Alternative career options for programmers

Concise and informative list for programmers seeking a career change

“white and black One Way-printed road signages” by Brendan Church on Unsplash

So you ended up as a programmer but you seek for a career change? You love modern technology but don’t want to code eight hours a day? Or you’re a computer science graduate searching for fields where your skills could be applied? As a number and demand for programmers is skyrocketing so is the number of people who are trying to get on a different track.

If you want to stay in tech and use your existing programming or technological knowledge this list could be of a great help. I categorized job titles based on a field you might be interested in.

Note: Take job descriptions in more of a general context, since many of those roles can vary from company to a company. Some of the titles are senior roles (like system technical or solution architect) meaning they require longer experience.

Legend:

Time spent on a computer compared to time spent with people

Approximate percentage of time spent coding

Is this job influenced more by technical or company’s business demands? Are you in contact more with business or technical people at the workplace?

Analytics

“turned on black and grey laptop computer” by Lukas Blazek on Unsplash

Data Scientist

Job consists of developing data-driven solutions and using programming analytical and statistical skills to resolve business questions.

Data analyst / Business Analyst / Business intelligence

Review, analyze and evaluate business and user needs. Documenting and analyzing gathered data which is then communicated to both a business and developer team. This is quite often a choice for programmer seeking for a career change as you act as sort of a bridge between business needs and a technical team.

Information Security Analyst

Analyze information system security to protect it from any kind of cyber vulnerabilities that may occur. Your job also includes researching trends in data security as well as implementing security solutions.

Technical Risk Analyst

Guiding companies with your technical knowledge through risk assessment.

Writing

“black Corona typewriter on brown wood planks” by Patrick Fore on Unsplash

Technical Writer / Author

Responsible for creating technical documents, manuals, pitch decks, sales collateral and such.

Digital Copywriter / Content Manager

Writing content for websites, blogs, books, marketing materials or similar.

Administration

“black ImgIX server system” by imgix on Unsplash

System Administrator

Maintaining, upgrading and managing software, hardware or networks.

Application Analyst

Administration, monitoring and maintenance of software infrastructures and applications used by company employees.

Database Administrator

Self-explanatory, plan database systems, monitor usages, and resolving database issues.

Technical and Business Operations

“woman putting a stick note on the wall” by rawpixel on Unsplash

QA

Responsible for quality of a product or service. You are evaluating processes used to ensure standards like reliability, usability, and performance of the product and then implementing methods to improve those measures and processes.

Information Systems Manager

Researching, planning, developing, and implementing information systems (hardware and software). You are working closely with a variety of teams to meet expected service delivery requirements.

Project manager

Implementing methodology for project executions. Coordinating time schedule with engineering teams to meet business requirements.

Product / Program manager

Overseeing whole product life-cycle from market adaptation, product requirements and specifications to engineering timetables and staff management. Product and program manager are similar roles, but the program manager has a more of a lateral view across an organization.

Technical Lead / Programming Software Lead

Leading programming team, mostly overseeing development and implementation of company product(s).

System (Technical) Architects

You are in charge of a software architecture of the product. Responsible for overall system implementation.

Solutions Architect

This is a less technical role then system architect — you have more business responsibilities. After having specific business problems set, you are to design an appropriate technical and project management solution. You are aware of risks, time scopes, budget, resources, and many more aspects.

Technical Consultant

Using your technical knowledge to bring out possible solutions or problems to people having issues within your domain.

Design & research

“two people drawing on whiteboard” by Kaleidico on Unsplash

R&D

Researching and developing (implementing) new technologies and ideas within an organization. You are using practical knowledge of modern technologies to create new or improve older products.

Product designer

Job spanning through many design disciplines like user research, information architecture, interaction design, prototyping, visual design etc. You communicate a lot with users and work towards the usability and experience of the product.

UX Designer

Designing products for better usability and experience. An accent is on user research, analyzing research results, and designing flow and display of information users see. Programming skills are a big plus because you can understand the capabilities of developers who will have to turn your ideas into a final product.

UI Designer

As UX is more analytical and technical, UI design is closer to graphic design. Programming skills are similarly a plus.

Other

“person using MacBook Pro” by Glenn Carstens-Peters on Unsplash

Technical Recruiter

You are executing technical recruiting for a company — attracting and evaluating technical talent.

Technical Sales

Responsible for technical advice and product support in pre-sale and post-sale processes.

Academia / IT trainer

Lecturing and training people in the fields of your technical knowledge.

Entrepreneur / Job at a startup or small business

This job positions will fit you great if you like wearing more hats — technical, design, communication and so on.

End User Support

Answering phone calls, emails or attending meetings to provide support to people using services your company provides.

Developer Advocacy / Evangelism / Relations

In short you are a public face connecting company and it’s technical staff, and outside developers, which means you have numerous responsibilities. You attend conferences, conduct workshops, support developers on forums, write technical public content like documentations, articles and tutorials, but also contribute to open source or improve internal tools.

Stay a software engineer

“turned on monitor displaying programming language” by Pankaj Patel on Unsplash

You can always stay a developer but switch your technology interest, after all, there is an abundance of them: web, networks, embedded, mobile, desktop, databases, games, big data, DevOps, testing, security, cloud, blockchain, AI, multimedia and so forth.

Didn’t find anything interesting yet?

You don’t have to restrict yourself to jobs where you can translate your programming or technical skill directly. Try to get a job which you like, and not only your technical skills will prove useful, but they could open many doors you didn’t know even existed. After all, nowadays generalist and other polymaths seem like having the upper hand. Just find something you love doing.

If you think I missed something important feel free to reach out on me on LInkedIn | teotoplak95@gmail.com