Those considering a career in tech often seek advice on the right path or specialty to consider. That’s a wise decision—the tech industry evolves rapidly, so knowing what the industry needs right now and what’s on the horizon improves a budding tech professional’s options when the job hunt begins. While there are many articles and news stories about tech specialties that are facing a current or future shortage of qualified candidates, there’s less information out there about specialties that may soon be obsolete.
The experts of Forbes Technology Council have their fingers on the pulse of the tech industry and know which tech skills and knowledge businesses and organizations are seeking now and in the near future—and which are being phased out. Below, 14 of them share tech specialties that may soon go by the wayside.
1. Repetitive Coding
Useful and flexible low-code/no-code solutions will soon be used at scale for builders of platforms. Being able to utilize and integrate best-in-class low-code/no-code solutions will be a critical part of software engineers’ toolkits. As a result, there will be fewer jobs for people who formerly coded repetitive and ubiquitous functions. - Ann Marie Sastry, Amesite
2. Network Engineering
Network engineering used to be one of the hardest and most critical roles for any company. Network engineers would set up the routers, gateways and systems that connected all of the computer systems of a modern corporation. However, with the rise of the cloud and the automation of network management, these roles are rarely needed anymore and soon won’t be needed at all. - Sean Byrnes, Outlier
3. Single-Language Development
Software languages used to have a long life cycle, meaning developers and software engineers could dedicate their entire careers to one software language and remain competitive. Now, however, we are seeing the life cycles of these languages lessen over time. As a result, it’s become a real challenge to find skilled developers and engineers proficient in specific languages as they lose favor. - Steve Cochran, ConnectWise
MORE FOR YOUGoogle Issues Warning For 2 Billion Chrome Users
Forget The MacBook Pro, Apple Has Bigger Plans
Google Discounts Pixel 6, Nest & Pixel Buds In Limited-Time Sale Event
4. On-Premises Datacenter Management
Managing traditional on-premises datacenters may soon become obsolete, so IT staff in those roles should begin pivoting to new specialized roles now. Given the growing pervasiveness of the cloud, the future of IT will be focused on innovating for the business with data analytics and automation rather than “keeping the lights on” activities. - Jeffrey Ton, InterVision
Forbes Technology Council is an invitation-only community for world-class CIOs, CTOs and technology executives. Do I qualify?
5. Remote IT Maintenance
The next tech specialty headed for the chopping block is remote IT maintenance—particularly at the edge. Organizations are putting more computing and storage at the edge of their networks and just cannot afford the staff to install, manage and update hardware at small sites. Edge solutions must be manageable by onsite retail store clerks, facilities managers or other non-tech employees. - Bruce Kornfeld, StorMagic
6. Single-Software Expertise
It’s tougher to build a career as a single-software expert. Teams used to center operations around a single app (such as a CRM for sales, an ERP for finance and so on). Today, enterprises use thousands of apps, so smart teams use integrations and low-code automation to bridge the gap. Now, it’s less about the ins and outs of a single app and more about using all your tools to solve fundamental business challenges. - Rich Waldron, Tray.io
7. Infrastructure Engineering
Infrastructure engineers used to be commonplace within organizations as IT departments sought to have critical oversight of on-premises solutions. With Covid-19 came mass and rapid migration to the cloud and with it the onset of the demise of infrastructure engineering, which in the future will likely only exist within the mainstream public cloud service and managed network providers. - Mark Brown, British Standards Institution (BSI)
8. SEO Optimization
I believe we will see fewer and fewer people who work as “SEO specialists.” There are a ton of plugins and tools business owners can use to quickly and easily optimize their websites. Sure, there will be people who still work with search engine optimization, but it’s quickly becoming a small part of a larger job. - Thomas Griffin, OptinMonster
9. AI And ML Development
Self-service is making many tech specialties obsolete. Infrastructure services were made obsolete by the cloud. The next tech specialties that are ripe for disruption through self-service are artificial intelligence and machine learning. There are a lot of expensive roles across these specialties, including preprocessing, ingestion, model selection, pipeline engineering and visualization. Cloud-based AutoML solutions have made these steps self-service and will soon make the specialty obsolete. - Ashok Balasubramanian, Open Weaver Inc.
10. Front-End Web Development
Tech skills are always in high demand, but some traditional tech skills are beginning to date themselves in today’s ecosystem. One tech specialty that I believe will be phased out is front-end Web development. As we move into the future, drag-and-drop Web development services such as Squarespace and Wix are poised to evolve in such a way as to remove the need for a front-end development team. - Marc Fischer, Dogtown Media LLC
11. Systems Administration
With cloud and software as a service solutions becoming normalized software delivery platforms in businesses, the need for administrators and systems experts is lessened. While technical support will continue to be a growing field, high-level administrators who operate within the systems themselves will need to shift to other areas of information technology. - Micheal Goodwin, Server At Work
12. Database Administration
I cannot remember the last time I saw a job posting for a database administrator—we see more job postings for COBOL than for DBAs. Database administration used to be a “hot job,” but between cloud features and better databases from the manufacturers, much of what a DBA used to do is taken care of elsewhere. We do see many companies looking for data engineers; what is left from the DBA role is now handled by data engineers. - David Moise, Decide Consulting
13. Quality Assurance
Generally, quality assurance roles are being actively merged with developer roles—just as ops roles became DevOps roles in the last decade. Pure QA is going away—and it is about time, as software is becoming increasingly complex to develop and test. - Nikita Ivanov, GridGain Systems
14. Application Support
Hyper-automation, virtual agents, bots and conversational AI will make the application support technician role irrelevant soon. Likewise, the paradigm shift to self-healing applications, AI, natural user interfaces and augmented, virtual and mixed realities will also contribute to making the role of application support technician obsolete. Moreover, Gen-Yers and Gen-Zers are far more tech-savvy than previous generations and don’t need an app support desk. - Gaurav Aggarwal, Avanade Inc.
