Finding the Ideal Tech Role:A Framework
How do you know which functional role to pursue?
Recently, I’ve been getting a lot of messages fro my followers and mentees asking where to start or what to do. A majority of them know they want to break into tech and work remotely but they: 1) Do not know what jobs are available in Tech or 2) Don’t know what jobs they would be best suited for.
In this edition of BowTiedWorker we are going to break down a framework for how to evaluate which functional tech job is the best for you (read: which one you have the highest likelihood of breaking into based on your current and/or past skillsets.
What is a “functional” role at a tech company?
If you missed the original post describing what type of roles and jobs we talk about in this newsletter - see the first post here.
Again the definition of a functional role at tech company, is a role that is not on the business side but still a core part of the businesses operations. Typically this is anything that is in business operations or anything that is “sales” adjacent.
What are your skills?
There are a broad range of non-technical roles at tech companies and so, there are a broad range of skills that one needs to have to depending on the role that they are applying for. Below is a detailed breakdown of the 4 broad core skill groups that exist (Quantitive, Technical, Sales, Management) recruiters and companies look for combinations of these skills when searching for the perfect candidate for their roles.
Read through the below list and try to pin point which of the 4 skills you currently have in your arsenal, then match them with the list of functional jobs below to see which role(s) are best suited for you.
This can either be determined by your past work experience, educational background or even personal introspection. Normally the people I meet in the professional world have 2 out of the 4 skills below, so try to figure out which 2 have.
If you have only 1 of the 4 skills, you need to quickly up skill on another one to be a more competitive candidate. (Usually easy to up skill on adjacent skills e.g. Sales <> Management, Quantitative <> Technical)
If you have 3 out of the 4 skills, then you are a unicorn and any company would be lucky to have you - apply for any job you want.
If you have all 4 skills, stop lying to yourself.
Quantitive [Q]
Quantitive refers to the ability to do math and solve problems using logic. The most common application of this is excel modeling where employees are asked to do an analysis on some data set and come to a conclusion or recommendation. Quantitive skills are present in people who have studied STEM/Finance/Econ and people who have had to do a lot math in their day-to-day work. In theory, you don’t need to have a specific background to be able to gain “quantitive skills”, so long as you can show your employer that you are good at calculations and can logically reason. Many roles have case studies to test this specific skill (which is why they are common place for most business roles in tech).
You have this if you’ve had the previous jobs: Finance (Investment Banking/PE), Consulting, Any type of Business Analyst or Data Analyst Position
You have this if you’ve had the previous academic experiences: Anything in STEM, Finance or Economics.
How to build this skill: Do Case Studies, Practice Analyzing Data Sets, Practice market sizing interviews.
Technical [T]
Technical refers to having knowledge/skill in using either a tool or a coding language. This is different than quantitive (which is purely math focused), and is more focused on the actual ability to use certain tools. If you have written any type of code before you would have this skill. Technical not only encompasses your typical coding languages (Python,Java,C etc.) but also any adjacent data tools (SQL,R) and even experience using specific niche platforms (Salesforce, SAP, Splunk etc.). Out of all 4 skills, having technical skills is gives you the most edge against other candidates as the least amount of people tend have it. There are a lot of roles out there so make sure to be to look for ones that have matching technical skills to what you have.
You have this if you’ve had the previous jobs: Developer, Data Analyst, Business Intelligence, Implementation Consulting
You have this if you’ve had the previous academic experiences: CS or any minor/concentration/class that needed you to employ coding and data tools.
How to build this skill: Coding bootcamps such as code academy and full stack academy, Salesforce learning tools etc.
Sales [S]
Sales in this context is broadly “the art of being client facing”. A lot of the roles listed out below don’t require you to be an actual sales person, but they do require you to be a part of the sales process. You need to be able to know how to interact with clients, make sure they are getting what they need from your product and subtly nudge them to buy more. A lot of times the emphasis here is on “soft sales skills” such as relationship building instead of more hard skills like cold calling and pitching. Typically quantitive/technical people are not good at being client facing and vice-versa.
You have this if you’ve had the previous jobs: Any Sales Jobs
You have this if you’ve had the previous academic experiences: Any type of cold calling or campus outreach for student organizations or the university (e.g. calling people to ask for donations).
How to build this skill: BowTiedSalesGuy, BowTiedSystems,Practice Sales Skills &Pitching with people you know
Management [M]
This is skill is a cop out skill in our opinion because I think everyone has it and all jobs require it to some degree. That being said there are jobs out there that pay very well that look specifically for candidates with a strong set of skills and experiences in this area. Management essentially just refers to the ability to organize and communicate effectively. Key people with these skill sets are typically in charge of making sure projects are meeting deadlines, stakeholders are happy with out comes and action items are completed by the correct teams. It’s essentially the middle management of middle management. On the bright side, because this skill is so un-specialized, if you don’t have any of the other skills above you will at least have this one to fall back on as a starting point.
You have this if you’ve had the previous jobs: Any job that requires meeting a deadline or dealing with stakeholders (All Jobs).
You have this if you’ve had the previous academic experiences: Any type of campus organization involvement, especially if it’s a leadership or exec role.
How to build this skill: Manage people and/or Teams, learn how to use PMO tools such as Asana, Trello etc.
Matching the Skills to the Role
Now that you’ve evaluated what skills you have (or want to build), you can match them to the list of functional jobs below. For each role outlined the two (or one) main core skills that are sought out by recruiters.
Strategy & Operations [Q,M]
Sales Engineering/Solutions Consulting [T,S]
Finance Strategy [Q]
Program Management (PMO) [M]
Revenue Operations [T,Q]
Sales Operations [T]
Value Engineering/Services [Q,S]
Product Management [T,M]
Product Marketing [M]
Customer Success [S,M]
Partnerships [S]
Of course jobs/roles vary across companies, so this framework isn’t true across all company’s but it is true for the majority of the time (95%+).
Now you have a clear frame work for which jobs you should pursue on technology (or at least which jobs are the most likely to fit your current skill set). Let me know in the comments down below which roles you ended up matching with.