Top Tech Jobs For 2021
By: Dubem Kizito
Tags: Tech, Work, Jobs, Design, 2021

The tech industry needs you now more than ever.

Photo by Christopher Gower on Unsplash

A lot of times, people come to me seeking knowledge or assistance in getting a job and I am always able to give them what I have and know. What do I know?

There is no such thing as unemployment in the technology sector today, what we have is technical unemployment.

Before you get all argue-y, google the term “technical unemployment”. You will simply find that what we are witnessing is an evolution of the job or white-collar industry. It is no longer what we thought it was or what our parents think it is. As old jobs disappear, new genres we have never seen before spring up to address the advances in technology and the new ways in which we approach problems. Here is a list of tech jobs to look out for in 2020:

Data Analysts: They are like the magicians of the tech industry today. They look at numeric data and even visual data and create meaningful and useful interpretations from them. They have become more important as companies begin to hit their climax in strategy implementations. Ways to bring efficiency to already existing systems and processes become even more important. Asides from the purposes of efficiency and insight, Data Analysts become super valuable if they can make or save the company a lot of money.

Becoming a Data Analyst requires a lot of love for numbers, statistics, maths, and data. Your job might look like using customer purchase data to set the best prices or the best time to sell to them. One major challenge is measuring the impact of the results you present and their impact on the business decisions made. AI and ML engineers: In complement to a Data Analyst, companies would want to jump on the profitable trend of using Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning to improve their business services in realtime while still achieving some data analytics and reporting. The need to build systems that learn from data and use it to make suggestions, optimizations, and deductions continue to be the talk of succeeding startups who want to do more with their product. Product Manager: The tech industry has conquered the problem of good engineers (expensive but available) but the need for a professional who would streamline the demanding processes and interactions between stakeholders, team members, engineers, and customers become ever so important. Most product manager roles are given based on experience and success stories with other products. Cross-platform mobile developer: As the mobile market continues its steady expansion and as more lean startups spring up, the need for mobile developers will continue to rise, even more demand will be for developers who can build for multiple platforms using one code base, hence saving the business money that would have been used to higher engineers for each platform. It will become very useful to you if you can learn technologies like Flutter, or React-native. 3D Illustrator: For years now startups have competed in aesthetics by the use of high-quality photos, then vector illustrations, digital painting illustrations, but recently we have begun to see the trends of using 3D rendered objects and characters in website landing pages and even for icons. Chances are you will be getting more 3D modeling gigs next year. 3D Animator: As companies begin to incorporate 3D illustrations into their branding, the need to translate that style into their video commercials becomes inevitable, hence a rise in demand for 3D animators. Freelance Graphics Designer: I had to but “freelance” as I have noticed the graphics design industry slowly evolve into a sort of gig economy, where companies rather hire an external team member who is not an employee. It gives for flexibility and the spreading of work across accessible freelance designers. Also as design becomes more competitive, the need for variable media increases. Companies now need illustrators, 3D modelers, video editors, and many other media professionals which might be costly to have in-house. Hence if you position yourself as a professional, you are likely to have many engagements throughout the year. Software Engineers: The demand for software engineers grows in proportion to the establishment of new startups, however, there is a higher demand for competent engineers. Equipping yourself with enough skill and experience will most likely get you employed next year. The usual category includes frontend, backend, and mobile developer. Full-stack developer: I have noticed a trend across Job listing sites, where most startups are now seeking an all-in-one package. While I don’t totally support having just one person build an entire platform, you might just get your next job if you are someone that can take on the workload. UI/ UX Designers: At first a lot of startup founders might not be able to afford a UI/UX designer at the initial stage, but as funding floods the startup market, so will the capacity to hire these very crucial roles to shape the message and ideas of the product in such a way that the end-user gets the best experience possible. While UI and UX are totally different roles, you might find yourself working as both. Dev Ops: A lot of startups from the years pasts now need to scale beyond the usual managed hosting services to a more sophisticated setup leading to a steady rise in the need for Dev Ops engineers. Companies with an existing dev-ops team might need to scale their teams. Cybersecurity Specialist: As the technology space becomes more lucrative, so does the need to protect the interest and properties of all stakeholders of a product. A Cybersecurity Specialist would need to work with various other teams in the company to spot any potential security leaks and advice appropriately.

Ok, here is my list. Feel free to drop more in the comments. Stay blessed.

Thanks for reading…