Movers & Shakers in Tech: Who Are They Hiring?

Not surprisingly, Information Technology is one of the top industries within the BountyJobs Marketplace. As IT is both an industry as well as a job category within other industries, it’s a bit unique.  As highlighted in our 2017 Agency Recruiting Benchmark Report for IT, the 3 tech jobs sent to search with the highest volume of postings within BountyJobs were Developer, System Development, and IT Project Management. 80% of those roles were Non-Managerial, and the top 3 categories for tech jobs were Financial Services, Information Technology, and Healthcare/Health Services.

Paysa, a service providing information and insight to employees to make educated and informed decisions about their careers, recently published a report around ‘Tech Disruptors’ and ‘Tech Titans’.  They “analyzed over 8,200 job postings and over 70,000 resumes to figure out who’s hiring and which skills are the most in demand at some of the leading tech companies.” To better organize their findings, they split the data into two categories, Titans, and Tech Disruptors. Titans are public companies that had an initial public offering over 10 years ago with a current valuation of over $100 billion and Tech Disruptors are privately held or public companies that had an IPO in the last 10 years and a current valuation of over $10 billion. In this report, Titans are Amazon, Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Oracle and Tech Disruptors are Airbnb, Facebook, Snap Inc., Twitter, and Uber.

Top Tech Roles & Companies

As found in our Out to Search: A 3^rd Party Recruiting Collaboration & Performance Report which summarizes the findings to our survey, recruiter respondents listed Engineering/IT as the top job category they specialize in. With good reason – all five Tech Disruptors listed Software Engineer as their most in-demand role.  All but one Titan listed the same, with the one outlier being Microsoft whom listed Product Expert/Adviser on top and had Software Engineer coming in second. The number of job postings in all of the fiscal year 2016 compared with Q1 in 2017 displayed the same companies in order of job posting volume – Amazon, Microsoft, Oracle, Google, and Facebook.

Forbes and Indeed.com came up with a list of 25 tech companies hiring the most right now – the top ten made up a very similar list but also included Dell, SAIC, IBM, Lockheed Martin, HP, and Northrop Grumman. These companies were ranked by the number of open job roles paying $60,000 a year or more.

What Skills are Sought After? How Does Education Factor In?

Similar to the trends we see in the BountyJobs Marketplace, those in the Tech Disruptor category are looking for skills within Computer Science, Infrastructure, and Management. In the Titans camp, Computer Science, Management, and Software Development make up the top 3. When hiring for roles, both Tech Disruptors and Titans looked for 6 years of experience on average…which, as you’ll see in the next section, is more experience than that of the majority of their current staff.

Other than the percentage ‘Unknown’ (where employees did not declare education level), a Bachelors degree was earned by the majority at both Tech Disruptors and Titans except for Snap Inc. and Oracle who had a larger percentage of Masters Degrees.  A slim percentage for both groups in all companies had employees with PhDs, with Google being the highest of all at 16%.  Still, it’s worth mentioning that in many situations the amount of skill trumps education level to land a job within the tech industry. As seen in this report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, roles such as Software Developers/Programmers, Computer/Information Analysts, DBAs, Sys Admins, Network Architects, and Computer Support Specialists tend to not require a degree in higher education.

Rookies or Veterans?

Interestingly, the majority of employees at Tech Disruptors have 6-10 years experience (Airbnb, Twitter, Uber) and the majority of employees at Titans have 0-2 years experience (Apple, Microsoft, Oracle). This could be because Titans not only have larger organizations which lend themselves to have a higher number of open roles but also tend to have more entry level opportunities to offer. On average, employees seem to stay a year or two at these organizations, with Facebook being the longest at 2.02 years and Uber being the shortest at 1.23 years.  Since there is such a low unemployment rate and therefore a desperate need for skilled folks in this industry, candidates can jump from job to job without judgment from potential hiring managers. Some candidates are looking for more challenging opportunities to expand their skill sets while others are hunting the almighty dollar.

Companies from every industry are battling for skilled candidates within IT. From small start-ups to sought after Fortune 500 corporations, open roles range from entry level to expert experience with requirements that may place more value on skill than on education, and an extremely strong career growth potential. It’s no surprise that this industry and the sub categories it touches is seeing exponential growth with no end in sight.