3 Popular Career Paths In Tech
Brief summary of some popular career paths to help newbies find their way into tech
Recently, I've been talking to a lot of people who are just starting their journey into tech. One thing I realized is that many people are not sure of where they want to be in tech and that's okay🤗. Tech is a really broad field with seemingly endless possibilities. Sometimes you just have to experiment and test out different things to see where you fit in.
In this post, we are going to look at 3 popular career paths in tech which might just interest you. I do want to highlight however that there are many more career paths in tech than these three and you can always do your research and find more paths if any of these is not for you. Let's get into it.
1. Web Development
HTML Code for a webpage
This is probably the most popular career path in tech, well, especially on tech Twitter😂. I think it's probably because everyone is on the internet these days and knowing how to build apps for the web gives you a wide audience as opposed to building for specific devices or operating systems.
Web development is all about building websites and/or applications that run in the browser(or web). There are several things that go into building a web application that gives rise to more career paths
Front End Development: This involves building what users see when they visit a website. The beautiful colors, images, buttons, layout, etc. The basic technologies used here are HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. HTML defines the structure of the content on the webpage, CSS defines how the content should look like while JavaScript provides the ability to interact with content (eg. clicking buttons, performing animations).
Back End Development: This part involves working with data that powers a website. When we visit a website, the browser fetches all the files and data needed to display the website from another computer somewhere out there called a server. In backend development, you write code the will run on the server and provide all the data for your website. It also involves working with databases that help you store data. To work on the backend, first, you need to learn a programming language that can run on a server. There are many of them to choose from e.g. PHP, Python, Ruby, NodeJs(JavaScript) etc.
Full Stack Development: This is basically a combination of both front and back end development.
2. Machine Learning
This is another pretty popular career path in tech. Machine learning is a part of Artificial Intelligence that deals with making software behave more accurately by predicting certain outcomes without necessarily being programmed to do so. Machine learning algorithms usually use already available data (historic) to make future predictions. A good example of this is the algorithm Youtube uses to show you recommended videos. The algorithm gathers information about the type of videos you've watched before and searches for more videos with similar content to show you. Hopefully, now you know Youtube is not using black magic to read your mind whenever they recommend your favorite songs 😂
A good starting place for Machine learning is learning Python. A lot of people say Python is king when it comes to AI and Machine learning and so I think if you are considering Machine learning as something you want to look into, then Python is the way to go.
3. Technical Writing
This is a very interesting career path in tech because unlike the others I have mentioned, technical writing doesn't require you to write code. It is all about writing/documenting the various topics that surround the technical world. Technical writing is definitely an option if you are someone who loves tech stuff or writing but you're not quite interested in the coding aspect of things.
Most technical writers work on the documentation of the various technologies out there. These documentations provide guides and vital information necessary for developers to use a given technology. This is super important because, without this documentation, developers are basically clueless on how to use the software which intend means the software is useless however great it may be. Making documentation clear and easy to understand is a really admirable skill to have as a technical writer. Nothing worst for a developer than going through bad documantation🤦♂️
Starting out in technical writing can be really easy for newbies in tech. You can always start with a personal blog where you write about the stuff you learn on your journey. You could also write and explain confusing and complex topics which you managed to figure out which will help other people understand it better too. The golden principle here is that, If you want to be a writer, WRITE!
That's it, guys. Please leave a comment on what career path you are taking😊. I would love to know where you're headed even if it's not among what we've looked at today. Also, if you're interested in content like this, don't forget to give me a Follow On Twitter so you don't miss out on my future articles. You can equally reach out to me for any issues you have as a newbie in tech and I'll try my best to help you out😊. Thanks for reading and I'll see you on the next one✌