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Book review of: ‘Remaining Relevant in Your Tech Career: When Change Is the Only Constant’ by Robert Stackowiak. The author is a Technology Business Strategist at the Microsoft Technology Center in Chicago, Illinois. Stackowiak has co-authored many other technology books. ‘Remaining Relevant in Your Tech Career’ was released in August 2018. The book is a quick read at only 80 pages and has an appendix of suggested additional readings.

Stackowiak discusses several tech career topics:

  • Track trending technologies
  • Understand business threats and opportunities
  • Apply technology to opportunity
  • Align career development plan
  • Business culture
  • Leadership behavior
  • Identify insider networks
  • Diversity builds leaders
  • Assess, improve and promote your brand
  • Anticipate technical skills needed
  • Take control of your future career

Stackowiak points out signs your tech career is in trouble such as:

  • Little new technical skill development
  • Limited understanding of changes in the business
  • Intolerance for experimentation in creating solutions
  • No emphasis on career development

Stackowiak states ‘Individuals who can align technology development… with business needs and solutions will be particularly valuable in the future.

And then Stackowiak later states ‘… you can either lead change or be its victim…’

When I was an IT manager and owner of an IT consulting company, the most frustrating thing was a team of DBAs, programmers and analysts that just wanted to do the technology thing. The group never worried about business changes, never wanted to try new ideas to solve a problem and didn’t want to improve their skill set. Annual reviews were joke! I had to prod the team … SEVERAL TIMES… to fill out a self evaluation with career goals.

Those days are long gone my IT and DBA friends. Right?

If your searching for a new job or looking to enter the tech market this book is for you. Here’s a thumbs up book recommendation: ‘Remaining Relevant in Your Tech Career: When Change Is the Only Constant’ by Robert Stackowiak.

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