It’s been around in the blog-sphere, people mentioning that Jordan is becoming a country for technology, and how it should be as a Silicon Sahara. I would like to share some opinions on that.
Yes, Jordan, compared to other countries in the area, is a very good place to invest in technology, if you are insisting on investing in this area. But still we have some problems.
From the Telecommunication part, telecommunication companies here have a very bad service, calling customer service is a nightmare, also there online services are buggy. Also we have this monopoly contracts, for example, 3G service is new in Jordan, and the only company that can provide that service is orange, not keeping any other place for competition, it’s if you want 3g either use orange, and deal with all there problems, or just forget the idea.
Also, Internet speed is not that high, and not that stable either, so I don’t think anybody in his right mind well host a website here in Jordan.
From the political side, I guess you can read here on why you shouldn’t host in Jordan.
Now, for the other part, of the equation, people, you cannot say that people here are online yet, only a few would buy something online, or even read a review about a restaurant before visiting it. So targeting Jordan in your website, wouldn’t bring you much profit :).
For techies, well, our educational system in the ICT department, is getting worse and worse, colleges are asking for high pensions, for so little stuff to teach, or worse, they teach wrong, or so much outdated information. Universities here are teaching it’s students software methodologies that were proven to not work 15 years ago. And after 4 years of studying computer science, the student can barely change the background of his desktop. I’ve interviewed a lot of these graduates, and for most of them, I think if they don’t have a degree would be better.
The other thing, and I think most of the world suffer from it, is that good technical people need to switch to management to get a better salary. From my point of view, Technical, and Management are 2 different thing, 10 years of experience in Programming doesn’t make someone to be qualified as a Team leader. Also when you promote someone to management, you lose him as an asset as a technical. And what he can provide as a technical for him, or for the team he works in. which leads to what we have now in the market, we have good techies, but we don’t have great experienced ones.
Feel free to comment
The final challenge you mention of techies wanting to be team leaders does keep the total talent pool mediocre. I believe companies can take a lead on this by creating a career path in development that is more appealing than one in management. A starting point is to pay senior technical talent more than team leaders. (though you may have to give the ‘title’ of Team Leader so they’ll get respect among their peers).