Are you gonna get stuck in a programming career and not be able to advance or are there plenty of opportunities? Let’s talk about that today.
The question again was, “Is programming a long-term career?” So in other words, are you gonna get stuck or is there plenty of opportunities for you to advance as a developer? Well, basically, when programming first started, sort of in the ’60s and the ’70s, you were fairly well pigeonholed. So you had a certain category, if you like, applied to yourself. If you were a programmer, you were always a programmer. There wasn’t really a lot of opportunities to advance.
In the ’70s and ’80s, that changed and there was a role of project manager and line manager, et cetera. There was a clear transition from programming to management if you wanted to get into that. Now, lots of programmers don’t wanna do that, and I was actually one of those. I got sort of pushed into management and eventually quit the jobs that were leading towards management or were in management and started to focus back on tech, because that’s what I love.
The great news, though, here in 2019 and beyond, is it’s a lot easier for you to get great opportunities to grow as a person, to earn more money, and to get a more fulfilling job because you can specialize in specific areas. For example, if you decide to start a career, you’ll probably just be doing general type programming, learning the ropes, so to speak. But as you progress, you might decide to specialize. So you might get into artificial intelligence, big data, whatever it is. And the great thing about doing that is you’re opening yourself up to lots of opportunities. And with computers being used, virtually everywhere that a business operates these days, the opportunities are almost limitless.
So I think today there’s a lot more scope for career advancement than there were when I started out, so that’s something you don’t need to worry about. So don’t think you’re gonna be pigeonholed or that there isn’t career growth opportunities. There’s plenty in 2019 and beyond.
I hope that helped. If you’ve got any questions, feel free to leave a comment and I’ll get back to you.