IT Job Training in Virginia

A few Virginia Indian entrepreneurs in Fairfax, Falls Church, Centreville, Herndon, Ashburn and surrounding areas have established job oriented software training centers.

These centers provide training in Oracle PL/SQL, Microsoft SQL Server 2012, SAP, Linux, Python, Business Analysis and other technologies.

A few IT centers in Virginia also provide coding bootcamp training in Linux.

There's good money in IT with pay starting at $40,000.

With just a few years of experience, IT professionals move up into the $75,000-$85,000 salary bracket.
According to the White House, there are 500,000 job openings in the U.S. IT sector. One of those well paying jobs could be yours if you are willing to work hard.

Jobs in Linux

One of the biggest opportunities in the IT sector now lies in Linux.

A recent report from the Linux Foundation and Dice is very bullish on job opportunities for Linux professionals.

Key findings of Linux Foundation-Dice report:

Most hiring managers plan to recruit Linux professionals in the next six months. With new Linux-based systems, projects and products constantly emerging, hiring the right talent to support the growth remains a priority with employers. Nine out of 10 hiring managers intend to hire Linux talent relative to other skills areas in the next six months.
Open cloud platforms are increasing demand for Linux professionals with the right expertise. 42% of hiring managers say experience in OpenStack and CloudStack will have a major impact on their hiring decisions, while 23% report security is a sought-after area of expertise and 19% are looking for Linux talent with Software-Defined Networking (SDN) skills.
Linux-certified professionals will be especially well positioned in the job market this year, with 44% of hiring managers saying they are more likely to hire a candidate with Linux certification, and 54% expecting either certification or formal training of their SysAdmin candidates.
More developers and SysAdmins are learning Linux as companies are getting even more aggressive about rolling out Linux-based systems and devices to support cloud, mobile and embedded, and emerging areas such as Software-Defined Networking (SDN).

How to Pick Up Linux Skills

To start your Linux journey, learn to work on the command line.

If you're a complete newbie to Linux, my recommendation would be to start with Linux Mint or Ubuntu. You can download LinuxMint here, and burn it to an USB drive or DVD using the free unetbootin software.

Once you have Linux Mint or Ubuntu on the USB drive, you can then boot with it and run it off the USB drive or DVD (it will of course run a little slow). For faster performance, install Linux in a partition on your laptop or desktop, through virtualization or as a full install on an old PC that you can get off Craigslist or eBay.

If you select the virtualization option, set up the free VirtualBox software on your computer and then install one of the Linux distributions as a virtual machine. A big plus of VirtualBox is that it runs on Windows and Mac systems too.