A Nigerian’s Guide to Starting a Career in Tech
How to get a great job in tech without leaving Nigeria
I get a lot of questions about how to get started in tech, especially from people who live where I live — Nigeria. While I can’t offer a one-size-fits-all answer to most of the questions, I think I can help by explaining how to think about getting started.
Do I have to know how to code?
The majority of the questions I get about starting a career in tech in Nigeria are about learning how to write code. I think this is as a result of two things:
- I’m a software engineer myself, so it makes sense that people ask me about that.
- Coding is the most glamorous career path in tech right now, at least in these parts. A lot of people think coding is all there is. Furthermore, engineers and their managers are some of the highest paid in the industry worldwide.
I think it’s important to know that you don’t have to learn to code or take on what we refer to as a technical role. While I think that with enough dedication anyone can learn how to code, or be an engineer, you might just not want to.
There are so many other roles to consider in tech. I’ll give you my thoughts on some of them and I’ll explore how viable they…
