How to prepare for the future of work?
The Top Tech Skills You Need To Stay Ahead
It’s 2021, and technology has cemented itself in our daily lives. Almost everything we hear, see, and do these days is very much affected by some degree by the tech industry. From posting a status on social media to calling our children on their smartphones, technology has changed the way we interact with our friends, family, and even the world around us through GPS apps and self-checkout kiosks at our local grocery store.
If you have been considering switching careers or picking up a side hustle, the tech industry is a great place to work. Even if you don’t have a formal technology education background, you can still break into the tech industry. Thanks to the dominance of the Internet in today’s world, anyone can learn the necessary skills to succeed in the tech industry through bootcamps. These short-term, intensive programs can teach you all the skills you need to break into the tech industry, in under a year. With in-person, online, and self-paced options, as well as multiple tuition payment programs, you can learn the top tech skills from the comfort of your own home, and pay for it after you land your first job in the tech industry.
Web Development
Web Development is the process of building great websites, and the tech professionals with the right skills for the job are called Web Developers. Web Developers build the framework of the sites we use every day—from social media to blogs like this one—through coding languages like Python and JavaScript. The functions that the website user interacts with—like search bars and “Make an appointment” buttons—are all built by Web Developers. This part of the website that we interact with is called the user interface (UI). This term is used to describe the coding processes that run in the background of the website, and that make sure the website functions properly.
The Flatiron School offers some great bootcamp programs, and they have one specifically for those looking to break into Web Development. They provide both deferred tuition payment programs and income-shared agreements (ISA), which allow you to enroll and complete the program, and pay back the affordable tuition later, after you have secured your first job in the tech industry.
Web Design
Related to web development, another top tech skill you should learn is web design. This is the process of building the surface part of a website that a user will see and interact with, called the user experience (UX). Web Designers build and design the visual part of websites and design how the functions like search bars and “Make an appointment” buttons will work within the site by working closely with Web Developers. Think of Web Designers as the interior decorators of the websites we use every day. They decide what colors will be used on what rooms (or webpages) and where all the furniture will go (or the functions and buttons). After they design how the site will need to look and function, the Web Developers make it happen.
Web Design still requires coding skills to build the design blueprints for a website. You used to have to earn a computer science degree and learn graphic design to become a Web Designer, but these days you can learn all the necessary UX/UI design skills through coding bootcamps. This is an excellent way to learn all you need to know and will take less than a year, whereas a traditional degree can take two or even four years.
Mobile App Development
Mobile App Development is a rapidly growing field in the tech industry, as more and more people get more done on their smartphones. Therefore, it would be a good idea for you to learn the necessary skills to become a Mobile App Developer, as there is a high demand for skilled programmers in this field.
IOS Mobile App Developers build the apps we use on Apple Products. They use Xcode as their primary development environment, and they use Swift, as their primary programming language. IOS Mobile App Developers are also skilled in the entire development process, and they build the whole app from the ground up.
The other subfield of Mobile App Development is for Android devices. Android Mobile App Developers build the mobile applications for all non-apple mobile devices. As Android is the most popular mobile operating system in the world, Android Mobile App Developers are always in high demand.
