Tech Careers

The tech industry represents a doorway for Nigerian youths trying to escape poverty and unemployment, and with an average age of 18 years and an unemployment rate of 33 percent according to Bloomberg, the tech industry with a low barrier of entry represents the most rewarding route to escape this malaise. Several Nigerians have also come out to testify of the efficiency of this route as seen in this Piggyvest article and the Nigerian tech bros on Twitter constantly remind us of the financial security that the tech industry offers.

If you want to work in tech but don’t think that you are prepared to be a programmer yet, you will be relieved to find that there are other paths to the promised land. For one, you can combine what it is that you currently do and merge with the requirements of the tech industry in order to be a consultant in the tech industry, such as

◦Law

◦Management

◦Finance

◦Business analysis amongst others

With the above, the tech industry requires workers from other fields to provide valuable expertise and insight into the inner workings of other industries as the main aim of the tech industry is to make lives better and easier. If you do in the long term plan on programming, this is a trusted way to putting your foot in the door. However if you do wish to venture into the nitty-gritty of the tech industry and not a consultancy role, you can take this test, offered by the BloomTech Institute to decipher the role best suited to your ability. The several roles available in the tech industry include :

◦Back end development: These engineers are responsible for developing the software that we interact with, think of them as chefs in a restaurant preparing a meal. Backend development is everything that the users don't see, including all of the processes that take place behind the scenes while they use a website. It's the code that connects the web to a database, manages user connections, and executes the web application. Backend development collaborates with frontend development to deliver the final product to the end-user.

◦Front end development: These engineers are responsible for everything that the users see and interact with, think of them as waiters arranging the meal you ordered from the chefs. Front end development makes sure that your favourite websites look the same across different browsers (Safari and Chrome), different devices(laptops, pads, and phones). The purpose of front end development is to ensure that visitors to the site are presented with content that is both easy to read and relevant.

◦UI/ UX designers: Designers are responsible for designing the interface of the web pages and applications that the user interacts with while being conscious of creating the best possible user experience. They are concerned with the aesthetic of the website, deciding the sort of visual element, interaction, or animation that the user sees while being mindful of how easy it is to interact with the user interface elements.

◦Data Science: Data scientists make meaningful information out of a lot of data, they assess numbers, text, images, video, audio, and other data which are utilised to construct artificial intelligence (AI) systems that can do tasks that would ordinarily need human intelligence. They achieve this by using programming skills to take out insights from data that analysts translate to tangible value. Data scientists will occasionally need to fall back on expertise in certain domains and knowledge of mathematics and statistics.

If you however feel that your path might not align with the aforementioned, do not fear as there are other channels to grant you access to the tech industry such as;

◦Developers advocate: A developer advocate is someone tasked with acting as a bridge between engineers and the developer community, by providing feedback to both parties. A developer advocate also has the responsibility of ensuring developers are successful with a platform. A developer advocate ultimately is someone who has the developers’ back. It is advisable for a developer advocate to at least have a background in programming.

◦Product management: Product management involves the stages from developing a product to the launching of a product. A product manager is responsible for calculated and deliberate steps from the development stage to the launching stage while also supporting improvement after the launching of the product.

◦Technical writing: A technical writer documents all things related to technology. A technical writer requires an understanding of sophisticated technology and the ability to explain in a precise and an easy to understand way.  

◦Marketing and growth: A marketer is involved in all aspects of advertising the product and attaining users for the product. A growth specialist is tasked with retaining and increasing the number of users of a product. They are very important to the success of a product and an extensive knowledge of programming is not necessarily required for these roles.

There is a constant stream of demand of jobs available and there is no barrier to pursuing a career besides an individual’s skill set which can easily be improved on. There are several courses available online to learn the required skills for the various paths in tech. The following are some of the highest-rated courses available online;

◦Programming for Everybody (Getting Started with Python) offered on Coursera by the University of Michigan is available online on Coursera. This course will be especially useful for prospective back end developers.

◦HTML, CSS, and Javascript for Web Developers offered on Coursera by the John Hopkins University available online on Coursera. This course will be especially useful for prospective front end developers.

◦freeCodeCamp is an extensive online library of over 8000 tutorials that grills beginners and offers a proven path to your first developer job and it is all available online on their website

◦There is also an extensive collection of tutorial videos available on Youtube that are always available to explore.

The tech industry, however, is not limited to the career paths mentioned above. The tech industry is an ever-evolving organism that keeps creating new opportunities for people, not only in Nigeria but the world over. A clear example of this is the sudden spike in the demand for virtual and augmented reality developers as a result of the emergence of Web 3.0 and the Metaverse. There will be hiccups on your journey but the assurance that We’re All Gonna Make It will hopefully smoothen the bumps on your journey to creating a career in the tech industry.