Ireland is awash with Java developers. It was pretty much the language of choice for every government department, financial institution, telco, and even at one stage, startups.
I always thought that, in Dublin, once mobile development became popular, there would be many more Android developers than iOS developers. My logic went like this:
- There are lots of Java developers
- The tools are free
- The devices are cheap
- It’s new and shiny and a new challenge
I really expected that in Ireland, we’d see lots of Java developers jump to becoming Android developers in this new, interesting market.
But it doesn’t seem to have happened. Why is that? Where are they?
I think there are a couple of reasons that may be contributing:
- Those who wanted a new challenge have already turned their attentions to something else like becoming Ruby developers.
- Many of these Java developers are now holding down high-paid positions with financial organisations or high daily rates as contractors. It’s a nice existence, and there’s no need for a change, thank you very much.
- Some people just aren’t interested in new challenges.
But what about the rest? Surely, out there, there are some Java developers who’ve tinkered with Android, even put out a few indie apps, and would love to move from the cubicle farm into channeling their talents into mobile app development.
Well, how about that? We’ve one such position open now.
Image Credit: Rob Bulmahn on Flickr
I like the article. There are a couple of other reasons I can think of that developers have not converted from java to android.
1. People progress in their career, so many former java developers may now be managing etc. You don’t stay developing forever, or even converting to other languages.
2. Money – There are not that many (comparatively) opportunities for android devs vs server side java jobs
3. Learning the frameworks – Although the language is the same, android itself and the model of programming is fairly different from standard java
4. Competition – Just about any ‘app’ you can think of, has been written already, so unless you can do something significantly different or better, there isn’t any point. So then if you want to develop apps commercially, realistically you will end up working for someone else, ref point 2.