Can’t figure out where your career should go next? Our comprehensive Tech Career Paths hub is your roadmap to navigating the exciting possibilities in the tech industry. From exploring in-demand specializations to identifying the perfect fit based on your skills and interests, we'll guide you through the key considerations you need to make. Discover insider tips, data-driven insights, and expert advice on education, certifications, and in-demand skills… all designed to empower you to chart the perfect course for your tech career journey.
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The Modern Multispecialist Engineer
You've been deep in your engineering specialty for years, but something's changing. Job postings keep asking for backend developers who know infrastructure. Today, data engineers need to build application programming interfaces. The clean lines between infrastructure, backend and data work now overlap, as engineers can jump between these domains without breaking a sweat. It's about becoming a multispecialist engineer who can earn more and handle whatever the job market throws your way. Why Are Engineering Roles Converging? Forget the old days when you could stick to your lane as a pure backend developer or infrastructure guru. Engineering roles are converging — developers need operations knowledge, operations engineers write code and quality assurance people have turned into full-blown developers building test frameworks. This isn't a passing trend. Cloud-native development brings along DevOps practices, which have completely reshaped software delivery by enabling faster and more resil
Five Ways to Gain Experience Without a Full-Time Job
You need experience to get a job, but you need a job to gain experience. This classic catch-22 traps countless early-career tech professionals in a frustrating cycle that seems impossible to break. According to Forbes, 52% of recent college graduates remain underemployed a year after graduation, while over 60% of those seeking bachelor's degrees feel pessimistic about starting their careers. However, the tech industry offers unique pathways to build meaningful experience outside traditional employment. Smart professionals are using alternative routes to break through barriers and land the roles they want. Why Is Experience So Important in Today's Job Market? Employers value experience because it demonstrates you're a team player and can handle real challenges. Deloitte reports that 61% of employers have increased their experience requirements over the last three years; many entry-level jobs now demand two to five years of experience. Risk-averse hiring managers widen this gap. Deloitte
What AI is Changing About Data Careers — and What it Isn’t
By Iris Adae, VP of Data & Analytics (DatA), KNIME I’ve spent the past several years leading and scaling data and analytics teams, and I’ve seen firsthand how rapidly AI is transforming the way we work. When I started, we were focused on traditional workflows: cleaning datasets, building dashboards, and optimizing pipelines. Today, we can integrate AI models directly into those workflows, and what used to take days often takes hours, or even minutes. This is not only a major speed-up, but it also opens up a new set of possibilities. AI isn’t just transforming the tools we use; it’s redefining data careers entirely — reshaping expectations for tech professionals and forcing organizations to rethink the skills they prioritize and develop. AI has lowered the technical barriers to entry for working with data, empowering more people across the business to explore insights and act on them. But at the same time, it has elevated the need for human judgment, context awareness, and critical thin
How to Narrow Your Career Options Without Feeling Trapped
Scrolling through thousands of tech jobs can make your head spin, especially early in your career when everything looks exciting. Front end, back end, DevOps, data science, cybersecurity, AI engineering — the list goes on and on. Each path seems to demand different skills, different mindsets and different career progressions. Having too many options creates what psychologists call "choice overload." Learning how to narrow career options the right way creates clarity instead of limitations, so you can finally start building the tech career you want. Why Do We Feel Trapped When Trying to Choose a Career Path? Your brain struggles with the modern tech job market's endless possibilities. Every month brings fresh job titles — yesterday's "full-stack developer" becomes today's "AI-enhanced frontend engineer." Decision fatigue kicks in hard when you're weighing 50-plus career paths. Your logical mind tries to analyze each option while your emotions worry about missing out or making a poor cho
Should You Become a Fractional Tech Leader?
Over the last few years, organizations have increasingly turned to part-time, specialized tech leaders to provide expertise, strategic decisions and speedy results without the full-time commitment and cost of a traditional hire. In fact, according to The Times, the number of LinkedIn profiles mentioning “fractional executive” exploded from approximately 2,000 in 2022 to more than 110,000 by 2024, an indicator of the growing global demand and supply. To be clear, fractional work isn’t a side hustle or part-time individual contributor role. Fractional leaders take ownership of outcomes and often work with multiple organizations simultaneously to drive major initiatives. They are expected to hold the culture and deliver a massive impact within a few months while usually working remotely just two to three hours a day, explained Ashish Gupta, CEO and founder of ScaleUpExec, a fractional COO firm. Given the trends (and the disproportionate number of managerial layoffs in the tech industry) y