If you are in software development, take a good hard look at the code you are writing right now.  If the string of Roman characters resemble Java or .Net or C/C++ then I have some wonderfully awful predictions about the next ten years of your life; That language is your scarlet letter and will follow/define you for the next two jobs you end up accepting.  That sounds bad but you are the blessed among the damned – You can and will find that next job.  For Bleeding Edgers, the road is not so well paved.

In my last job I was a Bleeding Edger.  You know one if you work with one, always looking at the latest release of the newest language to see if it has a better solution to your particular problem.   In my case as a Software Manager, being a Bleeding Edger meant an obsession with ROI in our software solutions.  Links to anything that could trim development time and/or expense filled my Delicious feed.  I pushed my team to move beyond Java’s heavy web frameworks and to adopt Rails as a rapid application prototyping framework.  We cranked out good, solid software solutions 4 times faster than our java days and I was happy.  When a project came along that could use Flash, we wrote it in Flex instead because knowing how this company worked, they’d want a desktop and an offline version in the future.  A year later we were cross compiling the Flex code into an AIR application and saving a tremendous amount of time, and we were happy.

But being a Bleeding Edger means there will be dark days to contrast the brilliantly sunny ones.   Our ROI figures were not enough to protect all of us throughout this economic upheaval and some would have to make the sacrifice for the rest.  I would like to say that, as the manager, I fell on my sword for them but that’s not really the case.  The decision never reached my level.  I was the highest compensated on the team and so I was killed by simple, cold math.  The blood spilled that day is still dripping.  It still hurts.

The software job market is a rigged system.  Heavyweights in the market put enough momentum behind enough Java and .Net and C/C++ projects that they can be considered perpetual motion machines.  A class hierarchy between Java and .Net, perpetuated by recruiters with a simple word match on a job board, stacks the deck against the Bleeding Edgers in the mainstream.  You are a Hatfield or you are a McCoy or you are an innocent bystander likely to get shot in the crossfire.  The mainstream is not a system able to help the Bleeding Edger.  Sure, there will be the occasional posting that isn’t in your location and is looking for some bizarrely specific, must have requirement that categorically eliminates all humans including the guy who originally wrote the book on the library they are using.  In the end, Bleeding Edgers need to work outside of the system.

For the young, there are no unemployed Bleeding Edgers only uncompensated open source code contributors.  If you have the ability to live on nearly nothing, working outside the system can be a very rewarding and ultimately fulfilling life choice.  For the responsibility burdened older generations, there are really only two options as a Bleeding Edger.  The first, and likely most chosen, is to re-assimilate into the collective; scrub your resume of all references to Ruby and Jython, and  Grail, prop up your sun certifications if you have them, and become a team player.  The rest of us Bleeding Edgers, the ones the economy hasn’t driven to ditch digging, will become the countries next batch of serial startup founders.  We will be easy to spot, just look for the scars.

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