IT is one of the fastest-growing industries. At the same time, the concept of professions and possible career paths in this area is usually very narrow and surrounded by myths.
Three facts about the IT sphere
We want to start with three beliefs on IT. It is important to understand them when making decisions about working in the industry.
(Almost) everyone can work in IT
IT is an industry in which any person can find himself, regardless of gender, age. There are many professions and specializations in IT, and not all of them are related to the development of technical solutions and writing code – we will tell you about this in more detail.
You need to develop quickly
IT is a dynamic industry, developing at an ultra-fast pace, knowledge, and technologies are rapidly becoming obsolete. If you are not ready to develop as quickly as possible, you will find yourself unclaimed. You won’t be able to rest on your laurels here.
The main thing is love for IT
IT does not accept those who do not like their job. This is a phenomenon similar to natural selection. Therefore, going into IT for money, having no interest in developing software solutions is not an option.
Tasks and specializations in IT
Problem statement: analyst
It all starts with setting a task and discussing the client’s goals. At this stage, the analytical team plays a central role. Their mission is to understand, describe and agree with the customer the purpose of the project, go into details, and ask the right questions so that in the end, the result is a technical task that the rest of the team understands.
Analysts need to understand the client’s business. Analysts are researchers and translators. They speak to the client in terms of business goals and objectives and speak to the team in terms of requirements and technical specifications.
Product architecture development: architect
The next role is a technical architect. Here are the tasks:
- highlight the main parts of the system;
- integration between them;
- choosing development tools.
An architect is a technical ideologist and chief consultant for the development team. Usually, these specialists have several years of experience as a programmer on different platforms and programming languages. The architect often communicates with the client. After the architecture is created, he accompanies the development, looks at the code, checks it for compliance with the basic principles of architecture, helps to find technical solutions for complex cases.
Programming code development: programmer
Once the requirements and architecture are understood, the code development process begins. Programmers write code using the hardware they choose. In IT, at the selection stage, team discussions are adopted, where everyone can share their offers and show which technologies or tools would be suitable for solving a specific task.
In writing code, programmers discover inconsistencies and unclear requirements and pose questions to analysts and architects. After this, the almost finished product is sent to testers. Developers continue to write code, fix bugs found by testers, and refine the system.
Find bugs: tester
The goal of the testing team is to determine the quality of the developed system. This specialization includes many areas.
Test designers create test scripts and data variants, and testers use those scripts to spot bugs or make sure everything works as expected. Test scripts are written in parallel with code development when the requirements are ready. They should be ready to start testing. The creation of test data is research work; for complex technical systems, the amount of test data can be in the thousands. Test designers need to understand the client’s business and priorities, almost at the analyst level.
Project management: project manager
The project manager is fully responsible for the result of the project and for the customer’s satisfaction. This person assembles a team, interviews and hires people, organizes the work, starting with a high-level project plan, working with risks, solving everyday problems, and handing over the finished system to the client.
Conclusion
So, here are the main conclusions we can draw:
- Almost everyone can work in the IT sphere: there are many specializations.
- It is not worth going into IT for money without interest in the development of software solutions.
- All options for career development in IT are achievable if you have a certain entry-level and a willingness to invest time and effort in your training.
Good luck!