|
One
of the fastest emerging operating systems in the world, Linux is
predicted to grow at a rate of 27 percent in next three years. As
per IDC India figures, this growth is expected to be almost 80 percent
in the country, in the next three to four years. Matching this development
is the need for professionals who are well-qualified and experienced
to take on different positions in this space, ranging from Linux
administrators to principal engineers, browser/Web server developers,
senior software engineers for Linux kernel programming, drivers
and embedded Linux, etc. But the pertinent question is: Does the
Indian IT professional see Linux as a viable career option? The
experts we spoke to predict a new stream of job options in the next
few years which will attract some of the brightest and the best
tech talent in the industry.
Demand
for Linux pros
Recruitment
firms say that they are seeing a jump in demand for Linux professionals.
Arun Tadanki, country manager of Monsterindia.com, states, “The
traction of Linux professionals on Monsterindia is witnessing a
big improvement in recent months. Out of over 2,700 new résumés
Monsterindia attracts in a day, roughly 350 to 500 are that of Linux
professionals. A year back, Linux résumés were about
80 a day. The same pace is being kept in the demand for Linux professionals.
Currently, we have over 1,500 jobs for Linux professionals i.e.,
almost 10 percent of the total jobs on Monsterindia.”
Abhishek
Yadav, principal consultant with Adonis HR Services says that jobs
are certainly on the rise for Linux professionals. “The growing
acceptance has made Linux a much-in-demand tool and an integral
one too. More and more companies are deviating rather than sticking
to Unix and Microsoft,” he adds. Yadav informs that as compared
to last year, there has been 40 percent growth in the recruitment
of Linux professionals and this is expected to increase in the next
couple of months. Industry statistics reveal that Linux professionals
are among the top five best-paid categories of certified technical
professionals, along with Oracle database administrators and Cisco
certified internetworking engineers.
However,
not all recruiters share this enthusiasm. Satish Doshi, CEO of well-known
IT recruitment firm, Sampoorna Computer People says, “The situation
is still unpredictable at this stage and a lot depends on the deployment
of Linux by the government or major players, for instance IBM.”
Rajaram
Agrawal, managing director of Mumbai-based recruitment firm TalentAhead
India, agrees that it is only macro level adoption of Linux which
will make any difference in the job market. Today, the demand for
Linux professionals might be gradually on the rise, but it is still
limited. Pawan Karimbil, regional manager of People-One Consulting
in Mumbai also acknowledges that Linux is still at a “thought
process” stage and unless there is aggressive implementation
of Linux in India, the recruitment market will not witness any major
change. He also adds that IT professionals have not shown any marked
inclination for adopting Linux as a career choice.
Vendors
upbeat
The
major vendors supporting Linux, of course, are far more upbeat.
Sandeep Menon, business manager for Linux with IBM (Asean region)
gives the reason for this optimism, “Linux is obviously a hot
area for job seekers as well as businesses. The services led nature
of the technology gives rise to a growing need for skilled manpower,
both within organisations as well as in the IT industry. Source
code availability also encourages entrepreuneurship and creativity.”
Sudhir
Mathur, senior VP and global marketing head, Aptech points out that
within a few years, Linux has emerged from being just an operating
system to one that could revolutionise cross platform compatibility
and break established monopolies. “It is now finding users
for both critical and non-critical applications and will attract
new talent,” he states, adding that many e-governance projects
are using Linux and government departments (like transportation,
law, R&D, etc), are actively testing and using it.
In
addition, there is also an increasing trend of Unix-based installations
migrating to Linux OS. Commenting on the changing market scenario,
Sandeep Ranjan, manager of operations and research for VER research
firm, informs that today almost 30 percent of software development
firms have one or more Linux-based projects. This is leading to
an increased requirement for trained and certified manpower. It
is estimated that presently there are nearly three lakh Linux users
in India and this number will grow at an exponential rate.
Shankar
Iyer, manager of learning services at Red Hat India reminds that
Linux deployment boom has brought in its wake the demand for professionals
who are conversant with the technology. This includes users, administrators,
programmers as well as buyers of Linux systems. “Though many
organisations have certified professionals to maintain their back
office, the focus is on certified professionals with exposure to
port applications on Linux, and projects on migration, etc,”
adds Iyer.
Growth
areas across the industries
Linux
is gaining wider acceptance in different industry segments. Besides
being a popular platform in engineering institutes, banking, financial,
insurance sectors, it is slowly making inroads into the manufacturing,
gaming, multimedia and telecommunication sectors as well. There
is increasing usage of Linux in networking Internet, Intranet and
Web server space. Says Anil Valluri, director of system engineering
with Sun Microsystems, “Linux has predominantly gained a foothold
in the workgroup server space and is typically used for applications
such as Web servers, e-mail servers, firewall, proxy, standalone
business applications and so on.” Also in demand are Linux
professionals for writing applications specific to personal digital
assistant (PDA), mobile computing, e-mails, etc. Career opportunities
exist in telecommunications and for developing systems tools.
Vacancies
also exist for professionals in marketing and distribution of Linux-based
software to different parts of the world. Certified professionals
can even work as freelancers, providing consultation to clients
on Linux maintenance. According to Prakash Advani, senior vice president
of Netcore Solutions, the opportunity lies in the desktop and embedded
space where Linux is expected to register a higher growth.
Emphasis
on multi-OS skills
The
requirement for Linux professionals can be broadly classified into
four categories—systems administrators, application developers,
and those working on networks and customised services. Recruiters
mostly seek professionals who can implement Linux in networks or
systems administration, in an organisation. They should understand
Linux and its internals very well; have experience of packaging
product under Linux and understand issues of product implementation;
good experience of using tools/ utilities/ languages supported under
Linux; understand Linux testing requirements and possess experience
of porting product from Windows to Linux.
For
people wanting to making a career in Linux programming or administration,
the basic qualification is an engineering graduate or a bachelor’s
degree in mathematics and computer applications. In addition, they
also need strong logical and analytical skills essential for any
development project. For those interested in making a career in
Web services, the basic qualification is C, C ++, SQL or RDBMS.
For website production, the skill sets required are Linux-based
programming and techniques.
In
recent times there has been a growing demand for people who can
help companies migrate to Linux platform. “These days companies
prefer professionals having cross platform experience. This provides
the company an extra edge to fight the high number of professionals
on the bench. So, the demand is for people who have worked on multiple
platforms, with a basic C, C++ background,” says Yadav.
As
per a recent market study by Red Hat, at least 2,00,000 professionals
will be required to work on Linux projects by the year 2004 in India.
Though it is very difficult to give numbers, many believe that the
gap between demand and supply of manpower is leading to attrition
in the industry.
Training
market needs to gear up
The
past one year has been good for the Linux training industry, with
the demand for such courses going up by 65 percent. An IDC study
suggests that the market for training professionals on open-source
operating systems could grow upto $311 million by 2004.
The
training scenario however leaves a lot to be desired. Firstly, the
problem of less number of players offering Linux training, which
is also affecting its entry into the corporate training market.
Though companies like NIIT, Aptech-SSI, Tata Infotech provide Linux
training under their career and short-term courses, concerted effort
is needed to formulate and impart separate career courses.
Another
issue is the cost of Linux training, which is very high as compared
to the total cost of ownership of Linux-based solutions. This is
proving to be a handicap in the adoption of Linux by companies and
also the growth of training institutes.
Ranjan
of VER believes that the benefits of Linux are not well understood
by the user community. “Awareness regarding institutes providing
Linux training is abysmally low at 10 percent. The training institutes
need to create awareness about themselves as well as show the cost-benefit
analysis to the developer community. They also need to give students
an exposure to various operating systems,” he adds.
|
