I have a degree in information systems which was a mix between business and IT. While I in my initial job search was really close on heading in the direction of becoming a developer, I instead landed a role as a business systems analyst as well as working with digital transformation. So basically I’m in the land between IT and the business. I do some super light programming for the platform I’m responsible for but I feel like it’s the kind of stuff you could learn in a day. I know some basic Java, Python and C# but not really enough that I’d see me landing a job that isn’t a trainee developer position or a job for newly-grads where the company doesn’t expect you to know anything at first.
While I don’t mind the social and more business-oriented aspects of the job, I’m kinda lamenting the fact that I didn’t enter into some trainee/junior dev job to sharpen up my programming skills and become a fully-fledged developer. I’d love to work fully remote and to be more flexible, e.g., not as bound to meetings and stuff which I currently am, or become a freelancer. Has anyone made a similar transition from digital transformation/adjacent areas to becoming a developer? Or am I just thinking too narrowly on what my options in this field are? Maybe there are many opportunities for fully-remote work in digital transformation, business system analysis and what not that I’m not seeing…?
I feel developers jobs can be remote because this kind of role is less expected to have a lot of inperson meetings compared to digital transformation or business analysis
Not sure about how to transition into dev except the classic “learn on the side and try to get involved in development tasks in your current job”
I do some super light programming for the platform I’m responsible for but I feel like it’s the kind of stuff you could learn in a day.
I guarantee you, it’s not. The typical person’s first day programming ends in tears, and is also their last. If you open an editor to craft code, without a sense of dread, you are among the few with the rare gift*.
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- The ‘rare gift’ being “not giving up in rage after the first couple of attempts”.
Maybe there are many opportunities…
You are recognizing that full time developers have a lot of leverage to negotiate their work conditions.
Any job that doesn’t require hands on manual dexterity can be done better remotely, at an organization that puts in a minimal investment in modern tools.
Remote work is common among developers because developers got access to great remote tools early, and because developers frequently have a lot of negotiation power with their employer.
…digital transformation, business system analysis
From the perspective of a hiring manager, “Digital Transformation” is “Business Analyst” and both are quite valuable. Both are much more valuable when paired with some automation skills, which it sounds like you have.
In your shoes, I would reach out to technology recruiters and let them know I have that combination, and that I’m looking for a new fully remote role. Then see what comes your way.
There’s going to be a rush of demand for your talents when folks currently betting heavily of AI reach the “find out” end of the equation.
Thanks for your insightful comment. I appreciate the advice! I’ll definitely start looking for other roles more actively and see what comes up.
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I’ve been in software engineering (as a QA tester) and IT at different places. I don’t understand what transformation means, unless you’re scanning documents to digitize them or recording tape or similar. Perhaps you could elaborate.
I worked at an IT job that became fully remote after the pan. And I work an IT job now that’s hybrid. A friend is still at the place where I was on QA and they’re hybrid after the pan (for everyone and it’s a major tech company). I think it’s less about the role than the company for these types of jobs.
Quoting Wikipedia here, "Digital transformation (DT) is the process of adoption and implementation of digital technology[1][2][3] by an organization in order to create new or modify existing products, services and operations by the means of translating business processes into a digital format. ". It’s about digitalization pretty much.
Yes, it is by far the most flexible, and as a developer you are called on to do everything associated with development in the interests of cost savings and down sizing. I’m sure that this isn’t every company and maybe it’s a bit of a rant, but there was once a day where I wrote code, and it worked, and I then went in to write more code, repeat. Now as companies “streamline” a development team of 5 people may also be asked to do:
- test writing
- infrastructure/ ops
- scrum master
- business analyst
- product owner
- project manager
- DBA
- release manager
- tier x support
The part that gets annoying is when doing all these other jobs, there’s no time to write code, so I have to constantly call out that we’re behind with project x because my entire team is busy not being developers more than half the time. Flexibility is great when someone leaves and you have a hole to fill for a bit, but when those jobs never get filled, it gets real old real quick.
