The coronavirus pandemic shuttered the doors of many offices, forcing the corporate world that has been largely reluctant to embrace the remote-work trend. As a result, many businesses found themselves scrambling at the last minute, frantically trying to piece the logistics together, ensuring that all essential and non-essential employees had what they needed in terms of hardware like laptops, licenses to enterprise-level software, and accessibility to the company’s main servers.
However, while much of corporate America as well as many corporations around the world have been reluctant to embrace remote-based teams, that has not been the case across the board. In fact, the tech industry in particular has widely embraced the remote-work trend and has increasingly maintained more and more remote-based teams.
The Future Is Remote
The tech industry has had good reasons to embrace this trend. Silicon Valley is one of the most expensive places in America to live and work in. To compensate for the sheer cost of renting office space, or even just a one-bedroom apartment, let alone looking at purchasing your own home, has caused Silicon Valley-based companies to pay salaries that are up to 30% higher than the national average.
So many companies based in this area—with so many of them being bootstrapped startup ventures—have found it to be an excellent way to cut costs by allowing their employees to work from anywhere, preferably places with a lower cost of living. Many of these remote employees actually travel the world while still making a living as a tech professional, opting for what is called the “nomadic” lifestyle.
Bootcamps: The Future of Education
However, many of these remote hires are coming from US cities that are quickly becoming secondary tech hubs. Basically, emerging tech industry hotspots that are outside the two central US tech hubs—New York and San Francisco.
According to this bootcamp market report published by Career Karma, cities such as Atlanta, Austin, Denver, and Seattle are amongst the most populated with career switches in the tech industry through means of a coding bootcamp. These short term, intensive programs help teach students all of the necessary coding skills they will need to succeed in the tech industry. Taking them from coding newbies to programming professionals in less than a year.
Moreover, many of the schools that offer these tech bootcamps, such as Galvanize, also offer flexible tuition financing through programs like deferred tuition payments and Income Sharing Agreements (ISAs). The latter allows students to apply, enroll, and knock out their bootcamp program with a signed agreement to repay their incredible affordable tuition at a later date after they have secured a new job in the industry.
When compared to traditional routes like a computer science degree from a four-year university, or even a two-year program through a local city, community, or technical college, bootcamps are a slam dunk for those looking to make the switch to tech.
These deferred payment plans also help bootcamp grads to apply and interview without the pressure of burdensome student debt, and with the ability to first obtain employment before working out a repayment plan. This allows grads to focus on finding the right fit, rather than just jumping at the first offer they receive.
Similarly, coding bootcamps are also an excellent source of emerging tech talent for the Silicon Valley-based companies that are looking to hire remote, as they have been primed with solid coding learning, and won’t be as much of a financial risk as hiring someone living in the Valley itself.
Let’s take a quick look at one of the growing fields in the tech industry so that if you are on the fence about enrolling in a coding bootcamp, you have a better idea of what kind of career you might like.
Digital Marketing
Digital marketers are skilled new business drivers through multiple means such as web development and design, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), social media marketing, and even Artificial Intelligence-aided email campaigns.
Digital marketers can stand to make an average salary of $71,000 per year, with more senior professionals making over $93,000 per year.
Digital marketing is a large field with many specializations. Here are a few of the most popular jobs in digital marketing that you should consider:
SEO Manager
SEO managers help businesses to rank on search engine results pages (SERPs). If a business can get listed high on the platform, it can boost traffic without spending money.
Social Media Manager
Social media managers focus on managing an organization’s social media presence. These professionals create a content schedule that determines when a company posts on social media. They have to work with the rest of the organization to determine what content should be posted on which social network.
Content Marketing Specialists
Content marketing specialists help plan the content of a company or organization. Their job includes coming up with editorial calendars and creating a content strategy that will maximize exposure for the business’ work. These professionals work with SEO managers and other members of the digital marketing team to create a broader content strategy in line with the business’ goals.
The average salary for a digital marketer is quite impressive. According to ZipRecruiter, they make an average of $71,000 a year. Additionally, senior positions can offer salaries of up to $119,500, depending on experience. However, the exact salary varies depending on the company for which you work and your location. For example, the average salary for a digital marketer in San Francisco, California, nears $83,500, but the same digital marketer would only earn over $69,000 in Austin, Texas.
While the Bureau of Labor Statistics does not track digital marketers specifically, the job outlook for marketers more broadly is promising. The overall employment of marketing managers is expected to grow by 8 percent by 2028, and many of those positions will go to people who have a background in digital marketing.
