The other day I had a conversation with an IT recruiter in Boston. She happened to mention to me that there were a number of .Net contract and fulltime positions available. Anyway, I'm not big on .Net so I told her I don't have any experience as a developer on the platform. She proceeded to tell me "too bad... I wish I could clone .Net developers." I brushed this off and the conversation ended.

Then today I start reading the CNN web site and run across the story 5 careers: Big demand, big pay and I find this:


Two tech jobs in high demand these days are .NET (dot net) developers and quality assurance analysts.

Developers who are expert users of Microsoft's software programming language .NET can make between $75,000 and $85,000 a year in major cities when they're starting out. If they pursue a job at a company that seeks someone with a background in a given field (say, a firm looking for a .NET developer experienced in using software related to derivatives) they might snag a salary hike of 15 percent or more when they switch jobs.
Those who work in software quality management, meanwhile, might make $65,000 to $75,000 a year and be able to negotiate a 10 percent to 15 percent jump in pay if they switch jobs.
I had no idea this was going on with .Net and to be honest I don't even know anyone who is a developer on that platform. It isn't such a big deal to me that .Net is hot. What is a big deal to me is that there is a segment of IT professionals that are in high demand again. It is good to see and I would hope a sign of things to come.