The need for more leaders and prepared workforces feature heavily on the 2024 hiring wish lists of the tech employers we spoke to.
Over the past few weeks, we have been looking at HR trends, hiring plans, most in-demand sci-tech jobs and skills as part of our 2024 tech trends coverage. At the start of this month, we featured a round-up of the 10 hottest tech jobs to apply for this year. Business analyst topped the list, but other more technical tech jobs featured strongly also – such as DevOps engineer, software engineer and multiple other types of engineering. If you’re an engineer looking for a job, you’ll have plenty of options at least.
Sometimes, it can be difficult to know where to look and what to look for when you’re faced with choices as a jobseeker. We decided to ask a few tech employers in Ireland about the types of roles they are hoping to fill in 2024. Unsurprisingly, there have not been any seismic shifts when it comes to specific role requirements; most of the employers we spoke to want to hire engineers, developers and people with data skills.
But what employers have been telling us is their 2024 hiring priorities are focused on preparation and leadership. That is, companies are looking to take on senior leaders and those who will help them prepare for any uncertainties down the line in the digital transformation space.
With AI advancing fast and tech skills gaps affecting multiple industries, even multinationals are not immune to hiring headaches. Financial services and tech multinational Fidelity has its sights set on the future and hiring leaders. It is hoping to build out its team in Galway and Dublin, recruiting for roles in software and data engineering, product management, and scrum and agile leadership.
Eimear Coffey, VP for technology management at Fidelity Ireland explained in more detail what kind of leaders it is looking for. “For leadership roles, we are looking for engineering leads, scrum masters and product managers who appreciate Fidelity’s focus on culture and community and have proven leadership experience developing and nurturing creative software development teams.
“Skills include coaching and mentoring, communications, collaboration, influencing, as well as leading design and development of dynamic products,” she said. “We’re looking for leaders who are engaged and curious and model a culture of continuous learning, mentoring and coaching.”
Fidelity is also hiring for more junior roles over the coming months, Coffey said. “For software engineer openings, we are recruiting for both junior and senior roles including front-end, fullstack, QA, cloud and DevOps engineers. The ideal candidates will have strong engineering capabilities, a passion for continuous improvements and learning, excellent communication skills and experience working in an agile scrum environment.”
Similar to Fidelity, fashion tech platform Zalando sees leadership as a priority for 2024. But it is also not discounting the possibility of growing its junior staff complement.
“We are focusing on predominantly engineering roles, this includes front-end, back-end and mobile areas. Currently we are seeking senior roles, but also see the possibility of mid and junior level roles later in the year,” said Shaelyn Klaus, talent acquisition cluster function lead at Zalando’s tech department.
“We will also potentially see hiring in other tech areas throughout the year such as data science, product management and product design.”
Vipin Tanwar, director in consulting and human capital at Deloitte, gave us an overview of the tech roles professional services firms are recruiting for currently.
Data analysts, cybersecurity specialists, enterprise resource planning consultants, cloud architects, AI and machine learning engineers, fullstack developers, and UI and UX designers are some of the people professional services companies like Deloitte will be looking to hire in 2024.
“These roles reflect the evolving landscape of technology and the growing demand for skilled professionals,” said Tanwar, adding that the “rapid advancements in technology and the increasing reliance on digital transformation” will continue to shape demand. His words are a good reminder for people with tech skills not to discount professional services employers, or indeed other industries looking for workers with tech skills.
Tanwar said that generative AI in particular is driving employers across all industries to seek out workers who can develop machine learning algorithms and AI models to automate processes. Likewise, cybersecurity continues to be a big employer, as does any role in data science. For some companies, especially those in the fintech sphere, blockchain skills are in-demand. “The adoption of blockchain technology is gaining momentum in sectors like finance, supply chain and healthcare,” said Tanwar.
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