Hi, welcome to my first blog post.

As a benefactor of the ADAProject, we were mandated to watch a video on YouTube, and the facilitator was Yewande Odumosu. She had so much to say about building your career in tech and building yourself.

You can read this post to the end for highlights on the video.

Here we go!!!

Evaluate where you are

The first thing in designing your tech career is evaluating where you are. You have to understand where you are and even though it’s a long journey, you’d need to start. Find out what you’re good at, or things you really love doing. Know the things that motivate you.

Knowing all of these will help you form impressions of yourself. No one knows you better than yourself, so you need to explore and find out for yourself that particular thing that drives you. It’s important to understand and take stock of how far you have come in your journey.

You can ask yourself some of the following questions (gotten from the video Tech Career):

• What do people say I am good at?
• What aspects of my work/course do I enjoy the most?
• What aspects of my work/course do I enjoy the least?
• What drives/motivates me?
• What do I find myself doing in my spare time?
• What is one topic area I know more than most people in my circle?
• What are the top 3 things I have done so far in my career/course/business that make me proud of myself?

Know your strengths and skills

Skills can be transferred, developed, and learned, so you need to know and identify your skills and know those you need to learn to advance your tech career road map.

Some examples of hard skills are copywriting, data mining, visual design, programming, knowledge of using different platforms, using software for forming different kinds of documents, editing photos and so much more.

While some soft skills include communication skills, leadership skills, negotiation skills, adaptability skills, interpersonal skills, and many more.

Tech Career Roadmap

Yewande displayed some tech career roadmap, and she notes that it can be linear (i.e., from let’s say Engineering intern – Junior Developer (front end) – Mid-level developer (front end) – senior developer (front end)- Team lead (front end) – Principal – CTO/VP Engineering).

Or nonlinear (i.e., from Design intern – Junior developer (full stack) – Mid-level developer (Back end) – Product manager – Senior product manager – Chief product officer - CEO).

A nonlinear roadmap is usually what happens in real life. But whichever one you decide to choose, make sure that you’re doing it for the right reasons, and not because others are doing it.

You can transition into any tech or nontech role because they can help you build up some skills for where you will be next. You also need to keep improving yourself, by taking up online courses and checking up on yourself regularly to know what skills you must have acquired over time. This enhances personal development.

When you're in a role and you’ve picked up values, you can move on to another role that’s related to the skills you’ve picked up or gained in your journey. Whenever opportunities present themselves, like a job position, you can check the job description to know which skills you’ve got and which you can work on, so you can be qualified for the position. You can also work on personal projects or a project to help a friend or colleague in your spare time.

Always document skills gained either by using your LinkedIn profile or adding them to your portfolio so that they can be seen or viewed by others.

Be observant of your environment for what you can learn per time. Try things out so that you can know what your skills are good for. You can have new interests all the time and can be experimented with on the side.

This means that exposure is key.

According to Yewande Odumosu, if you want to transition into tech in Nigeria whether it be technical or nontechnical roles, in no particular order, you need to:

• Explore your interests by focusing on what you’re drawn to in tech.
• Take a crash course or join a Bootcamp for the role you want to explore.
• You’d need to take up a side project or by volunteering yourself for an existing one, and this is for you to check/monitor your growth.
• You will most definitely need to be part of a community of like minds for you to be aware of different trends in your area.

How to accelerate your Tech journey

The following are some of the ways Yewande Odumosu listed for your tech journey to soar.

• Engage in communities.
• Turn up for events and this will enable you to network. But networking can be done both online and offline.
• Follow tech blogs like Tech Cabal, Techpoint, Disrupt Africa, and many more others that discuss any and everything about Tech. Subscribe so you can get updates all the time.
• Experiment and/or volunteer.
• Search your interests on YouTube, podcasts, audio rooms, and videos.
• You can get a coach or a mentor, (if necessary) for mostly accountability.
• For your personal development do at least one (1) course in six (6) months. It can be done on any of these platforms: Coursera, Udemy, Udacity, Product school, Harvard Uni edX, freecodecamp.

P.S: Some are free while others are paid for.

My Application

I will apply most of the things that were discussed in the video but most especially engage and be more active in the communities I’m already in and maybe join more. I will also read up on tech topics from the many Tech blog. I also hope to become an active blogger of tech talk.

Lastly, don’t give up on developing yourself. And even if you don’t get a job position for the particular role you’re going for immediately, keep trying and pushing. It’s a process and sooner than later, you’d be seen and heard.

It’s time to learn, unlearn and relearn.

We (All techies) are rooting for you!!!

Credits: Image by upklyak on Freepik Image by storyset on Freepik Image by pch.vector on Freepik Image by pch.vector on Freepik Image by Freepik Yewande Odumosu's Designing a Tech Career Roadmap Enugu State Tech Hub

#theADAproject #TechCareer