There is this point in our lives when we make a career decision, we find our interest in a particular thing and try to make a living with it. Looking out for a career in tech will give birth to questions like:
What do I really wanna do?
Must I know how to code?
Knowing what to do is totally left to you to decide. I'm sure you already have a particular thing that caught your attention or something you have a special skill in, you can definitely go for it.
Must I know how to code?
I think this is the question majority of people ask about starting a career in tech. This basically happens because coding is the most glamorous and famous career path in tech since coding is the basis of paths like web development, Machine Learning, artificial intelligence, mobile app development, Android development, cloud computing, Database Administrator, software engineering, Video game development just to mention a few. This makes people think coding is all that you can do in tech. Hence, they feel like they must know how to code and most times the same people end up finding coding too hard and just give up. Chill! You don't really have to know how to code. Lemme take you through other "non-coding" roles you can build a career in, in tech.
Customer Support: This is always the most unrecognized role for people considering a non-coding career in tech, but as far as the tech ecosystem is concerned, they need to provide the best support experience to their customers. Therefore this is a lucrative tech career that you won't be needing any special coding skills before you can venture into it. What do you say? Interesting right?
Design: The intuition of design in tech is really broad, lately people tend to take designing as UI and UX (ie User interface and user experience respectively). These are just aspects of design and they are quite broad too. They deal with how the product feels, sounds, and looks.
A designer with a general knowledge can also do everything related to UI and UX. In a more developed tech ecosystem, it's most times divided, and some designers are just responsible for icons illustration (graphics designer), while some deal with animation only. It's normal to see a designer with the knowledge front-end web designing.
The tide has changed recently with more companies now employing designers who specialize in a single aspect of design only (UI, UX, Motion Graphics, Animation e.t.c). It is a reasonable path when if wanna build a lucrative career in the tech space.
Project Management: Every organization needs project managers (PMs), and coding isn't involved.
A project manager's job is to understand the order of execution of a project to schedule the project correctly as well as the time necessary to accomplish each individual task within the project. Project managers are people who are accountable for accomplishing the state project objectives on behalf of the client.
Don't get scared you only need to understand some terms so you can relate well with the developers and you will be able to manage the project properly. Can you manage people? Do you think you can communicate well with people? Can you design efficient processes? You don't wanna do all the coding things? Then this is you, you can consider being a Project Manager.
Product Management: This is important in tech organizations. Product Managers are also known as PMs and are most times mixed up with Project managers. They deal with new product development, business justification, planning, verification, forecasting, pricing, product launch, and marketing of product(s) at all product lifecycle stages. Product managers are like a middle man between the developer, designer, and the company. They are responsible for analyzing market conditions and defining the features and functions of a product. They also oversee the production of the product.
Technical Writing: This aspect is fast growing in the tech space. Technical writers are needed to write documentation of a developed project, product, or application. You don't really need a special coding skill to be a technical writer. Although you will need to understand what you wanna write about. You sure need good communication skills both writing and speaking. If you think you are a good writer, you can read and do research, then consider becoming a technical writer.
Marketing: Marketing is pretty broad. It entails digital marketing, growth marketing, content marketing, and more. This deals with designing and conducting experiments to optimize and improve the outcome of a target audience. You might wanna ask what do growth marketers do? In the tech ecosystem, growth marketers are those people who put gleam focused on making sure there is growth in the orders, ads viewed, subscriptions, and other better ways that capture the significant value of the product or service delivered. They create awareness of the product. Skills growth marketers must have are:
Marketing skills, design, analytics, written and spoken communication, and more. No sweat, no coding is required.
You find the idea of careers in tech without coding fascinating right?
Actually there are amazing things you can do in tech without coding, remember you have the ability to do whatever it is you wanna do, just set your mind to it and go for it.
When you feel like coding is just not your thing but you wanna have a career in tech there are numerous non-coding careers in tech. Google is your friend. You can visit Google.
Just take the first shot and every other thing will fall in line. You can take courses on the above skills on Udacity Udemy, Pluralsight , Shaw Academy. I hope you find your right path and you do exploit.
You deserve EVERYTHING and MORE!
Thanks for reading. I hope you find this article helpful in making that decision.
