on the rise, it is not surprising that more and more people, both experienced and aspiring IT professionals are taking up courses in fundamentals of programming.

10. System Center Configuration: The need for System Center Configuration has come up due to increase in workplace devices and platforms. Microsoft provides System Center Configuration Manager that is a tool for IT management and advanced security.

10 Machine Learning APIs to learn in 2019

Digital transformation continues to be at the forefront of boardroom discussions.  Organizations are actively undertaking digital transformation projects to refine their processes with the help of technology and deliver superior business outcomes.  A challenge IT employees face when they try to merge technology with business goals is the rigidity and complexity of applications. Fortunately, there are Application Program Interfaces (APIs) to address this challenge.

10 Machine Learning APIs to learn in 2019

Put in simple terms, an API is a code snippet that allows two software programs to interact with each other. APIs underpin digital transformation by facilitating data transfer between old and new IT platforms or two modern applications.  APIs are the de-facto standard for building and connecting AI based applications.

Here are 10 Machine Learning APIs that are trending in 2019. Hands-on experience with these APIs is very useful in an AI job.

PredictionIO
PredictionIO is an open-source machine learning API for software developers to create predictive features. With the help of this API, developers can add features like personalization, recommendation and content discovery to their web or mobile applications. PredictionIO can be easily integrated with Apache Spark, HBase, Elasticsearch, MLlib and Spray.  Developers find its features like response to dynamic queries in real-time, faster machine learning modelling with systematic processes, customizable templates, simple data infrastructure management and pre-built evaluation measures, very useful.

IBM Watson Visual Recognition
The IBM Visual Recognition is part of the IBM Watson Developer Cloud APIs suite.  Developers use IBM Watson’s Visual Recognition API to search, classify, and tag visual content. Powered by Machine learning algorithms, this API can analyze images for faces, colors, objects and scenes. It also allows developers to use their image collection and train custom classifiers to identify objects as per their need. This API finds application in visual auditing, social listening, social commerce, insurance, retail, manufacturing and education industries.

Geneea Natural Language Processing API
The Geneea API facilitates natural language processing. If an organization has large amounts of text – customer feedback, legal documents, e-mails, blogs, content extracted from a URL, or social media posts, Geneea can help analyze the text and unearth the hidden information.   Developers can extract better results by providing additional information such as domain of the document and language used. Some types of analyses supported by this API are language, correction, diacritization, topic detection, sentiment analysis, named entity recognition and tagging.  The API supports text extraction too.

AT&T Speech
With AT&T Speech API, developers can add speech-recognition capabilities to their applications. Powered by AT&T Watson speech engine, this API is capable of transcribing the speech to text according to the context of the speech. The API is tuned for contexts like business search, voicemail, TV, we search, SMS, Q&A and generic.

Microsoft Cognitive Service – Text Analysis
Developers use this API to detect the language of the text, extract the sentiment behind the statement and then translate it.  Some features of this API are language detection, sentiment analysis, key phrase extraction and translation.

Slack API
Slack API is a well documented and intuitive API that transformed the way businesses communicate. Developers use this API to build customized communication systems.

Amazon Machine Learning
Amazon’s machine learning API helps developers train and deploy applications with features like content personalization, document classification, fraud detection, and customer churn prediction.

BigML
Developers use BigML to build and deploy predictive models for apps. With this API, developers can create, retrieve, update or delete BigML resources using standard HTTP methods.

Wit.ai
Wit.ai provides intelligent speech functionality to apps, both mobile and web. Connected cars, smart TVs, smart phones and wearables are powered by its intelligent voice interface. 

Google Cloud APIs
Google’s entire suite of Cloud APIs  support speech recognition, text translation, image labeling, and natural language processing.

Kickstart Your Career in 2019 in 5 Steps

Here are some tips on how you can kickstart your career in 2019 using a range of social media tools and skills upgradation. The focus is on a combination of tech and non-tech skills with in-demand IT courses commanding higher pay packages.

1. Your Profile and Social Media: Recruiters scan social media platforms such as LinkedIn and Facebook to search for potential employees. They may include passive job-seekers too – the category of people who are open to the idea of a new job but do not update their online profiles are offline skills. To get noticed by the recruiters, it is imperative to update your job profile with your skills, experience, and achievements. The last one should ideally be with a reputed organization and/or a high-value project. The new year is the right time to update your online profile in job portals. However, a note of caution when you are updating your profile. Recruiters lookout for certain red flags while scanning through profiles. They include political affiliations, drugs, alcohol, and brush with the law.
2. Ask for a Hike: Employees in the IT sector must decide if they are happy in their current job. Once that is done, they should ask for a pay hike. This is because employers will be willing to hike their pay or offer a bonus to retain the talent pool. The employers also know that the primary reason why IT employees lookout for new opportunities is for a higher pay package. Several researches in this regard also point out that there was a noticeable increase in the pay packages of IT employees in the last year. Therefore, the bottom line for employees is “ask for a pay hike.”
3. Learn IT Security: It is imperative to learn or know IT security for two reasons – firstly it pays more than regular IT job profiles. Secondly, it gives an edge over employees without IT security skills. An increase in cyber attacks and data security have made IT security a sought-after skill set. Such a skill set includes cryptography, penetration testing, and ethical hacking. Interestingly, it is the team leads or manager level employees who have shown more interest to learn and implement IT security skills.
4. Honing Non-tech Skills: While tech skills are important, it is equally important to be aware of soft skills such as public speaking and inter-personnel communication. Why? Recruiters and employers have shown a preference for new-hires who can handle blended roles. That is, an employee should be able to understand and blend between a technical department and other non-technical roles. Researchers have therefore ranked, leadership skills followed by project management skills and business skills as the must-haves for career advancement and pay hike.
5. Specialized Skills: Here is a quick reference bucket list of specialized tech skills that could catapult you to higher pay bracket.

• DevOps – the most in-demand and hard to fill a position in any firm.
• Consulting – If you possess the necessary skills, then starting a firm and taking up project-based consulting is a rewarding route to take.
• Big Data and AI Project – The most in-demand IT skill for 2019 is Big Data and AI Project. Specialists in these areas command one of the highest pay packages in the industry.

Top Cloud Certifications to Land a Cloud Job

The demand for cloud skills is increasing sharply. IDC predicts that by 2021, 31 percent of IT positions will be related to the cloud. So, there is no better time to learn cloud skills than now.

To help experienced IT professionals and beginners learn cloud computing skills, cloud companies and certification providers are introducing certifications. Certifications are blueprints for learning. They are also a great way to convince employers that you have the right set of skills and knowledge necessary for the cloud computing job. Certifications validate your skills against the industry benchmark and prove that you are qualified for the job.

If you are new to the IT field and want to begin your career with a cloud computing job, you can consider vendor-neutral cloud certifications that give an overview of cloud architecture and cloud management.  If you want to learn about a specific cloud technology thoroughly, you can opt for vendor specific certification.

Here is a list of some of the most respected certifications in the cloud computing world.

AWS Certified Solutions Architect

AWS Certified Solutions Architect is a certification offered by Amazon for IT professionals working with AWS.  The associate level certification will evaluate your knowledge of core AWS services and AWS architecture best practices, ability to evaluate cloud application requirements, and skills in developing, deploying and testing cloud-based applications using AWS. The professional level certification will assess your expertise in designing, deploying and migrating distributed applications on AWS, and ability to select the right AWS service for an application.

Certificate of Cloud Security Knowledge

Certificate of Cloud Security Knowledge is a vendor-neutral certification. The test for this certification is based on ‘Security Guidance for Critical Areas of Focus in Cloud Computing v3’ by Cloud Security Alliance and ‘Cloud Computing Risk Assessment’ by the ENISA. To earn this certification you must be proficient in cloud architecture, cloud security, operations, virtualization, and encryption, and demonstrate your expertise in developing a holistic cloud security environment.

Certified OpenStack Administrator

OpenStack Foundation offers the OpenStack’s Certified OpenStack Administrator (COA) certification. The certification test is based on the OpenStack Pike version and it will measure your proficiency in managing an OpenStack public or private cloud. To be able to take this test, you need to have at least six months of hands-on experience with OpenStack.

Certified System Administrator in Red Hat OpenStack

System Administrators in Red Hat OpenStack is the certification offered by Red Hat. The test will measure your expertise in designing, building, deploying, and managing Red Hat OpenStack platform based private clouds.

Cisco CCNA-Cloud

The CCNA cloud certification is a job role focused certification. Cisco CCNA Cloud certification is a job role focused certification for Cloud engineers, Cloud Administrators, and Network Engineers.  To be able to get through this test, you should learn how to identify the components of the Cisco Cloud management software, understand the basics of cloud infrastructure administration and be able to perform cloud management.

Cloud Credential Council

The Cloud Credential Council (CCC) offers one Cloud Technology Associate certification and five Professional Level vendor-neutral cloud certifications. These certifications help you learn how to define, choose, build, operate and manage cloud services.

5 Big Data Careers That Are in High Demand

Want to make big bucks? Consider a career in big data.

This innovative career field has exploded in popularity over the last few years. Why? Because data is king!

In today’s world of internet-driven, social-media based business, the data you collect on your customers is priceless. And to keep track of user data, you’ve got to have an expert in big data.

That’s why this field of IT offers some of the most lucrative jobs around. Let’s take a closer look at the five most in-demand big data careers.

1. Administrator

If you want to collect and keep a lot of data, you need a bigtime database. And a database administer is the one that keeps that database running smoothly.

Like any administration job, the administrator maintains and controls the database. They are in charge of updates, maintenance, and backup systems.

Plus, the administrator makes sure that the database is safe from outside threats. And that it’s available to company employees when they need it. If you’ve got a keen eye for administration, this might be the right job for you.

2. Architect

The data architect is the builder of your database. They understand all the nooks and crannies of the system. And are responsible for storing and maintaining the data.

If you like trying new things, data architect is a great job to consider. The architect handles trying out new databases and new systems within the database.

They help the database evolve by testing out new software prototypes. They also create workflows that the company can use to analyze and use data.

3. Engineer

No, not on the railroad! A data engineer actually puts the data to work for the company. They are experts at company goals and they design a plan to use data to achieve those goals.

These are the guys that communicate with both the business executives and the data analysts. A data engineer also analyzes large quantities of raw data. Then designs the plan to put the data to use.

If you’re a good communicator with the technical skills necessary to manage big data, this is the job for you. Data engineers work closely with data scientists to make their job easier.

4. Scientist

Data scientists are some of the most popular jobs in the field. These are the people who analyze raw data to look for trends and insights.

They then use these trends to present ideas for goal development to business leadership. Data scientists also design and create new processes for modeling data to show the trends.

The role of the scientist is to take the raw data and make it mean something useful to the company. If you’ve got experience with clustering and mining techniques, consider becoming a data scientist.

5. Analyst

There are several types of big data analysts. As the title suggests, all data analysts spend their days analyzing data to find useful information.

A business-oriented data analyst might specialize in a specific part of the business organization’s data. They mine raw data for their subsection and find the trends. Then they present ideas to business leaders to develop a strategy.

Other analysts might work with broader amounts of data. They create useful systems to corral the data so that users have access to it when they need it.

If you’re into crunching numbers, problem-solving, and compiling reports, you should try out the big data analyst position.

Big Data Careers: There’s Something for Everyone

The boom in big data careers over the last few years has blown the IT doors wide open. These careers are lucrative and highly sought after in this growing industry.

These five big data jobs are often broken down into several positions, depending on the needs of the company. But there’s something for everyone in the field of big data if you’ve got the right skills.

Check out our search tool to browse more high-paying jobs in the IT field.