Gaining knowledge is good but if you are going to learn to code in Kenya, you need to have career goals in place. What happens after your complete your coding lessons? How do you turn your newly acquired skills into a reliable source of income?
Before we discuss the career options for developers, let us deal with one myth that keeps many graduates grounded. You do not go to school to get a good job!
Academic credentials qualify you for good jobs but that is not the ultimate goal of attaining an education. You have to think beyond getting a job.
Youth unemployment is a reality. Even the best developers strive to earn from their skills. Self-employment should be on top of the list of your income options.
Whether self-employed or otherwise, you can choose any of these career paths:
Mobile Application Developer
Enterprises have been shifting from websites to mobile apps to keep up with new trends. Business owners look for developers who can create customized apps for their businesses.
This career path will remain lucrative for a couple of years. Even with free app builders, entrepreneurs have limited time to upgrade their technology.
Application development is not limited to enterprises. You can create your apps in different categories and earn revenues. Individuals also seek developers for their app ideas.
Front-End Developer
When you join a school to learn to code in Kenya, you will learn all aspects of development. However, you can choose one aspect or area and specialize in it. Specialization ensures that you deliver beyond your client’s expectations at all times.
Front-end developers are specialists in codes that run on the user’s browser. Hence, they can create a friendly and responsive user interface for any solution.
Most of the programmers in this category focus on developing websites. The good thing about web design is that you can work as a freelance designer while employed.
Back-end developer
An alternative is to focus on the server side of development instead of the user interface. Coding on this side is a bit complicated. You may need to design the system architecture from scratch.
Back-end developers need database skills. The serve-side development powers the functions of the front-end part of software and websites.
In addition to writing codes, you need excellent problem-solving skills. The career involves identifying and solving problems with systems during and after development.
Games developer
Are you a gamer? Gaming is a huge business around the world. Some people consider it as their sole hobby. Hence, they are always looking for the latest game to conquer a new challenge.
You can specialize in games development as a tech entrepreneur or work for a gaming company. The job involves lots of animation and 3D graphics.
The advantage of this career path is that it will also be a new challenge. Gaming companies keep updating the levels in their games and creating new categories.
If you cannot add a new game to the business, work with those who continually develop games.
Data Scientist
Ever since terms like big data and data analytics became popular, data science has become a lucrative field to explore. Business managers now make decisions based on data and not assumptions or intuition.
Data scientists analyze data sets to identify and report any trends or patterns. The trends must be meaningful to end users.
One of the major lessons for data scientists is machine learning. Organizations collect large amounts of data that is useless in their raw data.
You will learn to apply algorithms to create meaning out of such data sets. With the right training, you will give solutions to organizations based on the data they collect daily.
Enterprise software developer
Have you seen an organization advertising for permanent job positions for developers? Such organizations look for enterprise software developers. Sometimes it is cheaper for businesses to hire developers as permanent employees than outsource software development.
If you choose this career path, you will create software or tools specific to your employer. Your apps or tools will not be sold publicly.
The purpose of such tools is to improve performance and efficiency within an organization. In addition, the requirements will change depending on the type of business that you engage in.
Some enterprise developers choose one sector and specialize in creating solutions for such sectors. For instance, you can specialize in creating tools for healthcare institutions or banks. The needs are in most cases similar within a sector with minimal variations.
Full-stack developer
You must have come across this term severally in your research. Full-stack developers are always in demand because they can handle both front-end and back-end frameworks.
Employers prefer to hire full-stack developers and pay them well instead of hiring different specialists. Have this preference in mind as you learn to code in Kenya.
Becoming a full-stack developer also expands the range of projects that you can handle as a freelance developer. You will create outstanding products that will keep clients flowing.
Other Career Options:
Language developer: You compile languages that other developers and programmers use to create applications.
OS developer: Such developers create operating systems on which different programs and processes run
Algorithms developer: You need advanced learning to create new algorithms. Consider this as a long-term career goal because of the educational credentials and experience required.
Test or QA automation engineer: The developers create tools that test software. The tools are important in identifying bugs in codes, which affect the performance of a product.
Cloud developers: The category of developers specializes in software on the cloud. You need to understand how the cloud system works in addition to the normal coding lessons that programmers take.
Conclusion
Developers have a wide range of career options. It is easy to choose a career path as long as you learn to code in Kenya in the right coding school. The skills requirements for each career option are different. The higher you go in training, the wider the range of career options you get. Remember you can always switch from one path to another fulfilling career path.
