When most people think about a career in development, they likely think about working for tech giants or software startups. However, in our tech-forward world, the need for talented developers has extended far beyond companies in the technology sector. Today’s devs can look to fast-growing industries like healthcare, automotive and even agriculture for new and exciting opportunities to use their skills.
We asked a panel of Forbes Technology Council members which non-tech industries are eagerly searching for new development talent. If you’re looking for dev work, try one of these 16 fields.
1. Research, Data And Analytics
Learning Python and PHP has become more common in areas where large amounts of data need to be analyzed and presented in a meaningful way. Technologies that were once exclusively used in software development scenarios are now being leveraged by nontechnical people. In the interest of using the best tools and skills for the job, they have acquired skills that once belonged in software development. - Danny Acuna, Logica Ratio
2. Healthcare
Medical applications today require more software than ever before. The need for telehealth has expanded instantly due to COVID-19’s global immobilization and people’s need for access to diagnostics. Developers are needed to advance medical diagnostics with artificial intelligence and machine learning to enable greater remote access to medical resources. - JiNan Glasgow George, Magic Number, Inc.
3. Government Agencies
Government agencies need developers to rethink how governments operate and deliver services to constituents. From leveraging the critical systems running on mainframes to today’s mobile-enabled applications, developers can help bridge the divide across mainframe and distributed systems and create the next-generation government that can react to changes in legislation and support citizens’ needs. - Ram Chakravarti, BMC Software
4. Food And Beverage
Many food and beverage companies are seeking new ways to connect, engage and sell to their customers directly outside of traditional retail. One of the main avenues to do this is to establish a direct-to-consumer strategy utilizing e-commerce. Typically, these organizations already have IT departments dedicated to existing infrastructure and will need to hire new dev resources for these initiatives. - Chris Shalchi, BigCommerce
5. Agriculture
The agriculture industry will definitely need more developers in the near future, as it is lagging behind in terms of technology adoption. By using new technology solutions, the sector will achieve better financial results and efficiency. A great example of that is the usage of drones for crop seeding and crop monitoring. - Ivailo Nikolov, SiteGround
6. Automotive
The automotive industry needs new dev talent, primarily due to increasing software demands for performance, safety and entertainment. Application security challenges in Internet of Things environments and customer demands for ease of use and quality are also driving needs. Setting up campuses in software hot spots, like Silicon Valley, is one way some car companies have more successfully recruited developers. - Manish Gupta, ShiftLeft
7. Ride-Sharing
Uber and Lyft operate at a loss annually. Looking at the cost breakdown of a single ride, these companies lose more money than they are earning due to the immense cost of human labor. To be profitable, these companies must shift to a robo-taxi model. Thus, these firms are seeking new development talent to build the complex hardware and software necessary to make this lucrative evolution a reality. - Ashwini Choudhary, Recogni
8. Education
Talk to any IT staff person from a school struggling to keep students engaged during COVID-19 and it becomes clear how thin schools are stretched for tech talent. While schools may have sufficient budgets for tech equipment and software, most don’t prioritize budgets for tech staff. This needs to change so our teachers can use the latest ed-tech tools and resources in their classrooms and beyond. - Anna Frazzetto, Harvey Nash/NashTech Global
9. Financial Services
The fintech revolution and new digital channels of services have introduced new challenges to the area of cybersecurity. With mobile banking, neo banks, peer-to-peer payment, insurance tech and other digital services, new attack surfaces and vectors have added a new dimension of risk. The financial services industry is driving the demand for developers as well as cybersecurity professionals. - Kumar Ritesh, CYFIRMA
10. Product Management
After decades of working at their craft, devs have seen the product lifecycle up close. The insight they could bring to any company looking to start a new software product would be invaluable. They would help spot issues well in advance of most people trained in the optimal software development life cycle. If they’re good at communication and documentation, they have all the makings of a great product manager. - Luke Wallace, Bottle Rocket
11. Hospitality Management
It’s been my experience that the backend systems in the hospitality management industry are outdated and provide limited integrations. There are great advances in technology on the consumer-facing side, but booking and support systems rely on outdated software and infrastructure. - Jesus Bello, Sabal Tech
12. Work-Life Technology
The boundary between business and technology blurred a long time ago. The split of work and life is also fading away, and COVID-19 only accelerates such a split. As technology aids a no-code/low-code evolution, developers are elevated to more design-centric app and content development roles to improve quality of life both at work and home. - Anbu Muppidathi, Cognizant
13. Nonprofits And Social Good Companies
I’m not an expert in either of these realms, but these are areas that are traditionally underfunded—and relatively low-paying. As people fall back to their common humanity, I would hope that these companies—and the social good that they drive—become a new form of capital. - Cecile Lee, Trendalytics
14. Logistics And Supply Chain
Logistics is among the oldest professions in the world, but it represents a trillion-dollar opportunity that has yet to undergo a digital transformation. From incorporating AI to increase the accuracy of the estimated time of arrival (which has a waterfall effect on the entire supply chain) through building Iron Man-like suits to increase safety in warehouses, developers should look to the supply chain for tremendous opportunity. - Lidia Yan, NEXT Trucking
15. Construction
Developers can help the construction industry streamline and optimize processes, unify isolated stakeholders and keep the industry growing. They’re producing a lot of cloud software now but are rapidly expanding into autonomous construction, virtualization applications, analytics, real-time collaboration, wireless monitoring, green construction and more. - Thomas Griffin, OptinMonster
16. Advertising And Marketing
With augmented reality and virtual reality being heavily consumed by the general public, marketing and advertising have been changing and will continue to evolve. Developers have been in the marketing and advertising industry for a long time, but now it is becoming commonplace for advertising agencies to have heavy tech teams and devs. - Alexandro Pando, Xyrupt Technologies
This article was published in Forbes.com