Every company is a tech company these days. This is according to Dr. Andrew Chamberlain, Glassdoor’s chief economist, who explained his position to Business Insider. ‘(T)hey all need people who know how to collect, organize, and analyze data to help them make better, more informed business decisions,’ said Chamberlain whose company recently published the 50 Best Jobs in America report. That means all companies require tech skills in 2018, but what exactly are the top ten tech careers in 2018, according to Glassdoor?
Top Tech Jobs in 2018: Staying Ahead of Automation
The Glassdoor report combines three factors to work out its top-job rankings: number of job openings, salary and overall job satisfaction rating. Not all the jobs on the Glassdoor’s report are tech jobs, but there has been a definite increase in the number of jobs in this industry: 20 out of the 50 jobs in this year’s list are in tech compared with 14 out of 50 in the previous year.
Here are the top ten tech careers in 2018. For a job to be considered, it has to receive both 100 salary reports and 100 job satisfaction ratings over the past year from US-based employees.
# 1 Data Scientist
Topping the list at number one is Data Scientist. The Harvard Business Review calls Data Science the ‘sexiest job of the 21st century’.
Data Scientists (and many other top tech jobs) are at a lower risk for automation, stated the Glassdoor report. Automation is likely to hit certain jobs hard. Bookkeepers, for example, have a 97.6% chance of being automated. ‘The key skills that are helping workers stay ahead of automation are creativity, judgment and flexibility,’ says Chamberlain. In tech, this would include data science, which requires creative problem-solving ability. Check out this nifty guide to assess the likelihood of your job being automated.
# 2 DevOps Engineer
Gareth Dwyer, software and operations developer at HyperonDev, explains that a DevOps engineer is ‘a software developer who also knows how to do server configuration and management, and therefore doesn’t rely on a system administrator for operating system, platform and hardware support.’ DevOps straddle deployment and network operations as well as scripting and coding.
# 3 Mobile Developer
Scott Stiner of UM Technologies and part of the Forbes Technology Council says in a Forbes piece: ‘Mobile application developers will continue to be in high demand, just as they have been the past few years. The demand will become greater in 2018, though, and successful app developers should be fluent in multiple programming languages, including Java, HTML5, Objective-C, C++, C#, Python and Swift. Also, app developers with UX and UI design skills can offer much more value for project management.’
App developers are partly in high demand because app revenue is climbing hugely. Worldwide revenue growth in 2020 is projected at 188.9 billion US dollars (compared with 88.3 billion dollars in 2016).
# 4 Product Manager
With so many new tech products on the market, companies need a technical, organised and logistics-driven employee who can manage it all. It’s essentially an organisational role that guides the strategy, roadmap and feature definition for either a product line or a product.
# 5 Front End Engineer
At its most basic, front-end engineers tend to write code that runs on a user’s browser, which translates into knowing HTML, CSS, JavaScript and various APIs. HTML, CSS and JavaScript are frequently used in the developer world. Check out this graph, which shows commonly used programming languages, from the 2018 Stack Overflow Developer Survey.
# 6 Site Reliability Engineer
During a live push (when software goes live), things frequently go wrong. That’s where site reliability engineers come in. They spend all their time monitoring application performance, reviewing error logs and troubleshooting software defects.
# 7 Analytics Manager
Analytics Managers, according to Social Science Careers, are business professionals who have technical skills, industry understanding and knowledge of customers in order to make informed business decisions. They will translate raw data into meaningful information – for example, which products you should put on sale for the upcoming season.
# 8 Software Engineer
Software Engineers create the technologies that we interact with every day, from the app that wakes you up in the morning to social media and music platforms. ‘Software affects almost every aspect of our daily lives. You cannot go a day without encountering some sort of software; software is everywhere,’ states Dr. Melanie Willett, content writer at HyperionDev.
# 9 Hardware Engineer
Hardware engineers typically work in research labs that build and test various new versions of computer models. Their day-to-day typically includes researching, designing and developing computer systems and their components (circuit boards, routers, etc.).
#10 Quality Assurance Manager
The duties of a quality assurance manager will obviously differ between industries but at its simplest, the job involves ensuring that tech products are operating as they should. Some typical duties could include determining in-house quality standards and procedures, setting customer service standards, writing management and technical reports, and training.
Conclusion
So those are the top ten tech careers in 2018. But remember, the great thing about a tech job is that there is such variability in potential jobs, from solely coding and marketing via data analysis to dealing only with customers and people. As a result, there’s sure to be a tech job that suits your aptitudes and personality. Enrol on a HyperionDev free trial to find out more about Web, Mobile or Software Development.
