The Most Sought After Candidates for IT Leadership Roles

We have been working with several senior IT and tech leaders across various industries across the United States.

We’ve seen the peak of this market (2021-2022 era) followed by a sharp fall in 2023.

Here are our observations for the promising roles, where our clients have been landing great results (and what kind of candidates are sought after)

1. AI Product Management:

Relatively new field, very limited people with PM experience in this space. Narrow window of opportunity to win big for those who have a bit of experience in this space. In a year, this market will saturate too.

If you have the experience, then make the move to an org that is taking it seriously. That way, you can ensure an exponential growth.

2. Cybersecurity:

Has been for a while, and will continue to be a really hot market in the next decade. BUT, with a big caveat. It is changing so rapidly that there’s no room for leaders imbibed in tradition.

This space is ruthless in terms of weeding out the stagnant players. Product security is getting more and more integrated. Those who are up-to-date on the latest tech are quite literally making millions.

While those who are behind the curve are just glorified IT Infrastructure leaders with some cybersec background.

3. Enterprise Application:

Constantly changing landscape, huge modernization projects have been going on over the last decade, and will continue to do so in the next. The people who are consistently rising are the ones who are moving from one challenge to another, because it is a competitive space.

Surprisingly however, even at the leadership level, companies are looking for specific experience that matches their application suite (eg: Oracle, SAP, Salesforce etc.), the domain expertise(retail, distribution, healthcare) as well as functional expertise(Supply chain, HR, Financial, Martech).

For those who have been in maintenance mode in their role, haven’t been part of any transformation in the last year, are finding it hard to land the next role.

4. IT Infrastructure:

Ideal transitions are for where a company is scaling fast, modernizing it’s infrastructure or moving to the cloud. Platform engineering, DevOps and traditional IT infrastructure roles are converging into one. Throw a good understanding of cybersecurity and your value rises.

5. Software Development:

Although saturated, these role still seem to be growing. But, the demand for relevant experience is higher than before.

Only a few years back (think 2021/22 job market) it was typical to switch across domains, an engineering leader from ECOM could simply get into a B2B SaaS. Anymore, if it’s a role in B2B SasS, they demand B2B SaaS experience specifically.

Above all, the market is promising for those who truly have a good experience.

Stagnation, however is proving to be risky for most.

Those who have stagnated long enough have either lost all prospect of growth, or getting laid off and having to make a lateral or downward move in title/scope, unfortunately.

Hope this helps. And best of luck with your job search. ???

-Varun