Be it a startup or an established fortune 500 company, leaders and managers keep looking for the right talent that can fit their business needs. As the world changes and gets more data centric and machine learnt, it is necessary to keep abreast with the new technologies that can help you survive the ever changing technology marketplace. Also, learning the right combination of tools, processes and methodologies can not only boost your paycheck, but can give you the fundamental knowledge to transfer into a niche segment or emerging field.
Here are the top TECH skills in demand:
Business Analytics: By far the most in demand skills that managers are looking for. A business analyst (BA) is someone who analyzes an organization or business domain (real or hypothetical) and documents its business or processes or systems, assessing the business model or its integration with technology. The International Institute of Business Analysis (IIBA) offers the Certified Business Analysis Professional (CBAP) certification which is considered top notch in the industry.
AWS or Amazon Web Services: A subsidiary of Amazon.com, AWS offers on-demand cloud computing platforms. The service spans a wide range, including compute, storage, networking, database, analytics, application services, deployment, management, mobile, developer tools and tools for the Internet of things. AWS offers Associate-level certifications for Solutions Architects, SysOps Administrators and Developers.
DevOps: More of a combined concept of “software DEVelopment” and “information technology OPerationS”. The popular term is used to refer to a set of practices that emphasize the collaboration and communication of both software developers and information technology (IT) professionals while automating processes of software delivery and infrastructure changes. AWS offer the following two certifications in the field: AWS Sysops/Devops Certifications AWS Certified SysOps Administrator – Associate or AWS Certified DevOps Engineer – Professional.
Machine Learning: Evolved from the study of pattern recognition and computational learning theory in artificial intelligence, Machine learning is the subfield of computer science that gives computers the ability to learn without being explicitly programmed. Certifications offered by Stanford University, through Corsera and Simplilearn.
Azure or Microsoft Azure: is again a cloud computing service created by Microsoft for building, deploying, and managing applications and services through a global network of Microsoft-managed data centers. Anyone with some hands on experience with cloud computing or Azure can go in for the following certifications: Microsoft Certified Solutions Associate (MCSA), Microsoft Certified Solutions Expert (MCSE) and Microsoft Certified Solutions Developer (MCSD).
Salesforce: The most popular cloud based CRM product, Salesforce also capitalizes on commercial applications of social networking. Salesforce offers certification under the following broad categories: Administrators, Consultants, Developers and Architect.
JIRA: A very popular issue tracking product developed by Atlassian. It provides bug tracking, issue tracking, and project management functions. Atlassian offers a broad range of JIRA certifications that span from Agile Development with JIRA software to Atlassian Certified Confluence Administrator.
SPARK: Apache Spark is a fast and general engine for large-scale data processing. It is an open-source cluster-computing framework. Spark provides an interface for programming entire clusters with implicit data parallelism and fault-tolerance. Databricks along with O’reilly offers the Developer Certification for Apache Spark.
Tableau: Software which produces interactive data visualization products focused on business intelligence. The product queries relational databases, OLAP cubes, cloud databases, and spreadsheets and then generates a number of graph types. Tableau provides two certification levels i.e. at the Qualified Associate and Certified Professional level.
Selenum: A portable software-testing framework for web applications. There are no formal certifications available by Selenum, but anyone with the fundamental knowledge of JAVA and javascript can learn and work on this popular testing framework.