I just moved to the Denver and Boulder, Colorado area last month, specifically ending up in Broomfield, Colorado. I've been poking around the local computer programming job market, and one of the real surprises for me has been how much the Google Web Toolkit (GWT) is used in Corporate America here in Colorado. I've played with GWT before, but haven't used it for any projects that went live, so this was a big surprise to me.
Skipping my other thoughts on GWT, I'll jump right to my point. Being surprised at how many GWT jobs there are in the Boulder and Denver areas, I decided to do some "GWT jobs" searches, and found these results:
- Monster.com - 3 GWT jobs
- CareerBuilder - 4 GWT jobs
- Dice.com - 13 GWT programmer jobs
- Indeed.com - 47 GWT programming jobs
The first easy conclusion from these results is that Monster and CareerBuilder are dead. Whenever I look for programming job stats like this, I look at their websites, but they're constantly blown away by Dice and Indeed.
The Dice and Indeed websites show the results I've been seeing in the local job market. I've been contacted by more than forty technical recruiters since I moved to the Boulder, Colorado area, and they all keep saying the same thing: Java and GWT (along with other terms and technologies, like TDD, Spring Framework, Selenium).
My guess is that Corporate America programmers are attracted to GWT because (a) it feels more like Java Swing programming, and they're comfortable with that paradigm, (b) it lets them get into AJAX programming without having to learn additional tools, (c) combined with the previous point, they probably don't have web designers on their staff, so again, they can get into AJAX effects (and also have those effects within their control), and (d) GWT may be a good fit with a "web services" technology platform; every company I've spoken with also uses some form of Java web services, either a RESTful or SOAP approach (almost all REST).
These are just guesses based on my own GWT experience, and conversations with some local programmers, but I suspect they're pretty close. Again, this has just been a surprise to me because there were some things I didn't like about GWT framework when I first started using it a few years ago.
If you've worked with the Google Web Toolkit -- or decided not to use it -- I'll be glad to hear your opinion about it. Just leave a note in the comments section below.
In the meantime, that's today's update from the Boulder/Broomfield/Denver, Colorado metro area.
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