Navigating the Talent Crunch: Effective Reskilling Strategies for Software Engineering Talent

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• Reskilling Building Cost- effective Software
  Engineering Talent
• (Focus on the US)

Conceptualised and Developed May 2023 This
document aims to showcase the evolving complexity
of software engineering and the growing demand
for New age skills and further provides an
overview of cost-effective reskilling strategies
to navigate the hiring budget challenge
Copyright _at_2023 Draup. All rights reserved
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Growing Complexity of Software Engineering (SE)
due to

• Advancements in Generative AI and Automation
• Constant Upgradation of tech stacks

Executive Summary
Hiring challenges

• Scarcity of Talent with emerging skills
• Inflated talent cost due to hiring competition

• Cost-effective strategies to fill talent gap
• Upskill Software Talent Save 10-50 on the cost
• Reskill Adjacent Tech/IT Roles Boosts employee
  retention
• Recruit to Reskill Save 40K - 70K/ FTE

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CONTENTS
Pages 4-6

• This section covers
• Key trends impacting Software Engineering job
  function
• Impact of trends on the skillset of Software
  Engineering job roles
• LD strategies becoming critical for
• building Software Engineering teams

• Emergence of New Age skillsets in Software
• Engineering Job family

8-14

• Actionable LD strategies to build Software
  Engineering workforce with emerging skillsets

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Growing complexity in Software Engineering (SE)
Evolving trends in technologies such as
Cybersecurity, Blockchain, and
AI are increasing the complexity of Software
Engineering
Currents Trends in Technologies leading to major
changes in Software Engineering
Critical role of Software Engineering
Crucial technologies with base as Software
Engineering
Cyber-security to Cyber-Immunity
Building resilient systems to strengthen
Cyber Security
Cybersecurity
Blockchain
Internet of Things
Metaverse
Blockchain Oriented Software (BOS)
Low-Code/ No-Code
Building decentralized and secure software
ecosystem through application decentralization
AI/ML (Generative AI)
Other Technologies
Generative AI Based Software Dev. Assistant such
as ChatGPT
Software Engineering is central to multiple
technologies as it enables the creation of
sophisticated, powerful, and user- friendly
systems
Software Engineering
Generative AI automating code building,
supporting Software Engineering
DevOps DBMS
Cloud integration with Microservice to enable
agile, scalable, and flexible applications
Industry - Cloud Integration
Server/Cloud
Operating System
AI based Automation in DevOps
Automated CI/CD with AI-based monitoring for
detecting issues, speeding up deployment
Tech. Methodologies supporting SE
Note Insights have been extracted from Draups
ML model which analyses 2 M publications,
Industry reports, and news articles on a weekly
basis. Data has been collected from publicly
available sources such as Government portals,
news articles, and recent reports on the Global
Market
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Emerging Skillsets in Software Engineering
Increasing complexity is expanding the Software
Technology stack, leading
to demand for emerging and New Age skillsets
Soft skills required at each level of Software
Engineering job family
Emerging functional skillsets and tools in
Software Engineering job family
Leadership Business Acumen Negotiation Skills
Time Management Cognitive Flexibility Presentation Skills
Empathy Strategic Thinking Customer- Centricity
Decision-Making Organizational Skills Emotional Intelligence
Analytical Skills Problem Solving Collaborative Skills
Critical Thinking Communication Skills Detail-Oriented
Emerging Functional Skills
Tools addition due to emerging skillset
Databases And Object- relational Mapping (ORM)
Frameworks
IoT Wearable Devices Mobile App Development
(WebRTC, RTSP)
Build Automation Tools (Gradle, Maven)
Version Control Software Tools (IBM Rational Clearcase, Git)
ORM Frameworks (Hibernate, Apache OpenJPA)
Development Frameworks (ReactJS, AngularJS, Node JS, Next.js)
Traditional Functional Skills
Front-end Technology Stack (ReactJS)
Job Role Maturity
Software Design, Development Documentation
Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) Ruby on
Rails GO language
Software
Engineering
Systems Design Interfaces
Software Systems Frameworks (AnglularJS, Git,
.NET)
Computer Ar., OS, And Data Structures
Programming Languages (JavaScript, Java, C,
PHP, Python, Go)
Containerization (Docker, Kubernetes)
Source Code Management Revision Control System
SDE or Software Development Engineer is one of
the critical role (analyzed further in detail)
Soft skills
Source Draups AI-Driven Talent Intelligence
Platform Note Above mentioned skillsets are not
exhaustive. Draup analyses 30K skills for 4,500
job roles from 350 Mn Job description Databases
and 750 Mn Talent profiles.
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Inflated software talent salaries and budget cuts
are prompting enterprises to adopt Reskilling
as a sustainable and cost-effective alternative
to Lateral hiring
Actionable Cost-effective Reskilling strategies
to overcome lateral hiring challenges
Challenges in building a Software Engineering
team by hiring
Internal Upskilling
Low High Low
Limited talent A availability in hiring location
Highly inflated Talent B cost for the
existing talent pool
Emerging/New Age C ..Skillsets requirement by
companies

• Identify emerging skillsets required in firm
• Assess the current gap by mapping skills
• Develop custom LD programs

Internal Reskilling
Moderate Moderate Moderate
Total Tech talent

• Identify adjacent talent within the firm
• Simulate the feasibility of reskilling
  transitions
• Reskill with targeted LD modules

Recruit to Reskill
High Moderate High

• Identify low-cost locations with high
  availability of
• adjacent talent
• Recruit talent with high skills overlap
• Reskill with emerging skillsets

Narrowing hiring pipeline
Number of Bubbles indicates talent availability
Note Illustrative representation
Time required Cost effectiveness Scalability
Note Draup has a dedicated Reskilling
Navigator module that tracks 4 Million career
paths to understand the Reskilling feasibility
between job roles. Using Machine Learning models,
Draup analyses the skills gap and suggests
targeted learning modules from a corpus of 300K
courses. Sample Visual representation of
decreasing talent availability, actual data may
vary
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CONTENTS
Pages 4-6

• Emergence of New Age skillsets in Software
  Engineering Job family

• This section covers
• Internal upskilling for SDE or Software
  Development Engineer talent with New Age
  skillsets
• Internal Reskilling
• Job role assessment
• Transition analysis
• Recruit to Reskill
• MSA assessment across the United States
• Deep-dive analysis for adjacent talent in Atlanta
• Cost analysis of Reskilling vs Hiring

8-14

• Actionable LD strategies to build Software
  Engineering workforce with emerging skillsets

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A. Internal Upskilling(1/2) B. Internal Reskilling C. Recruit to Reskill
Emerging Skillsets Roles such as SDE are evolving rapidly. New-Age SDE skills such as Containerization, NLP tools and Microservices architecture are in high demand Emerging Skillsets Roles such as SDE are evolving rapidly. New-Age SDE skills such as Containerization, NLP tools and Microservices architecture are in high demand Emerging Skillsets Roles such as SDE are evolving rapidly. New-Age SDE skills such as Containerization, NLP tools and Microservices architecture are in high demand
Draup analyzed 100 companies to understand the
emerging and in-demand cloud skillsets of a
sample role - Software Development Engineer
Software Systems And Frameworks Software Systems And Frameworks Debugging Database Management Systems Data Engineering Infrastructure Management Data Engineering Infrastructure Management Application and Web development Application and Web development Cloud Computing DevOps
GPT Prompt Engineering for Developers (AutoGPT , OpenAI etc) Front-end or Client-side Technology Stack (Reactjs) Performance Tuning (Profiling Tools, Code Optimization Load Testing) Non-relational Database Mgmt. MongoDB, Cassandra, Redis, Elasticsearch) Data Warehousing (Amazon Redshift, Google Big Query, Snowflake etc.) Natural Language Processing Tools (NLTK, spaCy) IoT Protocols and Frameworks (MQTT, CoAP, AMQP, LoRaWAN,etc ) Low-code or No- code Platforms (Appian,Mendix, Kisslfow etc) Serverless Hybrid Cloud Computing Programs- (Lambda , EC2 etc) Debugging Serverless Applications (AWS Lambda Azure Functions)
Ruby on Rails GO Language (and other in-demand languages ) Understanding of Data Structures And Algorithms (Leetcode, Etc. ) Cloud Debugging (CloudWatch Logs, Azure Application Insights, Google Stackdriver) NoSQL Databases (Cassandra, Aerospike, DynamoDB) Big Data Processing and Analysis Tools (Hadoop, Spark) Machine Learning Algorithms (Decision trees, Linear Logistic Regression, etc. Cross-platform Development (React Native, Flutter, Xamarin) Wearable Devices Mobile App Development (WebRTC, RTSP) Containerization Orchestration (Docker, Kubernetes, etc.) Continuous Integration/Conti nuous Delivery (CI/CD)(Jenkins, GitLab,CircleCI,etc)
Software Systems Frameworks (Anglularjs, Git, Github, and . NET Software Systems Frameworks (Anglularjs, Git, Github, and . NET Security Debugging (penetration testing, static code analysis, etc.) Database- Processing Engines (Presto.etc) Machine Learning Frameworks (TensorFlow, PyTorch) Machine Learning Frameworks (TensorFlow, PyTorch) Advanced Code Editors (IntelliJ, Eclipse) Advanced Code Editors (IntelliJ, Eclipse) Serverless Architecture Platform (AWS Lambda, Azure Functions) Infrastructure as Code Tools (Terraform, CloudFormation, ARM templates)
Programming Languages (JavaScript, Java, C, PHP, Python) Familiarity with Software Dev. Methodologies (e.g., Agile, Scrum) Profiling (Visual Studio Profiler, JetBrains dotTrace, and Apache Jmeter) Databases and Object-relational Mapping (ORM) Frameworks Source Control Mgmt. Tools (GitHub, Bitbucket) Microservices Architecture Tools (Spring Boot, Apache Kafka) Basic Web Development Tools (HTML/CSS, JavaScript) API Development (REST, GraphQL, OpenAPI, Swagger etc.) Platform Infrastructure as- a-Service tools (Heroku) Configuration Management Tools (Chef, Puppet)
Computer Architecture, Operating Systems OOPs Operating Systems Knowledge (Linux Windows other OS-tech) Debugging Tools and Techniques (Visual Studio Debugger, GDB, and LLDB, etc.) Basic Relational Database Mgmt. Systems (MySQL, PostgreSQL) Big Data Querying and Analysis Tools (SQL, Hive, and Presto, etc.) Data Integration and ETL (Apache NiFi, Talend, and Informatica) Front-end Development (HTML, CSS, JavaScript, React, Angular, Vue.js) Back-end Development (Node.js, Ruby on Rails, ASP.NET, Django, Flask, etc.) Cloud Platforms (AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, Platform, etc.)
Emerging skills
Existing skills
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Source The represented data has been derived
using Draups Proprietary Talent Database which
tracks 30,000 skills. Note The research is based
on internal analysis. The list of skills is not
exhaustive.
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B. Internal Reskilling
C. Recruit to Reskill
A. Internal Upskilling(2/2)
Upskilling analysis Upskilling Internal SDE
talent can meet the requirements of emerging
skill sets Saving up to 50 cost on Lateral
hiring and boosting employee satisfaction
Draups analysis of SDE that can be upskilled
into In-demand Software Development Engineer
(SDE) job role with emerging skillsets
Benefits of Upskilling
Saving in talent cost Employees with new-age
skill have high talent cost which can be saved by
upskilling the current talent with emerging skills
Learning modules required to acquire missing
skills
Traditional Software Development Engineer
Software Development Engineer with emerging skills
Generative Deep Learning with TensorFlow Coursera
16 hours
AWS Fundamentals Building Serverless
Apps Coursera 10 hours
Standard SDE talent cost (base pay)
Talent cost with emerging skillsets
134,000 Median salary
150K-200K 95th percentile
Event Monitoring and Alerting with
Prometheus Pluralsight 9 hours
Introduction to ZigBee Udemy 4 hours
Cost savings
Competitive advantage
Decentralized Applications (Dapps)
Smart Contracts
Companies with emerging skillsets can gain
competitive advantage by offering cutting-edge
products and services
Coursera
17 hours
17 hours
Natural Language Pro. with Attention
Models Coursera 35 hours
Improved efficiency for organization
MQTT Masterclass Udemy 5 Hours
SDEs with emerging skillsets can leverage new
tools to build better products faster and with
fewer resources.
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Note Sample Learning modules mentioned. Source
Draups dedicated Reskilling module Reskilling
Navigator intelligently prompts targeted courses
for 4,500 job roles from a corpus of 300K courses
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B. Internal Reskilling(1/2)
C. Recruit to Reskill
A. Internal Upskilling
Identifying adjacent talent Reskilling adjacent
(disrupted) talent to SDE can also help meet
future demand if the hiring challenges persist
Identifying and Reskilling low-demand and
low-cost adjacent talent (with high skills
overlap)
Key Insights
High
Top reasons to choose Database Administrator, IT
Service Manager, and System Engineer-
System Support Engineer
Technical Support Specialist
Technical Support Engineer

• Moderate talent cost
• Moderate to high talent
• availability
• Low to moderate talent demand
• High-Cost ROI compared to hiring
• Provides viable and disruption-proof career path

Network Administrator
Database Administrator
Reskilling Propensity
.NET Developer
Middleware Engineer
Linux Administrator
IT Service Manager
System Engineer
Mainframe Developer
Top reskilling areas include
Maintenance Engineer
Network Engineer
Server Engineer

• Programming Language Algorithms
• Agile/Scrum Methodologies
• Software Web Development

Bubble Size denotes Job Role Talent Demand in
United States 150K 200K 250K 300K Talent Size in
United States
Firmware Engineer
Desktop Engineer K 50K 100K
Low
350K K 1,000
Notes Above analysis is done using Draups
Reskilling Simulator and Reskilling Navigator
features. Existing Skills and Core skill gaps for
Reskilling propensity have been identified for
4,500 job roles through the analysis of relevant
JDs from a dataset of over 350 Million Job
Descriptions.
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B. Internal Reskilling(2/2)
C. Recruit to Reskill
A. Internal Upskilling
Reskilling transition Identifying skills gaps
and Reskilling with targeted modules can reduce
the transition time drastically. Reskilling can
future-proof job roles which are prone to
disruption
Sample Job roles
Database skills training not required
Database Administrator
Flow of learning to bridge the gap for missing
skills
Software Development Engineer (Basic Proficiency)
Programming Language
Agile/Scrum methodologies
Web Development
System Engineer
Database Skills
Software Development
Sample suggested courses for each skillset
IT Service Manager
Software Development Processes and Methodologies Coursera
FS Web Development with React, React Native, Bootstrap Udemy
Troubleshooting Debugging Techniques Coursera
Software Design and Architecture Udacity
Software Development Lifecycle Coursera
Transition analysed in slide-9 in detail
Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery
(CI/CD) Coursera
HTML, CSS, and JavaScript for Web Developers
Coursera
The Complete Full stack Web Developer Course Udemy
Advanced MySQL Topics Coursera
Software Development Engineer with emerging skills
Advanced SQL Queries in Oracle and SQL Server
Pluralsight
Developing Cloud Native Applications edX
Programming for beginners with C C Java
Python Udemy
Desired Job role
Note Draup performs complex assessment around
various other critical Reskilling parameters
between existing and desired roles to understand
skill gap and match it with relevant learning
modules. The path showcased are not
exhasutive Source Draups dedicated Reskilling
module Reskilling Navigator intelligently
prompts targeted courses for 4,500 job roles
from a corpus of 300K courses
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C. Recruit to Reskill(1/3)
A. Internal Upskilling B. Internal Reskilling
Leveraging cost-effective locations in the US
Leading firms are evaluating emerging locations
such as Atlanta (with abundant adjacent talent)
to hire and reskill them into SDE United States
SDE Talent Hotspots and skills overlap at top
MSA SDE Talent Hotspots with relevant, adjacent
and emerging skillsets
MSAs Total SDE Talent Availability Talent with Adjacent Skillsets Talent with Emerging Skillsets
New York
San Francisco
Seattle
Washington D.C.
Los Angeles
Boston
Dallas/Fort Worth
Chicago
Atlanta
Austin
Tulsa
Detroit
Denver
Philadelphia
Seattle
Boston
Detroit
New York
San Francisco
Philadelphia
Denver
Chicago
Washington D.C.
Tulsa
Atlanta
Los Angeles
Dallas/Fort Worth Austin
Relevant Talent Availability High Medium Low
Established location

Total Relevant Talent Availability H gt 120K M 60K 120K L lt 60K

Talent with Adjacent Skillsets H gt 120K M 60K 120K L lt 60K

Talent with Emerging Skillsets H gt 10K M 5K 10K L lt 5K

Talent with Emerging Skillsets
Size of bubble represent Talent with adjacent
skillset
Deep Dive Location
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Note Above mentioned Hiring locations are not
exhaustive. Source Draup Talent Intelligence
Platform which tracks 750M professional
profiles, 30,000 skillsets across 4,500 job
roles was leveraged to find talent skill breakdown
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C. Recruit to Reskill(2/3)
A. Internal Upskilling B. Internal Reskilling
Atlanta Assessing Talent landscape Though the
SDE talent pool is limited, The adjacent talent
pool (with high skillsets overlap) is relatively
higher Draups analysis of adjacent job roles
available in Atlanta Case study of transition
from QA Engineer to SDE 120K
Bubble Size denotes Job Role Skills Overlap
with Software Development Engineer
QA Engineer
QA Test Automation Engineer
110K
Transitioning to SDE will include acquiring
skillsets such as
C, C Developer
Limited transition possibility as the basic SDE
skillsets are needed to learn the emerging
skillsets
Talent Cost (In USD)

• SQl
• Java/ Python
• Full Stack dev.
• Software Design
• SDLC

QA Engineer
Middleware Engineer
100K
.NET Deve
System Analyst
Database Administrator
loper
(sample, not exhaustive)
System Engineer
90K
Programmer
Analyst
10-12 weeks
Software Development Engineer
SDE with Emerging skills
IT Service Manager
Linux
Administrator
Network Engineer

• Acquiring Skillsets in
• Ruby on rails/Go
• Virtualization(VMware),
• CI/CD Automation(CircleCI)
• Cybersecurity framework
• (sample, not exhaustive)

80K
Talent Size
0
1,000 2,000 3,000 4,000 5,000 6,000 7,000 8,000
K 1,000
Talent Demand
Low
Medium
High
Note Above mentioned job roles are not
exhaustive. Source Draup Talent Intelligence
Platform that tracks 700M professional profiles,
350M Job descriptions across 4,500 job roles
was leveraged to find talent with adjacent
skillsets. Draups dedicated Reskilling module
Reskilling Navigator intelligently prompts
targeted courses for 4,500 job roles from a
corpus of 300K courses
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C. Recruit to Reskill(3/3)
A. Internal Upskilling B. Internal Reskilling
Recruit to Reskill vs. Hiring in Atlanta
Companies can save 18 cost (per FTE) by
recruiting an adjacent QA Engineer and Reskilling
to an SDE role Benefits of Recruit to Reskill
strategy Cost analysis of Hiring SDE vs.
Recruiting QA Engineer and Reskilling to SDE in
Atlanta 34K
Increased talent pool
Overall cost saved by company 30K
180K
158K
160K
High availability of Talent with adjacent skills
in the ecosystem
19K
140K
128K
120K
Talent base pay
One-time cost saved on FTE
9.8K
Creativity and Innovation
100K
139K
16K
80K
9K
5K higher median salary
Adjacent talent can bring fresh perspectives and
ideas to the organization
Updated base pay 118K
102K
60K
in Atlanta as compared to
40K
overall US
Base pay saved on every FTE
Cost savings
20K
K
21K
18 cost saving by reskilling adjacent talent
into SDE job role
Cost of hiring new SDE-1(lt5 years experience)
with emerging skillset
Cost of recruiting adjacent talent and reskilling
to SDE
Cost savings compared to overall US
Improved diversity and Inclusion
up to 70K
Non-traditional hiring location can have diverse
talent landscape
Base Pay Non-Recurring cost Incentive Reskilling
Cost
Note Non-Recurring Cost one-time expense
during the hiring process, including advertising
costs, background check fees, travel expenses for
interviews, sign-on bonuses, relocation expenses,
etc. Non-recurring cost is only indicative(might
vary depending on location, company, skills,
etc). Source Draup analyses 16 Million data
attributes for 4,500 job roles daily to help
global HR leaders in Planning, Hiring
Reskilling their Future-Ready Workforce.
Indicative, for first year only.
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About Draup
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Draup leverages Machine learning models to curate
data provided in the report. Similar analysis can
be performed for 4,500 job roles or any job
family
Draup Capabilities Data Assets
EMPOWERS DECISION MAKING IN
Reskilling Upskilling
TALENT INTELLIGENCE
Strategic Workforce Planning
ROLES SKILLS TAXONOMY
PEER BENCHMARKING
Career Path Development
LOCATION INTELLIGENCE
Talent Acquisition
Explore Diverse Job Roles, Locations and
Ecosystem Insights
DIGITAL IMPACT ON TRADITIONAL ROLES
Digital Transformation
DIVERSITY ACQUISITION
Diversity Inclusion
CAREER JOURNEY MAPPING
University Relations
UNIVERSITY INTELLIGENCE
COURSES/ CERTIFICATIONS
Peer Intelligence
and diverse other use cases
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4,500
JOB ROLES
Draup for Talent Draup analyses 16 Million data
attributes every day to help global HR leaders in
Planning, Hiring Reskilling their Future-Ready
Workforce
500,000 PEER GROUP COMPANIES
33 INDUSTRIES
750M PROFESSIONALS
350M JOB DESCRIPTIONS
300,000 COURSES
2,500 LOCATIONS
14,000 UNIVERSITIES
4M CAREER PATHS ANALYZED
30,000 SKILLS
47,000 DIGITAL TOOLS PLATFORMS
175,000 UNIVERSITY PROFESSORS
75 MACHINE LEARNING MODELS DEYELOPED
16M DAILY DATA POINTS ANALYZED
100 LABOR STATISTIC DATABASE
1,000 CUSTOM TALENT REPORTS
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www.draup.com HOUSTON I BANGALORE 2023 DRAUP.
All Rights Reserved.
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