(Courtesy of Jax Biz Women)
Women who want a high-paying tech job should learn to code, right?
Not necessarily, says an executive at a business-to-business software review firm.
Adrienne Weissman, chief customer and growth officer at G2 Crowd, pointed out that there are plenty of jobs in tech for women — including careers in sales, marketing, and business operations — that don’t require technical knowledge so much as product knowledge.
Weissman, who spent 18 years in sales and marketing positions at tech firms like Google (NASDAQ: GOOGL) and Linkedin, told Tech Republic that not knowing how to code shouldn’t dissuade any woman from pursuing a job at a tech company.
She said that while technical knowledge is obviously essential for some jobs, other roles call for different skillsets. “Some people that might be really good at coding might not be good at selling,” she said.
Weissman listed five skills that non-technical people should have to succeed at a technology company:
- Strong Excel skills, which are applicable to sales and marketing but also help users understand basic coding
- Knowledge of structured query language (SQL), which allows sales and business personnel to run business analytics
- The ability to make a basic landing page using resources such as WordPress
- Adaptability and willingness to learn
- Curiosity
In a 2016 study of pay rates for non-technical jobs within tech companies for Business Insider, Glassdoor looked at salary data from August 2013 to August 2016 based on self-reported base pay and other forms of compensation.
The study found that some of the highest-paying jobs in tech were in non-technical fields such as marketing and sales.
For example, Glassdoor found that marketing managers at companies like Intuit (NASDAQ: INTU), Google, Oracle (NYSE: ORC), Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT), Intel and CA Technologies made salaries between $156,000 and $177,000 a year.
A national sales account executive at CareerBuilder could earn $180,000 annually, while a sales manager at Dell (NYSE: DVMT) could top $193,000. At the top of the salary list for sales managers was Kronos, offering total compensation topping $264,000.
Other non-tech careers with top salaries included finance managers and business development managers. The compensation for a business development manager at software company SAP (NYSE: SAP) was listed at nearly $240,000.
And Forbes lists product manager as one of the 14 most in-demand tech jobs that companies are struggling to fill.
Glassdoor said the median base pay for a software engineer over the same period was $97,119, with total compensation equaling $128,000.
IT Training 