Our next guest is Adam Seligman, who’s VP of developer experience at Amazon Web Services, or AWS. In that role, he’s been relentlessly focused on making software more accessible to everyone, no matter what their level of development experience. I wanted to chat with him for a couple of reasons:

First, AWS is launching a portfolio of A.I.-powered helpers and tools for developers, which could fundamentally change how thousands of people build the software of tomorrow.

Second, there’s a whole new generation of tech professionals who are scoring their first roles as interns, junior developers, and more. Meanwhile, the tech industry is changing rapidly thanks to the evolution of A.I. and other technologies. Adam has some interesting insight into how these new techies can use A.I. to accelerate their problem-solving and early careers.

Here are some additional takeaways from our discussion:

First, generative AI is being used by a wide range of people, from skilled data scientists to early career interns. Whether you’re an experienced tech professional who wants to speed up their coding, or an intern still trying to figure out how to use the building blocks of technology, A.I. can make things a little easier by automating tasks and suggesting improvements.

Second, if you’re running a team or project, consider allowing your interns, junior developers, and other tech professionals just starting out to use A.I. It could allow them to solve some challenges faster.

Third, A.I. as a technology is here to stay. It’s helpful at this point to figure out how it’ll best integrate into your current workflow, whether that’s designing solutions, writing code, or debugging.

We covered a whole lot of other topics during the episode, of course, so give it a re-listen if there was something you missed. We’ll see you next time—and remember, Dice is your best resource to find the tech talent you need to fill your open roles, and for technologists, the best place to grow your tech career.

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We have a very special edition of Tech Connects this time around. Dice’s latest Tech Salary Report just dropped, and we’re talking to Art Zeile, CEO of DHI Group, the parent company of Dice, about the report’s takeaways. 

When it comes to tech professionals and salary, we’re in a very interesting moment. Last year’s average tech salary was $111,193, down very slightly from $111,348 in 2022. That’s a significant difference from a few years ago, when the average salary rose 9 percent between 2019 and 2021. However, widespread cutbacks in tech spending, combined with mass layoffs in late 2022 and early 2023, put some pressure on salary growth.

But as we get into with Art, there are lots of “green shoots” of growth when it comes to salary, benefits, and more. For example, although compensation has stagnated somewhat in well-established tech hubs such as Silicon Valley and Seattle, it’s grown in up-and-coming tech centers such as Houston and San Diego.

Here are some other key takeaways from the report:

First, organizations will pay a premium for tech professionals who can build out on-premises and cloud infrastructure, especially when that infrastructure powers cutting-edge initiatives such as AI and data analytics. Keep that in mind as you consider which skills to learn next.

Second, PTO usage remained steady in 2023. This suggests more tech professionals recognize the need to take full advantage of their allotted time off. If your workplace has a great PTO policy, take advantage of it; your work-life balance is worth it.

Third, if you’re looking for areas with the fastest-growing salaries, it’s clear from the report that organizations will pay a premium for tech professionals who can build out on-premises and cloud infrastructure, especially when that infrastructure powers cutting-edge initiatives such as AI and data analytics.

We’ll see you next time—and remember, Dice is your best resource to find the tech talent you need to fill your open roles, and for technologists, the best place to grow your tech career. 

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Data is the lifeblood of organizations everywhere. On the latest episode of ‘Tech Connects,’ we’re speaking with Steven Hillion, SVP of data and A.I. at Astronomer, a company that helps clients manage their data pipelines. Astronomer is a commercial developer of Airflow, an open-source platform originally developed at Airbnb as a way for that tech giant to manage all of its data platforms and data pipelines.

During our chat, Hillion provides some key insights into so many of the data issues impacting companies today, from verifying the quality of data to fine-tuning the large language models (LLMs) that power the current generation of generative A.I. products.

If you’re someone who works with data—and increasingly, everyone’s working with data—you may draw some useful information from this episode. Here are some quick takeaways from the discussion:

First, it’s important to define ‘data quality.’ Is there consistency in your data sets? Is everyone comfortable with the sources, metrics, and outputs? Everyone in your organization should have confidence in your data and the insights you’re producing from it. Fortunately, there’s a variety of tools that allow you to manage and evaluate data quality.

Second, when it comes to A.I., it might be best to proceed with caution. Embrace the technology, sure, but also keep an eye on what others are doing. It’s early days for A.I., which means it’s difficult for everyone to find truly the right way forward. Within a year or two, Hillion thinks there will be reference architectures and implementations that will establish some guardrails for A.I. development; but until then, it’s important to be careful as you build and test your own A.I.-based solutions. 

Third, if you’re interested in data science as a profession, you’ll need to learn a core group of skills, including (but definitely not limited to) Python—which Steven calls the lingua franca of a data scientist—SQL, machine learning, and statistics. 

We covered a whole lot of other topics during the episode, of course, so give it a re-listen if there was something you missed. We’ll see you next time—and remember, Dice is your best resource to find the tech talent you need to fill your open roles, and for technologists, the best place to grow your tech career. 

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