If you are planning your course of study for your first career-oriented job, or if you are a veteran of industry planning your course of action into your next career, then you may be wondering what to learn and how to learn it.
A career in the tech industry should be first on your list. The tech industry has been booming since the Internet age took off in the late nineties, and it hasn't slowed down. Much of the working world has switched to a fully remote basis. This has only caused the tech industry to boom that much more. The tech industry has proven to be resilient and profitable.
Most jobs in the tech industry require coding experience as much of the tech industry is centered around designing, building, testing, and maintaining computer software programs. However, if you don't have any coding experience or knowledge, you can still easily break into the tech industry, and you can do it by the end of 2023.
Coding bootcamps are, without doubt, the most effective course of study to break into the tech world. In fact, bootcamps, in general, are very much the future of all education. As the student debt crisis continues to worsen, many would-be college students, or those going back to college, are growing hesitant about paying the price of a house for a degree that in no way guarantees they will get a good job. Therefore, many young people looking for their first career track, as well as career switchers, are finding coding bootcamps to be a surefire way to learn the coding skills they need to become solid programmers.
A coding bootcamp is essentially an online, self-paced trade school. Coding bootcamps teach you everything you need to know about programming. This results in learning your new programming skills in less than a year, with most students finishing their program in 10 to 24 weeks. When you compare the cost and length of a coding bootcamp to the traditional tech education routes, bootcamps win out big as far as cost and effectiveness.
What's more, most coding bootcamps offer tuition repayment programs like income-sharing agreements (ISAs). This gives the student the confidence that what they are purchasing—the programming skills through the bootcamp which will actually lead to full-time employment that pays a livable salary. The traditional tech education institutions offer high amounts of student debt, without any sort of guarantee that you will actually find a job that will justify what you just spent on your education. Instead, coding bootcamps offered through schools like Kenzie Academy offer ISAs that allow the student to pay back their bootcamp tuition only after they have obtained suitable employment.
Let's take a moment to discuss one of the most common and best-paid jobs in the tech industry—software engineering.
Software Engineering
Software engineers are the tech professionals who design, build, test, and maintain the computer software that we all use, including word processors, spreadsheet-based software, and even the organization and enterprise software we rely on for productivity.
Software Engineers code in a few different programming languages, but the main three are C++, Java, and Python.
According to Glassdoor, Software Engineers in the United States earn an average salary of $92,000 per year. This makes software engineering one of the most profitable jobs in the United States, where the national average salary is about $49,000 per year.
Quality Assurance Engineering
Quality Assurance Engineers are a type of software engineers responsible for updating and maintaining the software developed by Software Engineers. This requires similar coding experience as software engineering, but instead of developing new software, QA Engineers help to ensure that the program continues to run smoothly by fixing any reported glitches and bugs, with programmed solutions to keep them from recurring in the future.
According to ZipRecruiter, the average salary of a quality assurance engineer is around $84,888. The top four percent of jobs have an average compensation of $127,500. On the other end of the spectrum, the bottom two percent of occupations have an average salary of $39,500.
Conclusion
Tech careers are one of the most lucrative and rewarding jobs in the labor market. Attending a coding bootcamp can help you jumpstart your career. There are also online courses and training programs that you can enroll in to aid you. Tech courses are some of the best and safest programs that you can learn to get a high-paying occupation.