Are you interested in pursuing a career in IT but worried that you need to be a programmer or a maths whiz? Well, we’ve got some fantastic news for you – that stereotype couldn’t be farther from the truth! The world of IT is brimming with opportunities for people from various backgrounds, including humanities, creative thinkers, and analysts. You don’t need to be a coding guru to thrive in this field. Together with Natalia Perkowska, Head of Talent Acquisition at SOFTSWISS, we will explore IT professions that do not require coding skills.
Tester aka QA Engineer
The role in a few words: verification, bugs, use cases, meticulousness, and ingenuity.
QA Engineer Duties:
As a QA engineer, also known as a tester, your role is to ensure that products work flawlessly throughout their development stages. You will be a detective, seeking out errors and flaws in applications and reporting them to developers. While it may appear simple, being a tester demands both meticulousness and creativity. You must anticipate various scenarios and uncover situations where things might go awry.
Skills Required for a QA Engineer:
- Mastery of QA fundamentals. You will need to grasp basic testing methods, work with specialised software like Bugzilla, and understand how to write test cases.
- Databases and code proficiency. While users engage with user experiences (UX), your focus as a QA engineer will be assessing program SQL and database-level responses. Knowledge of HTML and CSS, even at a basic level, will be beneficial and not as intimidating as it sounds.
- Attention to detail. Repeat the tester’s mantra: “What happens if? What else can go wrong?” Your imagination should encompass experiences of numerous future users to anticipate potential pitfalls. When you discover such issues, you must articulate them clearly and concisely for developers to promptly rectify.
Advantages and Disadvantages:
- Low entry threshold. Becoming a QA engineer doesn’t demand technical education or programming skills. Individuals with various backgrounds such as doctors, lawyers, builders, teachers, or even bartenders can venture into the world of IT by starting as junior QA specialists. This entry point allows you to learn and grow with the help of experienced testers, offering promising career prospects to eventually become team leads or data analysts.
- Room for development. You can progress from manual testing to automated testing. Although, creating effective test scripts actually relies on knowing how the development process works.
- Routine and monotony. Some testers may perceive the work as repetitive, given the similarity in test scenarios across various products.
Project Manager aka Mastermind
The role in a few words: communication, analytics, technical documentation (TK), approvals, and control.
Project Manager Duties:
As a project manager (PM), you won’t write code, but you’ll oversee the entire project lifecycle. Your responsibilities will include monitoring implementation progress, acting as a crucial bridge between developers and clients, and guiding the product through testing stages as well as potential market launch and promotion. It’s an exciting yet challenging role.
“You’ve got a cushy job doing nothing!” – this is a common misconception among those unfamiliar with the essence of the profession. While laying bricks (coding) is vital, a project’s success hinges on more than just that. It requires someone to ensure the timely availability of necessary materials and labour, while consistently monitoring the process and addressing issues.
Skills Required for an IT Project Manager:
- Communication artistry. As a project manager, your ability to effectively communicate and empathise with people is paramount. You will translate technical jargon into human language, setting tasks, ensuring deadlines are met, and fostering brainstorming sessions to unearth innovative solutions. To excel in this role, polished communication skills are a must.
- Proficiency in agile development methodologies. Are you well-versed in implementing the Scrum model or other Agile approaches? As a project manager, you will meticulously plan and allocate workloads, hold regular meetings, and verify intermediate results. In the dynamic world of IT, unforeseen deviations may arise, underscoring the vital role you play as a facilitator in such instances.
- Mastery of task trackers, Excel, and graphic editors. Trello, Jira, Asana, or sophisticated CRM tools – these are indispensable for a project manager. Additionally, possessing the skill to create compelling and reader-friendly presentations is a fundamental asset that can enhance your effectiveness.
- Fluency in English. For international projects, fluency in English is almost always a prerequisite. It enables smooth interactions with English-speaking clients and colleagues from diverse cultural backgrounds.
- Confident paperwork management. As a project manager, you’ll handle various administrative tasks, playing a role akin to that of an accountant for your ongoing projects. From coordinating accounts to record-keeping, task assignment, and report analysis, you’ll be the backbone of organisational efficiency. Fortunately, formal education isn’t mandatory; you can learn on the job.
Advantages and Disadvantages:
- A holistic perspective. As a project manager, you will have a panoramic view of the project, honing a diverse range of both soft and hard skills. This constant development in breadth allows you to become adept at various tasks and challenges.
- A stressful ride. The role of a project manager can be likened to riding a burning bike, as not everything always goes as planned. However, by being prepared for challenging situations, possessing quick problem-solving and decision-making abilities, you will flourish in this dynamic role.
Product Manager
The role in a few words: Custdev, MVP, Roadmap, Metrics, Promotion.
Product Manager Duties:
A product manager is akin to the ‘director’ of a product, orchestrating its lifecycle from conception and development to market launch and ongoing evolution. While there may be some overlapping responsibilities with project managers, the key distinction is that product managers are responsible for the ‘what’ and ‘where’ of the product, whereas project managers focus on the ‘how’.
Skills Required for an IT Product Manager:
- Revealing ‘pains’ and offering solutions. An adept product manager excels at conducting in-depth interviews with potential customers, identifying their real problems, and devising effective solutions. Custdev techniques save resources by avoiding the development of products that the market doesn’t need.
- Mastery of product development cycles and lean canvas. In the diverse realm of IT, products come in various forms, such as applications, programs, online platforms, design templates, or even specific features in games. The product manager navigates the process of creating Minimum Viable Products (MVPs), collecting feedback from early adopters, and continuously refining the solution.
- Aligning business interests, customer needs, and technological capabilities. An effective product manager ensures that the product not only addresses customer pain points but also aligns with business objectives to generate revenue. Crafting a Customer Journey Map, analysing unit economics, and conducting A/B tests are essential components of this role.
Advantages and Disadvantages:
- Constant stimulation. As a product manager, you wield direct influence over the product’s trajectory and can significantly impact the lives of its users.
- Juggling multitasks. Product managers face times of heightened stress during release and update periods, often requiring the ability to concentrate on multiple tasks simultaneously.
Marketer
In IT, no company, be it an outsourcing firm or a product-focused enterprise, operates in isolation. Marketers play a crucial role in ensuring that solutions meet market needs, remain competitive, and drive success for clients and the company alike.
The role in a few words: market, need, product, metrics, promotion.
Marketer Duties:
Their work varies based on the company’s focus (product development or outsourcing) and the segment they operate in (B2B or B2C). An IT marketer in outsourcing facilitates sales by developing sales channels, crafting attractive offers, and collaborating with other companies.
Product IT marketers in B2B focus on building both product and company branding. B2C marketers, on the other hand, navigate diverse and exciting tasks throughout a project’s life cycle, spanning idea validation, market launch, promotion and user retention.
Skills Required for an IT Marketer:
- Crafting a robust marketing strategy. Crafting a successful marketing strategy demands meticulous analysis of the market, competitors, and target audience. Moreover, formulating a unique selling proposition (USP) and preparing a product for launch require experience and expertise, making prior work in a startup or product company a significant advantage.
- Proficiency in online and offline promotion. IT marketers are expected to be adept at promoting products and services across various platforms. This entails planning budgets, understanding targeted advertising, and effectively negotiating with information partners and bloggers.
- Effective promotion management. An effective IT marketer functions as a ‘playing coach’, taking on both the roles of a responsible performer and a competent leader. They possess the skills to organise and manage a department, whether in-house or remotely, and optimise resource allocation.
- Marketing performance analysis. The ability to calculate the efficiency of marketing efforts is a crucial skill for IT marketers. Metrics such as cost per acquired user, lifetime value (LTV), retention rate, promotion coverage, warm leads, meetings with potential customers, and orders are essential in evaluating success.
Advantages and Disadvantages:
- Thrill of creativity. IT marketing offers abundant opportunities for creativity and, with adequate resources and supportive leadership, provides a sense of freedom in implementing innovative strategies. Being on the cutting edge of technology allows you to work with the most effective platforms and promotion tools.
- Navigating uncharted territory. IT marketers sometimes find themselves pioneering new approaches without guaranteed outcomes. Success in marketing activities depends on numerous factors, some of which are beyond their control.
Recruiter
An IT recruiter is akin to a ‘jewel seeker’, actively searching for talented professionals who are often already in high demand.
The role in a few words: empathy, persuasiveness, tact, market, trends.
Recruiter Duties:
An IT recruiter delves into the market, actively seeking suitable candidates to fill positions. Their work predominantly revolves around finding specialists, particularly at the middle and senior levels.
However, their responsibilities extend beyond sourcing talent; they are also responsible for successful onboarding, as well as motivating, training, and developing new employees in some cases. In large companies, specific human resources development specialists might oversee the latter tasks.
Skills Required for an IT Recruiter:
- Market insight. In the ever-evolving landscape of IT, an astute recruiter must stay on top of market trends. From company mergers and acquisitions to new development centres, ownership changes, and evolving conditions, these are all critical indicators that can influence specialists’ willingness to explore new job opportunities.
- Empathetic listening. The days of rigid, self-centred recruiters are long gone. A skilled recruiter understands the importance of active listening. Through the design of a candidate’s resume and their initial responses, a proficient recruiter can gauge whether they are open to new opportunities and what motivates them. Personalised and attentive communication beats generic template messages every time.
- Understanding human and technical aspects. Sometimes, a candidate may not perfectly match the job requirements. In such cases, the recruiter must assess if the individual can grow and adapt to the role, and estimate the required time for their development. A seasoned headhunter needs a comprehensive understanding of the IT market, including languages, frameworks, programs, scripts, and even the dynamics of GitHub versus regular hosting. Moreover, they must also sense the team dynamics, ensuring a candidate fits well within the organisation.
Advantages and Disadvantages:
- Broad growth opportunities. A recruiter can either explore diverse areas or specialise in one niche, uncovering hidden gems and talented individuals in the process. This multifaceted role combines the skills of a psychologist and a detective, making it an intriguing and rewarding career path.
- Patience is key. Not every potential candidate may be receptive to communication, despite the recruiter’s best efforts and approach. Thus, remarkable patience is essential in this field.
Business Analyst
In the world of IT, a business analyst acts as a ‘business doctor’ examining a company’s inner workings and offering IT solutions to enhance its efficiency and overall health.
The role in a few words: communication, diagnostics, problem, solution, value.
Business Analyst Duties:
Often, clients approach IT developers without a clear idea of their needs, and even the problems to be addressed may lack a definite formulation. This is where a skilled business analyst comes in. They deeply delve into the client’s processes, pinpoint the root issues, propose effective IT solutions, and support development and implementation phases. Their expertise lies in bridging the gap between business requirements and technology.
Skills Required for an IT Business Analyst:
- Specialisation or broad outlook. Having experience in a specific niche, such as logistics, can be advantageous, but lacking specialisation can be compensated by a versatile outlook and an eagerness to understand specific industries in detail.
- Artistry of communication. A business analyst’s effectiveness hinges on their ability to ask pertinent questions, actively listen, analyse information, and adeptly translate between business jargon and technological language. Proficiency in English is crucial for seamless interaction.
- Knowledge of BI platforms. Utilising Business Intelligence (BI) platforms like Tableau, Microsoft Power BI, Qlik, Metabase, and others is fundamental for collecting, analysing, and visualising data. However, this does not exclude the need to interpret conventional documents, graphs, and tables.
Advantages and Disadvantages:
- Thrill of innovation. A business analyst’s work is akin to being a ‘business inventor’, shaping new products that solve specific company problems. Each project adds to their professional expertise, making every case a unique and fulfilling experience.
- Navigating between the two worlds. Being a business analyst demands a seamless transition between the human realm of understanding people’s needs and the analytical realm of processing data. This constant switching between languages can be taxing, and the role carries the weight of ensuring that the developed product effectively addresses the client’s challenges.
Systems Analyst
Meet the ‘architect’ and chief engineer of IT solution projects, the systems analyst. Whether it’s for internal company needs or an external customer, the systems analyst plays a pivotal role in project success. While they may not be writing code themselves, they possess a profound understanding of how everything works ‘under the hood’.
The role in a few words: SQL and database, software architecture, documentation, technology, implementation.
Systems Analyst Duties:
Working hand in hand with business analysts, a systems analyst is responsible for developing the right solutions. While business analysts focus on the business side, systems analysts dive into the technical aspects. They take the vision of what needs to be done and figure out how to make it a reality.
Skills Required for an IT Systems Analyst:
- Understanding how software addresses business problems and combining ‘must-do’ and ‘how-to’ aspects. This understanding translates into detailed requirements for developers and testers, prototyping, and comprehensive documentation using tools like Jira and Confluence.
- Proficiency in data management. A deep knowledge of databases, SQL, and the ability to work with temporary tables and ER diagrams is crucial.
- Systematic thinking. The systems analyst requires an ordered, mathematical mindset, capable of recognising patterns, causes, and effects – a vital skill for this position.
Advantages and Disadvantages:
- A systems analyst is deeply immersed in product development, collaborating with the development team, managers, and business analysts to lay the foundation, build the walls, and construct the roof of the new project.
- Among the ‘non-technical’ IT specialties, systems analysts are the most technically demanding. If you’re not keen on coding but have a technical inclination, this profession might be the perfect fit.
Sales Manager
Meet the ‘face’ and ‘poster’ of the company – the sales manager. Their role is to sell products, services, or man-hours (outstaffing) to prospective clients.
The role in a few words: communication, persuasiveness, literacy, networking, and documents.
Sales Manager Duties:
A sales manager takes on the challenge of selling complex and high-value products in a competitive market. Their responsibilities include:
- Conducting in-depth research on the products they sell
- Monitoring the market for opportunities
- Engaging with potential customers and negotiating deals
- Making product presentations
- Collaborating with the company’s management, managers, and analysts
- Handling paperwork such as reports, contracts, acts, and invoices
- Contributing to product improvement
Skills Required for an IT Sales Manager:
- Product expertise and understanding customer needs. A proficient sales manager must thoroughly understand the products they sell. For services, they should be well-versed in the scope of work, timeframes, and costs the team can deliver. It’s crucial to align offerings with client needs. Knowledge of basic terminology, product development stages, and specific features will empower a sales manager, alongside mastering sales techniques like AIDA.
- Effective communication. Strong communication skills are a must, both in verbal interactions and written correspondence. For companies with an international focus, proficiency in English is essential. Sales managers must be adept at handling business correspondence, creating presentations (alone or with the help of a designer), and maintaining effective communication.
- Analytical skills and forecasting abilities. A sales manager needs to be adept at record-keeping and forecasting. Managing the sales process, tracking the sales funnel, and leveraging end-to-end analytics systems on top-notch CRM platforms facilitate successful operations.
Advantages and Disadvantages:
- Lucrative and engaging profession. Top-performing sales managers in IT can earn salaries comparable to middle and even senior-level programmers.
- Demanding and stressful. The sales manager’s job involves constant calls, emails, meetings, and negotiations. The stress can heighten when dealing with difficult customers and striving to meet sales targets.
Where to Go in IT if Coding Isn’t Your Forte
In the vast realm of IT, there are numerous specialties that do not require coding skills. This article explored only a fraction of those opportunities, ranging from content creation, design, document management, to organising corporate training and leisure activities.
The Polish IT market, as one of the largest in Eastern Europe, offers a multitude of vacancies that do not demand deep programming knowledge. SOFTSWISS, headquartered in Poznan, warmly welcomes talented professionals, be it managers, analysts, or other specialists, to embark on profitable careers and make a difference.
Who knows? Perhaps the perfect opportunity awaits you!