How to Choose a Career in IT - A Practical Guide

The world of Information Technology (IT) is vast, exciting, and constantly evolving. Whether you're just starting your career journey or considering a career switch, choosing your path in IT can feel overwhelming. From coding to cloud, cybersecurity to support, there's a niche for almost every interest.

This guide will help you:

• Understand how to get started in IT
• Learn how to gain experience without a formal job
• Explore popular IT career paths with descriptions
• See what a typical day looks like in various roles
• Access curated learning resources and career roadmaps

Story-Time from my last 15 Years of Experience

I studied IT Engineering at CTI, which was a 1 year Diploma which consisted of:

• A+ (Computer Hardware and Software)
• N+ (Networking)
• Security+
• Wireless Networking
• MCSE (Microsoft Operating Systems)
• Linux (Linux Operating Systems)
• Customer Relations

I never studied programming, as aptitude tests advised me it wont fit my personality (so then I believed them - which was wrong).

After I studied, I struggled to find a job as most tech companies wanted experience, I then sat in a interview and asked "if no one wants to give you a shot, how are you supposed to gain experience" - The interviewer looked at me and said "How would you feel starting at a call center, night shift where you are only allowed to log call data and work your way up?" - I took it with open arms. It was definitely not the job I wanted, but it was a start. I then moved this way up:

• Call Center
• Desktop Support (Fixing printers, emails, PCs being slow, etc. The "not so fun" job)
• Junior Linux Administrator (This is where the fun started)
• Senior Linux Engineer
• Team Lead of Internet Services
• AWS Cloud Support Engineer (This is where I fell in love with programming and cloud computing)
• Systems Development Engineer
• DevOps Engineer (This is where I found my true passion)
• Senior DevOps Engineer

At the interview of Desktop Support, the interviewer asked me: "IT is a broad field, what are you interested in doing?" - I had no clue what to answer, because I was not really exposed to people that worked in IT, so im not really sure where to start. All I knew was that I wanted a job in IT, and the only things I've heard of was people either being a programmer or fixing printers. So I went with "I want to fix printers and customer issues and find my true calling as I discover them".

And I enjoyed it to some extent as its better than being a call center agent, but my "a-ha moment" came when I started as a Linux Administrator. And the only reason I was exposed to that was based of curiosity. I did not have any Linux experience (except for the study work), but I had a lot of enthusiasm and incredibly curious, and every single day I would just google and explore more Linux projects to do, until I became a master at it, and from that day up until now, it feels like I never had a "job" but a hobby that pays money.

And from there on, curiosity and extending your knowledge with keeping up with the trends, learning new tech, and doing online courses to stay on top of it all, is to me the most important thing to stay relevant and continiously grow.

The only international accreditation that I got was in 2006, and after that I only learned new tech as they got introduced, and in IT I feel that certification is not that important. Maybe if you interview at a big corporate business, they will have processes in place that requires some certification. But if you start working at Start-Ups, they just want to know if you can do the job and if you have experience in it, certification is not that important. At least in my experience.

Why am I telling you all this?

Thinking of going into IT can be overwhelming, there are SO many paths you can take. My advice would be to stay curious, keep up with the trends, try out things and never be affraid to fail, and see what you like. Once you find what you truly enjoy, its holiday mode from there on.

Getting Started in IT

If you're unsure where to begin, start by exploring your interests:

• Do you enjoy solving tech problems?
• Are you more interested in support, software, infrastructure, or data?
• Do you prefer working alone or in teams?

Ways to begin:

• Browse youtube to see what specific roles entail
  • What does Software Engineers do
  • What does DevOps Engineers do
  • etc.
• Take free or low-cost online courses (see bottom of the post)
• Build a homelab using virtual machines or an old computer
  • This is a great video by TechnoTim, explaining what a homelab is.
• Contribute to open-source projects
  • This is a great video by AssemblyAi showing you how to contribute to Open Source.
• Join tech communities and attend meetups.
• Start your own blog - it helped me gain exposure, and I quickly realized that teaching something forces you to understand it deeply. It also serves as a great way for others to see your knowledge and growth.

If I had to start all over again

If I have to tell the 18 year old me how to start, I would do this:

• Number 1 rule: Dont fear failure (this kept me back in the beginning)
• Watch youtube videos, movies etc. To see what inspires you, something that might point out what you like.
• If you can afford to study/practice while you work:
  • Draft up a one year plan
  • Pick something you like (frontend, backend, support, devops)
  • Pick a course/roadmap and take 2-3 hours every day to spend time on it
  • While you study, put the things that you are learning into practice
    • if its frontend development: build your own website and put the things that you are learning into practice
    • if its devops engineering: take a old computer, install linux operating system on it, and run a firewall, run docker containers, etc.
    • if its support: take a old computer, install things on it, break it and try to fix it, etc.
  • Create a github account where you can showcase your demo projects.
  • Attend meetups where you can social with like-minded people, some of these events have recruitment drives as well.
  • Contribute to open-source projects:
    • There are many open-source projects on Github and a lot of maintainers are looking for help.
    • You won't get paid, but it will give you experience and a history record of work you have contributed to.
    • This will help you with experience when you go for an interview.
• Apply for jobs:
  • Start small and work your way up.
  • Stay curious and continue to learn. If you are in IT, you will never stop learning new things with the rate of things evolving.
  • This is my opinion, but don't stay too long in a position, if you feel you are not learning anything new, its time to move on.
• Remember every day to enjoy what you are doing, if not, why are you in that position in the first place.
• If you are still a student and you don't have responsibilities like paying for bills, then I would take at least 5 hours a day to do the above.

Gaining Experience Without a Job

You don’t need a job title to gain practical experience:

• Homelabs: Set up a Linux server, deploy a web-app, configure a firewall, build your own email server.
• Open Source: Contribute to documentation or small issues on GitHub
• Freelance/Volunteer: Help small businesses or NGOs with tech needs
• Personal Projects: Build a portfolio with websites, scripts, dashboards, or automations

These items can then be listed on your Resume, or you can add them to your Github Profile, like mine:

• https://github.com/ruanbekker/

Popular IT Career Paths with Descriptions

A Day in the Life (Role Scenarios)

IT Support Technician: You spend your day solving user issues—resetting passwords, installing software, and configuring devices. You might handle 15+ tickets using tools like Zendesk and help onboard new staff.

Network Administrator: You monitor network traffic with tools like SolarWinds, configure routers and switches, set up VLANs, and ensure secure remote access for users. You’re the go-to person when the internet is slow or a VPN goes down.

Linux SysAdmin: Your tasks include logging into servers via SSH, installing updates, managing crontabs, writing Bash scripts, and responding to disk space alerts. You automate regular tasks with Ansible or shell scripts.

DevOps Engineer: You investigate failed builds in GitHub Actions, review pull requests for infrastructure changes, deploy new features via CI/CD pipelines. Design and architect for scalable cloud environments. You implement Helm charts and contribute to Terraform modules to match infrastructure changes. Help enabling software teams, etc.

Cloud Engineer: You provision new environments on AWS using IaC tools like Terraform, set IAM permissions, deploy services on ECS or Kubernetes, and monitor usage to prevent cost overruns.

Backend Engineer: You create RESTful APIs, write unit tests, optimize database queries, and manage application performance. You regularly collaborate with frontend and DevOps teams.

Frontend Engineer: You turn Figma designs into responsive websites using React or Vue. You fix cross-browser bugs, enhance accessibility, and maintain design consistency across pages.

Full Stack Engineer: Your day involves updating the frontend UI, fixing API bugs, deploying to production, and writing documentation. You enjoy working across the whole tech stack.

Data Analyst: You clean raw CSV files, analyze trends, build dashboards in tools like Tableau or Power BI, and present findings to business stakeholders.

Data Engineer: You create ETL jobs using Apache Airflow or dbt, optimize SQL queries, and manage data lake structures. You coordinate with data scientists to ensure clean and accessible data.

Data Scientist: You run exploratory data analysis in Python, build predictive models with scikit-learn, validate results, and visualize them in Jupyter Notebooks. You also prepare presentations for non-technical audiences.

AI Engineer: You train machine learning models, fine-tune transformers, optimize for inference on GPUs, and deploy models via REST APIs. You use tools like TensorFlow, PyTorch, and Hugging Face.

Cybersecurity Analyst: You monitor alerts from the SIEM platform, investigate suspicious activity, patch vulnerabilities, and create reports on the security posture.

Penetration Tester: You perform vulnerability scans, execute simulated attacks, write reports, and help teams mitigate risks. You often use tools like Metasploit and Burp Suite.

Security Architect: You review system architectures for security gaps, define access control policies, recommend encryption strategies, and stay updated on compliance standards.

Infosec Engineer: You configure firewalls and IDS tools, implement MFA and encryption, review audit logs, and ensure secure development practices in CI/CD pipelines.

Career Path Diagrams

A simple overview on how a typical career path may look like:

[ IT Support ]
      ↓
[ SysAdmin ] ───> [ DevOps ] ───> [ Cloud Engineer ]
                    ↓
              [ SRE / Platform Engineer ]

[ Network Admin ]
      ↓
[ Security Analyst ] ──> [ Pen Tester ] ──> [ Security Architect ]

[ Software Engineer ]
      ├──> [ Backend Engineer ]
      ├──> [ Frontend Engineer ]
      ├──> [ Full Stack Engineer ]
      └──> [ AI/ML Engineer ]

[ Data Analyst ]
      ↓
[ Data Engineer ] ───> [ Data Scientist ]

For a more overall comprehensive roadmap, I was able to find one from 2020:

For a DevOps roadmap, it will look more or less like this:

For more roadmaps you can have a look at roadmap.sh as they list many different paths and its quite in detail.

Online Courses

Free Courses:

Paid Courses:

Other sources for great courses:

• LinkedIn Learning
• Pluralsight
• Udemy
• Coursera
• Youtube

Recommended Youtube Channels:

• TechWorld with Nana - (DevOps, Linux, Cloud)
• FreeCodeCamp
• Programming with Mosh
• DevOps Directive
• Bogdan Stashcuk - (Networking)
• TechnoTim - (Homelab, Tinkering)
• NetworkChuck - (Homelab, Tinkering)

Career Roadmaps

• CompTIA Career Pathway
• CyberSeek Career Pathway
• Frontend/Backend Roadmaps
• Microsoft Learn Role Paths
• DevOps Engineer
• Backend Engineer
• Frontend Engineer

Final Thoughts

Start small. Stay curious. Learn in public. IT has space for builders, tinkerers, thinkers, and doers. Choose the direction that excites you most, build a portfolio, and keep improving.

And even if this is overwhelming, reach out to me and I would love to chat and see if I can help in any way.

Let your journey begin!

Thank You

Thanks for reading, if you like my content, feel free to check out my website, and subscribe to my newsletter or follow me at @ruanbekker on Twitter.

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