IT career paths Not business as usual Brendon Hatcher Technical Director: BrilliantWeb
IT career paths
Not busin
ess as u
sual
Brendon HatcherTechnical Director: BrilliantWeb
Key messages
The IT world is diverse – find your own place The IT world is changing – try to keep up Your IT education is your responsibility – schools
can’t keep up with the changes There are things you must do NOW in order to
secure your IT career
If you don’t understand something in this talk, research it!
My grandson works in
computers
Information Technology is a very diverse field…
Huge changes are sweeping through the industry
Where have we
come from?
Traditional career paths
IT supportHardware, software, users
NetworkingConnecting everything together
ProgrammingWorking as part of a team making big commercial software on behalf of a company
What’shappening
now?
More recent career paths
Web site developmentBuilding web sites for clients
Web application developmentOn the web, but not a web site…
Project ManagementCustomer Relationship ManagementDocument Libraries
2010
Software as a Service Applications in the cloud (on the Internet) not
desktop Usually accessed via a web browser Pay a subscription rather than a licence fee
Mobile app development
Android, iPhone, Blackberry
700,000
Programming possibilities Working together
– Online collaboration
Standing on the shoulders of giants– API makes things possible– Tiny code, low price, huge sales volume
Low barriers to entry– API well documented– Support for developers– Ecosystem of users to market to
Explain collaboration
Explain API
New business models
Donation ware Freeware Freemium models SaaS
Explain new markets
Inspiration
Paper Camera
Android App Turns everything you see into a sketch or cartoon R16 to purchase 1 – 5 million downloads R2.6mill – R12.9mill after costs
Joomla Content Editor
Set of formatting tools for editing a page of text on a web site
$20 per year for as many web sites as you want to build
Developer lives on income In the UK!
Cache cleaner
Do this now!
Get coding
E.g. Mobile app development
1. Learn an API, any API (Android is a good start if you know JAVA)
2. Participate in an open source / collaborative project
3. Create and manage an open source / collaborative project
DoodleKids
Made by 9 year old boy 100 000 downloads (free app) My kids love it 100 reviews and comments
Gather resources
Learn to engage with the developer and user communities online– Code– Support– Understand your future clients– Start identifying needs you can fill
Portfolio
Internship Documented learning Demonstrable output
Focus
Its not about technology, it is about the application of technology
Identify use cases– Who needs what?– Why do they need it?– What will they do with it?– Can they already get it?– If so, why don’t they– If not, can I make it?
Credits
Brendon Hatcher is the compiler of this presentation
The presentation is released under the Creative Commons Licence – Attribution, Non-commercial, No derivatives
If you don’t know what this licence means, find out about it at creativecommons.org
IT & Marketing
Option 1: Interface between IT & Marketing– Understand both worlds– Operate between them– Scoping, project management, analysis and reporting
Option 2: Make stuff happen– Implement the technology behind social media
interactions between companies and customers
Humans
andcomp
uters!
Application specialists
Application has enough users (online) to make a small support business financially viable
Staff know a particular application really, really well, and charge for:
– Scoping– Installation / configuration– User support
Great Internet-based business
Technical sales
A sales career driven by a passion for technology
Some IT products can’t be sold by people who don’t understand them– E.g. Customised solutions
Super, all-in-one, really
huge program made by one
company
API + core features + documentation + support