Picking the right tech specialty can feel scary. If you read my post covering the Programming Industry Landscape you can see there are many directions. You might be wondering which one is right for you. As we go deeper I can help to narrow the decision with a few techniques.
Location
The first thing to look at is region. In all honesty, what’s the point of learning a skill or picking a tech specialty that’s only valuable if you relocate? Unless of course if you’re looking to get out of your current region. In that case, search the destination location below instead of your current city.
To give you an example, I spent many years building video games and much of that time was using Flash and ActionScript. During that time most of the jobs in Southern California were condensed between Santa Monica and Culver City. When Flash was on its death bed I had to make a decision on what technology I would switch to. If I wanted to continue to make Video Games then Unity3D had the most job opportunities at the time. But many of those jobs were in the same region and I wanted to get out of Silicon Beach. So I looked for a tech stack that has jobs in more locations. At the time that was JavaScript and still is! There are jobs littered everyone for JavaScript. So that’s what I focused on and I’ve been working with that technology and related languages since 2015.
Indeed Search
Go on indeed.com and search terms like “Software Engineer” or “Web Developer” with your zip code. You can even search by technology, such as “JavaScript” or Take a look at what kind of companies come up in your area, what roles are open, and what skills are required to apply for those positions.
Let’s take a look at a few examples.
Search by Technology
Here I am searching Software Engineer in Los Angeles. Let’s see what results I get.
In just the first page of job listings, we can gather a lot of information. And once you go several pages you will begin to notice a few trends. We can see that SQL and JavaScript are very popular in LA. Also an understanding of OOP (Object Oriented Programming) which is a code design pattern, not a language, but is to become part of your tech specialty.
Now SQL and JavaScript don’t exactly go together alone. There is a lot that goes between that tech sandwich 🥪. But you can search a language to try to narrow the results.
Now, let’s see the search results of javascript.
So we have a few of the same results but some new ones as well. Here we can see the different technology that pairs with JavaScript. Mostly React, HTML5, NodeJS. That’s what’s trending. Those things change from year to year.
Search By Company
Another way to search is by a company. Let’s try to search for jobs at Google.
Let’s see those results!
Google is a tech giant and is known for innovation. I can only imagine it’s a pretty amazing place to work. Especially if you make it on a cutting-edge product. It’s an ambitious first job but it doesn’t hurt to see where they set the bar.
Review of the Job Requirements
The last position in this listing is a Frontend Engineer role. Let’s take a closer look at the details of the position. Since I’ve been a Frontend Engineer for most of my career, I can give the most insight on this tech specialty.
Here we can see a clear description of what they are looking for. It’s nice to see that practical skills are acceptable and you don’t need to get a degree to apply. I would say to apply for this position you should have a clear understanding of HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript and of the additional languages I would suggest Python. It’s very useful with a low barrier to entry. Once you have those skills down you’ll put together about 5-10 solid individual projects to demonstrate your skills. (I will go into your demo pack in a later post).
This job posting is very concise and straightforward. There are many companies that publish listings with a wishlist of every language under the sun. Don’t let that discourage you. Pick a field and stay focused.
Conclusion
I won’t go into more examples but play with Indeed Search for a while. Look up companies, industries, technology stacks and see what skills they all look for in your area. This should give you some insight and hopefully get you asking more questions! I hope this has been helpful in narrowing your tech specialty to careers in the region you want to work in.
In a later post, I will share some learning resource and a path for each Technology Stack.
Feel free to ask me anything in the comments below!