What If I Get Through Bootcamp and Realize I Don’t Like To Code?
The following is written by Careers in Code’s career coach, Laura Thorne.
You’ve made it through Bootcamp — congratulations! Give yourself a massive pat on the back, that’s no easy feat.
But… there’s one slight hiccup. After all the classes about coding, you’ve realized that you don’t actually like writing code. Although it may have been exciting at first, you’ve realized that you can’t imagine sitting across from a computer all day scripting and debugging. It might be someone else’s passion, but it’s definitely not yours.
That’s completely okay! A lot of professionals who graduate from Bootcamp or other computer science programs don’t actually end up doing much coding in their jobs.
The good news is that you don’t have to do a complete 180 on your career, so rest assured that the last 24 weeks have not gone to waste. There are a myriad of jobs in the computer science and software field that don’t require you to interact with code on a day-to-day basis.
UI Designers
If your favorite part of the Bootcamp web design classes was picking out the color scheme and layout of a website, not writing the HTML or CSS, this one might be for you.
UI design is a blossoming field somewhere in between graphic design and software engineering. UI designers build out what an application is going to look like. Using tools like Adobe XD, Balsamiq, or Figma, UI Designers create a wireframe of each page of an application/website, as well as ideate pipelines that illustrate how the pages flow into each other. UI designers aim to balance functionality and intuitiveness with beautiful design, while also incorporating the branding of the company (e.g. fonts, color scheme) into the application.
Median Average Salary: $79,890
Job Titles: UI Designer, UX Designer, Product Designer, Experience Designer, Interaction Designer, Experience Architect, Design Technologist
Software Testers
Rather than writing code, software testers develop and execute different scenarios to detect potential defects in a new application. The goal of software testers is to uncover any potential flaws in a developing application before it reaches the customer, so the customer can receive the highest quality and most user-friendly platform. Additionally, after an application has been launched, software testers may perform scheduled quality assurance checks or monitor user feedback to ensure that the application is functioning as expected.
Although software testers rarely write code, they must have a strong understanding of computer programming to identify the root of any problems they discover during testing. Beyond computer science, software testers must be excellent communicators in order to communicate design defects to software developers effectively and document those defects.
Median Average Salary: $98,220
Job Titles: Software Tester, Quality Assurance Tester, Quality Assurance Analyst, Game Tester
Sales Engineer
Sales engineers require an incredibly specific — but incredibly valuable — combination of knowledge. Sales engineers combine their technical knowledge about a product with stellar interpersonal skills in order to sell tech products and services to clients or businesses. Sales engineers have to be well-versed in computer engineering in order to communicate the technical specifications of a product and how a business might benefit from buying it. However, the mark of an excellent sales engineer is their interpersonal skills. Beyond understanding the product, sales engineers must be great listeners, empathetic, confident, trustworthy, and — above all — persuasive.
Median Average Salary: $103,710
Job Titles: Sales Engineer, Technical Salesperson, Technical Account Manager, Customer Engineer
Database Administrator
We’re not going to lie — there probably will be coding involved in this job. But, if you’re a wiz at SQL or Python, then you should definitely consider becoming a database administrator. Database administrators upkeep databases so data analysts within and outside the company can understand the organization and find the necessary data. They also may be asked to add new sections or restructure to already existing databases as required.
Median Average Salary: $96,710
Job Titles: Database Manager, Database Analyst, DBA
Cybersecurity Analysts
As industry after industry shifts to the digital landscape, cybersecurity analysts are integral to keeping information safe. This role is particularly important in the finance, software, higher education, and consulting sectors. Cybersecurity analysts work to prevent security breaches and address them when they occur. Moreover, these professionals also conduct testing in order to discover and solve potential security breaches before an outside hacker can exploit those flaws.
Median Average Salary: $102,600
Job Titles: Cybersecurity Analyst, Information Security Analyst, Information Security Technician, Cybersecurity Specialist
Other Career Paths
Even if none of the career paths above sound appealing to you, there are careers in tech that could be your calling — the ones above are just the tip of the iceberg.
It’s important to remember that the skills you learned in Bootcamp go far beyond the technical ones. In addition to learning different programming languages and softwares, you are also practicing time management, communication, project management, organization, and countless more. Without those skills, you wouldn’t have been able to be successful in Bootcamp, so carry those on with you as you search for your next role.
Laura Thorne is the Career Coach with Hack Upstate’s Careers in Code program which is a bootcamp for women and minorities. You may be interested in our 24-week, full stack bootcamp. You can learn more and apply for our waitlist here!
