Technology careers are some of the best careers in today’s modern environment. They provide a high level of job security, great opportunities for advancement, and generous salaries. Yet, most people who enter the tech sector do not take full advantage of those opportunities because they do not properly architect their career by accelerating and optimizing their career journey.
“The truth about accelerating and optimizing technology careers is that it’s really not about the technology at all,” explains Mike Gibbs, CEO of Go Cloud Careers. “Understanding technology is the easy part. To architect a great tech career, you need to learn what the technology can do for the customer and how to maximize the value that the technology delivers for the customer.”
Go Cloud Careers is a global organization that provides training for elite cloud computing careers. Its focus is helping individuals achieve their dream technology career by getting hired.
“Businesses need technology for a competitive advantage. No business buys technology because they think it’s cool,” Mike says, “so the best way a person can really build their technology career is by developing skills that can be used to maximize the impact that an organization receives from their technology.”
Moving beyond technical competency
Launching a tech career begins with building technical competency or the ability to do the job, but that will only get you so far. Once you obtain technical competency, any additional technology learning certifications become irrelevant in advancing your career. What you need to do at that point to truly impact your career is develop a new set of skills that are not those typically taught in tech training programs.
Business acumen is one of the skills that is critical to architecting a great tech career. This enables the technology professional to understand the business better, so they can craft better solutions for providing digital transformation. Growing your business acumen enhances your CXO relevancy, which better positions you to know how to effectively engage with the CEO versus the CFO versus the CTO.
Leadership skills are also critical because tech professionals need to manage large teams if they are going to be effective at anything. Developing the ability to exercise influence and motivate a team to want to work is critical.
“Sales skills are critical to accelerating technology careers,” Mike says. “No matter what, we need to sell. Either we are selling our internal management on providing us with more resources, or we are selling a product to a customer, or we are selling our manager on giving us a promotion. Sales skills are absolutely critical.”
Here are some other examples of skills that can play a powerful role in architecting a tech career:
- Brand building skills, for building a personal brand that moves you beyond the role of techie and into the role of a professional who can improve a customer’s business and provide new and better outcomes for the customer.
- Presentation skills, for effectively presenting the various aspects of projects to customers, management, and fellow technology colleagues.
- Translation skills, for translating the business requirements that clients communicate in non-technical ways to the deeply technical people that carry out those things.
By developing these skills, tech professionals can differentiate themselves as someone whose value goes beyond implementing and maintaining systems. These skills allow you to dramatically increase the impact you have on the customer’s business by improving their financial performance and providing a true digital transformation experience.
A great technology career is no longer just about tech skills; it is about being a professional who understands how technology can be used to provide a maximum impact for an organization. When you can effectively deliver that kind of value, you can accelerate and optimize your technology career.
