Discover Careers in the Tech Industry

We are the NCTC Career Services team. Career Services is a department that can help students with their job and career goals. We work with individuals to explore different career options and help them decide on what career path they want to take. We also assist with searching and applying to jobs. Today we're going to help you explore a few different trending careers within the tech industry. The first career we're going to talk about is cybersecurity. Cybersecurity is a very popular career path with more and more job opportunities arising. A common job in this field would be an information security analyst. This role wears a lot of hats but is basically responsible for maintaining the security at computer networks and systems. Just like there are two sides to every story, there are two sides to cybersecurity. You have the people that work to hack to find the weaknesses in the networks ethically and you have the people that are trying to improve and protect the network. The median salary for someone in a position like this is a little over a hundred thousand dollars per year according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The next careers we're going to talk about are multimedia artists and animators, video game and software developers, and web developers. Although these roles produce different types of media, they have a lot of similarities in that they have to know some computer coding as well as have creative and design skills. Artists in multimedia and animator careers often work on creating special effects or animations using film, video, and graphic design that is used in products such as electronic games, movies, videos, and more. This type of role could also include video game designers that are responsible for coming up with innovative games and storylines, building character biographies, and key features of video games. These types of roles average around 77,000 dollars per year. If you like working more with numbers and puzzles, you might look into becoming an application or software developer. The developer is different from the designer because they're the ones who make the game or application design plan a reality through coding and programming. App and software developers can work on video games, but they also develop programs for computers, phone applications, and other electronics, including drums. These types of roles average around 110,000 dollars a year. Another avenue in this area is web developer. Unlike game designers and developers, web developers create user-friendly and appealing websites through utilizing both creative design as well as coding. These positions could widely vary in salary depending on skill level and project size. However, the average earning according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics is about 77,000 dollars per year. Next up, we have database administrators or database analysts. Database administrators manage databases by testing them, resolving performance issues, and ensuring information stored in these systems are secure. Database analysts take information from the databases to analyze or interpret it to be able to explain what it means. These types of positions could be found in any organization that collects data. For example, retail companies use databases to keep track of customer information and insights, and hospitals use them for maintaining patient records. Lots of businesses use databases to assess how effective their processes are and to justify a need for a change. These types of positions average over 98,000 dollars per year. Now we're going to jump into some positions that focus more on electronics. To most people outside of the industry, a drum seems like it could simply be a combination of a camera attached to a small airplane or helicopter. But surprisingly, drones do a whole lot more than that. As mentioned earlier, software engineers play a huge part in the drone industry. They're the ones that develop the programs and software we use for these devices. Because of the advanced technology created by software engineers, we are able to use drones for a variety of tasks. Some of the top industries for drone use include agriculture, construction, and law enforcement. In agriculture, drones are used to monitor livestock and spray fertilizer. Drones are used to survey the land, take measurements, and inspect sites in the construction and mining fields. Police and public safety officers use drones to investigate potentially dangerous situations while ensuring the safety of their staff. Drones have taken the technology industry to new heights. Now let's take a look into another booming technology that's closer to the ground. To understand what a robotics engineer does, it could help to learn a little bit more about robots themselves. When you think of a robot, does this come to mind? Or how about this? While those are some cool lovable robots, in the working world, robots actually look something like this. Or this. Robots are found in industries such as healthcare, defense and safety, manufacturing, mining, and more. They're used to carry out a complex series of actions automatically. Robotics engineers use mechanical, electrical, and computer software engineering to build, test, and maintain these robots. Pinpointing the salary for a position like this is a bit challenging because it is so new. There isn't a lot of information out about it yet. Salaries in this field vary greatly, but a salary of $100,000 per year is about average. Which of these careers stand out to you? We covered just a few of the many pathways in the tech industry. In this field, new jobs are being created all the time, so it'll be important to explore your options to see what else is out there. If you have any questions about the careers we went over today, you can reach out to our at careerservices at nctc.edu. If you want to learn more about the NCTC Career Center and the services we offer, you can visit our website at www.nctc.edu slash career dash services.