The Importance of community in building a career in Tech.
I learned about Tech in 2021. Since then, Google has been my best friend. As a starter, it was my consultant. But, trust me, I ended up moving in and out of different Tech paths. Today, I am in UX design, the next day I am in Front end development, and next week, I am in Product management. Next month, I am thinking of moving into Full stack development. I kept on moving around in circles with no progress, improvement, or even an understanding of the field.
Can you relate to this?
Well, this continued till I began to join Tech communities. It’s not up to a year but I am making remarkable progress. I have chosen a Tech career path; product design.
I still use Google to find information but, this time around, I ask better questions.
In this article, I explained how a community is critical for you to build a career in Tech.
Let’s start by defining the keywords.
Community
A Community is a group of people that share similar and common interests, aspirations, and goals. It could be a religious-based community like the Christian Association of Nigeria. It could also be Tech-based on ShecodeAfrica and Ingressive4good.
The key thing is that members of the community share common interests. For this article, we would talk about Tech communities. The goal of almost all tech communities is to help their members to grow professionally and personally.
Some Tech communities are gender-focused like ShecodeAfrica, ladies do Tech, and Empower her community, while some are track-focused like Kingdom designers, Google developer community, etc.
A community may be online that is on Slack, social media platforms like Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, etc. It could also be offline or both.
Important
This means something that is of value, critical and essential.
Building
The word, building, is a verb that has to do with the act of taking steps to form something. It could be a company, website, etc.
Tech
Tech means Technology. Artificial Intelligence and innovation have changed the world of work. Nowadays, skills like Cloud Computing, and software development are in-demand skills. They are generally classified as Tech skills.
How is Community important to building a sustainable career in Tech?
I believe that you are very familiar with new year resolution goals and new month new my lines. So as Tech enthusiasts or professionals, you have long-term and short-term goals that you want to achieve personally or professionally in the industry.
One essential tool that can help you tick ✔️ off those goals as achieved and build that amazing career you have in your mind is a Community. It can help you do that by connecting you with like-minded peers, quality mentorship, and opportunities. Also, it plays a vital role in ensuring you are well informed about the Industry.
Meet like-minded peers
Building a career in Tech is not an activity or a goal you can do alone. It’s also not what you can do when you are in the wrong company or association. It’s something that requires you to be in the company of those who think like you and want to achieve similar goals.
To connect to these people, you can’t just tweet, I need Tech friends and expect quality relationships. It is possible to get friends through the tweet method but it’s easier when you are in a community. At least, you get to choose them through their activities in the community.
Some communities organize internal challenges where members get to apply their skills in real-life situations and get feedback from experts who are mentors. Doesn’t that sound awesome? That makes it easy for you to find peers with whom you can work on projects or even competitions together.
Mentorship
One of the easiest places to find a great mentor is in a community. When I talk about a great mentor, I am talking about those that walk the talk, not social media noisemakers. You may be willing to learn like I was when I started but the terminologies used may sound too technical and very difficult for you as a beginner to understand.
You may even be overwhelmed by all you need to learn to be up to par in the industry. As a professional, it’s possible that you will encounter a problem while working. What will you do when that happens? The right thing is to ask a colleague, right?
Belonging to a community gives you the chance to be in an environment where you can find colleagues doing the same thing that you are doing but in a different company. Diversity is beautiful, you know.
Regardless of your level of experience in your field, you can always get expert answers to your questions in the community.
Opportunities
Opportunities if well leveraged can help you grow in your career. You can not find all of the information on Google. Tech communities usually have a channel for sharing opportunities.
In that channel, information on internships paid employment, volunteering opportunities, events, training, and competitions in the industry are posted there. Sometimes, members of the community even get discounts on paid trainings.
Know the latest trend in the industry.
A career path in Tech demands you to constantly consume content and be up to par in the industry. The slogan is simple. Innovate or die.
Belonging to a community will help you to know the latest trend in the industry. Communities usually have discussion forums where members get to share insights on the latest developments in the Industry. By participating in forums like that, you learn and grow.
Conclusion
If you are a beginner, joining a tech community is strongly advised. You may be confused with the tons of content on the internet. A simple explanation from an expert in the field can save you weeks of endless research.
If you are a professional, joining a tech community can connect you to potential recruits. Also, it gives you the chance to meet, connect and collaborate with industry leaders like yourself.
However, it’s important to contribute to the community in any way you can after joining. Activeness boosts your visibility. Most communities have up to 10,000 members with similar professional goals. So, inactiveness reduces your visibility chances.
So, will you join a Tech community today?
