Tech skills to excel your career
Learn about the most in demand tech skills that could further your career and what you can learn to make sure you succeed. There’s no right or wrong path on your career development journey, but if you’re stuck thinking about which area to specialize in, here are some of the most desirable professions that companies are desperately trying to hire.
Full stack development
As the name suggests, a full stack developer means being competent in a full stack of technology ranging from front to back end programming. More companies are increasingly turning to full stack developers due to their ability of solve various problems and create entire software independently. As a full stack developer, not only should you have a good grasp of front end and back end languages, but you should also be familiar with all the in between – the frameworks and libraries, database languages, APIs and servers.
There will be plenty of languages that you will encounter and learn along the way. However if you are getting started, you should have a solid grasp on web languages such as HTML, CSS and JavaScript, and back-end languages such as Python and Java, as well as familiarizing yourself with MEAN stack frameworks.
Data Science
Many companies are turning to data-driven decision making in product development and to drive smarter business decisions. With exponential amounts of data coming from multiple streams and generated by modern technology such as IoT smart devices and cloud, companies need experts that can decipher and turn raw data into meaningful insights.
Becoming a data scientist means you must be able to wear multiple hats. As a data scientist, not only do you need to be skilled in statistics and programming, you should also possess data visualization and business acumen skills to make the decision on what data to use and to turn unstructured data into meaningful, comprehendible information.
If you’ve only just started your journey to becoming a data scientist and you’re stuck on what languages and tools to learn, the safest options would be Python, Java & SQL for programming and R, Spark & Hadoop for analytical tools. If you really want to stand out from other data scientists, learning machine learning techniques would be a huge advantage.
Machine Learning
We’ve entered a new technological era which is heavily influenced by data and AI. Machine learning is a branch of AI that enables computers (machines) the ability to learn without being programmed to. It can be extremely useful for example in data science for analysing copious amounts of data and driving enhanced insights.
Skills acquired as a data scientist such as programming languages and statistics skills are also applied to ML engineers. However, unlike data scientists who focus on the visualization and insights, ML is more focused on coding software and algorithms, therefore knowledge on system architecture and design is a given. This also means you will be working with various ML tools such as Google’s TensorFlow and Microsoft’s AMLS to implement algorithms & ML solutions.
Cloud Computing
Cloud technology is everywhere. You will be extremely hard pressed to find any company that isn’t using cloud to store and access data in one form or another. More than ever, there is a steady demand of cloud professionals as companies adopt mobility and remote work.
Cloud computing is connected to all aspects of technology and the skills for entering the cloud profession vary greatly. There are however certain skills that are slightly more favourable. For example, for developers, Python, PHP, Java & .NET are widely used coding languages to build applications on cloud. Database management, network infrastructure and information security are also some of the backgrounds that top cloud professionals come from. If you are looking to start a professional career in cloud, getting yourself AWS or Microsoft Azure certified will be a considerable stepping stone to steer you in the right direction.
Cyber Security
It is without a doubt that cyber security always makes the in demand list. Recent technologies such as IoT and the latest 5G network along with big data and cloud are all reasons why companies are desperately seeking cyber security professionals due to minimize the number of security risks and threats to these technologies. Cyber security attacks such as hackings and breach of data privacy are one of the biggest risks to companies losing huge sums of money and some may not recover from the damage.
There are multiple entries to becoming a cyber security professional but at a minimum you must have a solid foundation of understanding firewalls and networks. Experience in security assessments, penetration testing and risk analysis are just some of the skills that are in demand. If you’ve just started your career in cyber security, to reach the next level, CISSP or CISM accreditations are highly sought after and can account for for some of the most well-paid jobs in the industry.