Earn While You Learn: 5 Tech Jobs for New Coders

Characteristics of an IT Technician

IT technicians acquire a diverse set of skills. If you love problem-solving and troubleshooting, becoming an IT Technician is a great fit. If you’re the type of person who likes being on call and saving the day, you’ll have many opportunities to have an impact on your organization. This position is also physically active, so if you like to be on the go, this may be a tech job to consider while learning to code.

3. Technical Writer

Technical writer is another excellent job that you can use as a stepping stone toward your dev career.

Technical writers create supporting documentation for software and products, and may even write guides and documentation for developers to use as they code. There are tech writing opportunities in the academic sphere as well as in the public sector.

This is a position with a healthy growth rate that spans many industries, including computing, giving you flexibility in how and where you work.

Tools Used by Tech Writers

• Word Processing Tools: There are many tools available for technical writing. Some common examples include Microsoft Word, WordPress, Sublime and even simple editors like Visual Studio Code or Notepad++.
• Grammar Checker: Editors usually include spelling and grammar tools. For even more help, check out web-based tools like Grammarly and Hemingway.
• Diagramming Tools: It’s common to illustrate technical writing with diagrams. Tech writers use products like Sketch, Diagrams.app and Microsoft Visio to create visualizations of concepts. You can also use a wireframing tool like Balsamiq Wireframes to create mockups of apps and designs.
• Presentation Software: An easy way to share images in a slideshow format is to use presentation software. Some popular examples include Google Slides, Microsoft PowerPoint and Apple Keynote.

How Working as a Technical Writer Helps You Improve as a Developer

Being a tech writer has several advantages when building a dev career. For example, if what you write gets published in the public domain, you can gain exposure in the tech sphere.

Plus, you’ll learn useful skills. Breaking things down into steps and creating instructions will grow your understanding of processes and build your problem-solving skills. Learning to illustrate a concept also builds your understanding of the audience’s perspective.

Finally, you’ll have the chance to dive deep into interesting topics that could help your development journey. Writing about technical subjects helps you learn about those topics in greater depth.

Characteristics of a Technical Writer

Technical writers draw on many skills. Writing and grammar knowledge and critical thinking skills are imperative. This position will also challenge your problem-solving abilities by breaking complex subjects down into easy-to-understand steps. Being able to illustrate concepts visually is also very helpful.

If you’re a creative individual who can break down a piece of technology and express how it works clearly, a job as a technical writer might be a great fit for you!

4. User Experience (UX) Tester

User experience testing is a critical part of developing a good product, particularly when it comes to software. The best-designed software can’t live up to its potential if users struggle with how it works.

As a user experience tester, it’s your job to collect qualitative and quantitative data while test users try to complete a task. You also might collect data on how satisfied these testers are with the product, then use those results to identify changes that can improve your product.

Essentially, UX testers do market research field work that concentrates on software.

Tools Used by User Experience Testers

• A usability lab: This could be a formal lab with two rooms separated by one-way mirrors, or just a simple room with a computer in it. Important is that the test observers stay out of the subjects’ sight.
• A remote lab: Often, UX testing is done remotely. Tools like Maze or Lookback collect qualitative and quantitative data about the users’ reactions and experiences, then provide valuable insight. Many tools record the users’ actions, and sometimes even their facial expressions, as they use the app.

How Being a User Experience Tester Helps You Improve as a Developer

One of the most difficult things as a developer is creating a product with good UX design. Usability is an art. By working as a UX tester while learning to code, you’ll gain valuable insights into what makes a product great. By listening to the users’ experience, you’ll learn the most common things that make a software product shine.

The more you know about how to create a great user experience as a developer, the better the chances are that your product will be the consumer’s top choice. When a developer has insight into what users need, they can design better products from the start.

Characteristics of a User Experience Tester

A UX tester needs the empathy to experience something from another person’s point of view. If you’re curious about what can improve another person’s experience, this tech job may suit you well.

Soft skills are also imperative in this position, as well as critical thinking and the ability to understand and incorporate feedback. Finally, you’ll need your problem-solving skills to suggest better ways of doing things.

5. Quality Assurance (QA) Tester

Another important role in software testing is quality assurance testing. The QA tester checks the robustness of software to make sure it performs properly. This way, customers aren’t presented with a software product that has glaring bugs. The demand for QA testers is constantly increasing, along with the demand for developers.

Tools Used by Quality Assurance Testers

• Project Management Tools: Quality assurance testers use project planning tools like Jira to assign and delegate work.
• Communication Tools: Tools like Slack and Microsoft Teams allow QA testers to provide feedback instantaneously so that teams can quickly address the issues that are uncovered.
• Document Repository Tools: SharePoint lets a QA tester share live documents with the team to collaborate on them. Having a central repository of information that illustrates how the system should work lets the QA tester determine if something a test uncovers is actually a bug.
• Defect Tracking Tools: Another use for a system like Jira is to track defects and assign bugs to the developer team so they can fix them.
• Version Management: Version management systems track of changes over time. Some popular version management tools are GitHub and Bitbucket, which are both git repository hosting services.
• Automation Tools: Automated testing saves much time and tedious work. Tools like Cucumber, Selenium and Jenkins automate testing without needing much code.