| ▲ | kjellsbells 13 hours ago | |
A few years into my career I realized that I was not cut out to code. Luckily I worked for a good employer and they told me that code was 5% of the business regardless of what the sign over the door said. Over the next 20 years I spent time doing QA, tech support, product management, professional services, and sales engineering. Rightly or wrongly there is a hierarchy of job roles and QA and tech support are low down on that list. But if you want to stay in the industry that your org serves (eg healthcare, energy, telecom etc) they are good ways to gather real industry experience. Product is hard but devs do appreciate someone who can clearly tell them what is needed without micromanaging them (and tell the customer what is possible and what is not). Pro services is great if you have good human skills but it can be a tough sell (some orgs treat it like a body shop, some customers think they dont need it, some sales orgs throw it in for free meaning you are underwater immediately). Sales Engineering can be lucrative and fun, but only if you are paired up with a good sales team that doesnt treat you like a demo and slideware robot. | ||