In my career, I’ve been fortunate (or unfortunate depending on your point of view) to become heavily involved in the process of recruiting and hiring engineering talent for multiple companies.  I’m discouraged to say that the User Interface Engineer (which I’m defining quite differently than Jared Spool’s UIE.com site) is among the most difficult positions to fill (right up there with build & release engineers). Too many people get into Web Development with no formal engineering background making them ill-equipped to solve engineering challenges that they face daily while building a User Interface. I see so many resumes for traditional web developers who can’t tell me the difference between an Array and a List or how recursion can often provide a simpler solution than iteration. I can assure you as the guy who will be reviewing your resume or doing your phone screen or interview: developing these skills is no longer optional!

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