Finding a niche in the tech space

How I went from being a blogger to a photographer to a music producer to a trader and finally ended up as a software engineer after studying Agricultural Engineering in university is a story I will tell another day — probably with the title “How I went from being a blogger to a photographer to a music producer to a trader and finally ended up as a software engineer after studying Agricultural Engineering in university”. However, I will summarise that story: I ended up as a software engineer and found my niche in the tech space.

Today, I try to explain how you can find a comfortable niche in the IT/tech world. If you would rather wait for my story about job hopping, please subscribe and get notified when I post new content. While you wait, you might want to check out my old stories on WordPress https://ikenjokudc.wordpress.com. Now, to today's business…

The tech space as we have it is bigger than meets the eye — Me, just now.

Often, when people talk about involvement in tech, the first thing that comes to mind is software development. Is this wrong? not totally. However, the way I think of it, software development would be just another tentacle if tech were an octopus.

Generally, staying in tech is one (or both) of two things: building tech or being very well-versed in the use of already existing tech (especially to the extent that it earns you a living).

This is what makes it interesting. Tech does not start and end in writing code. In fact, there is so much work that goes into building an application -such that there are entire job descriptions between the initial idea of the software its deployment/maintenance. Also, the said software needs some hardware to run on. This further broadens our scope of the tech industry.

Building tech includes everything from project management to hardware architecture to product design and photography and sales optimisation. Think of the processes. You have an idea and pitch to your friends. you create a team and have someone plan the project and manage other team members. You have a designer and someone in charge of looking for investors. If it’s a hardware product, you need architects and designers for that and a software person to program the chips.

There is a niche for everyone in tech. Just take your existing skill set and do things the tech way — me, just after my previous quote.

If you are a creative — writer, videographer, photographer, artist etc. you already have one foot in the tech doorway. All you have to do is “techify” your skills. Find relevant tech that could enhance productivity and make the best possible use of them. The idea is to become so good at what you do, that it becomes difficult to be ignored (I just thought this up). This is literally all there is to stay in tech without building tech. If you are a visual artist for example, you might want to learn character design, UI design, 2D/3D design, etc. and you are fit for a “tech” salary. If you have managed projects before, you can manage tech projects. All you have to do is skill-up. Are you a writer? Try software documentation and content creation. You like to find flaws in systems? Quality Assurance or Cyber Security might be where you fit in. In whatever field you work, just learn the relevant technologies and you are welcome.

Everyone has at least one skill that can be “techified”. All you need to do is a little skill up come on board. You already have a niche in the tech space. All that’s left to do is to show up at tech meetups.