Careers in I.T.

Discussion in 'Chit Chat' started by Money Trust, Jun 19, 2019.

  1. Anyone here in the IT field? Personally, I'm looking at getting into the field and I've narrowed my specialty down to two. My job has a program where they will reimburse you up to 90% for any college tuition so long as it's job-related training and I'd like to move to their IT department.

    My dilemma is that I can't decide concretely what path to take. I'm thinking of becoming a Full Stack Web Developer or getting into Cyber/Information Security. Web Development may be better suited to me because I have a background in coding but that was back when I was in high school, so I'm out of touch with what's going on today. Both fields, from my research, are really lucrative but Information Security seems to be more in-demand.

    Also, udemy had a sale a week or so ago where everything on their site was $9.99 and I loaded up on courses in Web Development, programming languages, cyber security and hacking, etc. So, I plan to do both in the grand scheme but my concern here is which do I prefer to specialize in to get my foot in the door.

    If anyone is in the field and can offer some practical advice, I'd greatly appreciate it.
     
  2. Overnight

    Overnight

    Programming is king.

    If you cannot do that, cybersecurity is your next best bet, IMHO. You get good at that, and you will be worth a lot. If you get good at it.
     
    kmiklas and Money Trust like this.
  3. IT workers need to compete with low pay outsourcing. IMO become subject matter expert, learn programming as an elective.
     
    Money Trust likes this.
  4. Thanks for the input. Where I live, full stack developers and programmers are starting at almost $100k a year entry-level and some don't require a degree. I guess it does make for me, given that I have a background in coding, to specialize in programming.
     
  5. If your background is indian you have it made in IT. Otherwise, you'll be the token non-Indian on the team.
     
    Last edited: Jun 20, 2019
  6. Well, I'm black, so maybe I can be the "token" black.
     
    Aquarians likes this.
  7. Maybe, I've seen it before. You'd need to compete with black female minorities. Not to many black ppl or aboriginal Americans in IT, but you're right you'd be token. You would have advantage if you graduated from big Ivy university. You would be better off with MBA, PEng, compsci minor. Take the management route vs tech. If you're good at math, why not become a quant with programming you'd have it made. Find trading capital and work for yourself.
     
    Last edited: Jun 20, 2019
  8. kmiklas

    kmiklas

    ^^^ This.

    There's 10 developers for every other tech position out there. Start with JavaScript to see how you like it; good healthy demand. Also study C++ for good OO fundamentals; C++ is heavily used in financial.

    I would also say that there's good demand for System Admins (Linux, Windows), and Network Admins (Cisco). If you want to get in quickly look at the M$, IBM RedHat Linux, and Cisco certification programs, like the Cisco CCNA. They all have cert programs like this:
    https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/train...cations/associate/ccna-routing-switching.html

    A great way to check demand for a skill is to search on dice.com for the keyword, and see how many jobs are posted; for example, I did some quick searches, and grabbed these numbers today on 20 jun 2019:

    Javascript: 13,420 jobs
    C++: 6950 jobs
    Python: 8569 jobs
    Cisco: 3049 jobs
    Linux: 8112 jobs
    Red Hat: 1302 jobs
    Windows: 9011 jobs
    R: 1310 jobs
     
    Money Trust likes this.
  9. Thanks a lot!
     
    kmiklas likes this.
  10. You're right. However, 9 out of the 10 will be from india. As an elective learn Hindi.
    Javascript is really not a programming language. Google's definition.
    JavaScript was not developed at Sun Microsystems, the home of Java. JavaScript was developed at Netscape. It was originally called LiveScript, but that name wasn't confusing enough. The -Script suffix suggests that it is not a realprogramming language, that a scripting language is less than aprogramming language.
     
    Last edited: Jun 21, 2019
    #10     Jun 21, 2019
    kmiklas likes this.