What is the development of your career?

What would be better career choice: application development or data warehouse development?

• I am confused in choosing right career track. I have two offers in hand. One is for a medium scale product based company as Software Developer (focused on Java, Spring, Hibernate). Another offer I have is in a small service based company as an ETL developer on Ab-initio which is a rare but powerful ETL tool in market. Both offers are with almost similar package. I have 2 years of experience and I am having good grip on both profiles.  However personally I enjoyed Java development as I found it more technology oriented.  My concerns are as follows: 1)            I came to know by few colleagues that Java Software Developers are not getting paid well due to high competition. However data warehouse developers (ETL developer) are paid better compared to software developers. Up to which extend this is true? 2)            How is the future scope of application development compared to Data warehouse development? Is java about to reach stagnancy? 3)            How is current market demand of Ab Initio developers? How difficult would it be to switch to some other ETL tool with experience of Ab Initio ?   Above concerns are with respect to indian IT market.   Thanking in advance for all response and suggestions. I have 1 week to take my decision.

• Answer:

  In my experience, I would choose a programming language. With a programming language you could build an ETL tool but not the other way around. By learning an ETL tool you get constrained to only know that, ofcourse after a certain point it becomes flat and your specialist competency dims off. Your statement reflects the same " enjoyed Java development"