NoSQL Job Trends – February 2011

February is obviously job trends month here, and we have another installment. Today, we are looking at NoSQL job trends. In the previous installment of NoSql job trends, there were eight products included. In this edition, I have included Riak due to a recommendation in the previous post and the amount of buzz I have seen over the past few months. So, the list includes Cassandra, Redis, Voldemort, SimpleDB, CouchDB, MongoDB, HBase, Hypertable and Riak. As was stated previously, Hadoop is not included due to the way it flattens the trends of other solutions. Hadoop is still the clear leader in demand, but other tools are starting to close that gap. So, Hadoop could return to the analysis in the next update in August.

First, we look at the trends from Indeed:

Cassandra is still leading in demand, but that lead is declining. In addition to the fact that there is some noise in the jobs data for Cassandra, so the lead is likely smaller. MongoDB has grown rapidly in the past year, matching the pace of Cassandra. HBase is still growing, but the trend is much flatter than the two leaders, this could be due to its Hadoop heritage, and a lack of job requests specifically for HBase but for the general Hadoop family. Redis is showing nice growth in the past 6 months, surpassing CouchDB which is still growing, but has a much slower trend. Interestingly, SimpleDB and Voldemort both have shown a decline in the past few months, despite the growth of other tools. Riak has just started to see some growth, already passing Hypertable which is completely flat.

Now, let’s look at the short term trends of SimpleHired:

SimplyHired agrees with Indeed, showing Cassandra and MongoDB leading and HBase growing at a slightly slower pace. The agreement continues with the trends for Redis and CouchDB. The trend for SimpleDB is different, showing a nice peak in October 2009, dropping quickly to a low in January 2010 and some slow growth after that point. Voldemort is showing a flat trend or a slight decline, and Riak shows some solid growth in the past 6 months. Overall, the short term trends do not show much difference from the long term trends.

Now, let’s look at the relative growth from Indeed:

This image shows the problem that can occur with the relative growth chart. When one tool grows quickly enough, the growth of other tools looks flat. As an example, look at the growth of Redis, which looks like a solid trend but in reality has grown around 15,000%. So, MongoDB is growing at an incredible pace, as is Redis. Oddly, HBase did not show huge growth in the regular job trends graph, but it is still growing very rapidly. Cassandra shows that it is still growing strong, but the growth may be slowing. CouchDB is not showing the same tremendous growth as the other tools, but 2000% growth is not a bad trend. SimpleDB and Voldemort do not have promising growth trends, as they show declines here as well. Riak is showing some growth, but it does not have a long term trend to compare with. Hypertable barely registers any growth over the past two years.

What does all this mean? First, Cassandra, MongoDB and Redis are gaining in popularity. If you are looking for a new job in the NoSQL niche, those are the tools to know, with the obvious inclusion of the Hadoop family. This says nothing about your choice of technology, just what the job trends point to. Riak and CouchDB have trends that we should watch as they are definitely gaining buzz.

As always, if there are other NoSQL tools that should be included, please let me know in the comments.