5 Tech Careers That Offer Creative Flexibility

March 13, 2020
T.J. Kidder

The popular perception of the general tech industry frames it as complex, certainly, but not exactly creative — and creativity is a core concern when considering long-term employment. Indeed, it’s one of the keys to consistent investment in a role. It’s when you feel that you’re doing exactly the same thing on each passing day that you start to lose motivation.

If you’re aspiring to enter the tech field, then, or already in a tech-related role but eager to find something with more creative freedom, then you might wonder what options are out there. Well, despite the perception of the tech world as uncreative, there’s actually creativity to be found in many positions — so let’s give you some ideas by looking at just five of them:

5 Tech Careers That Offer Creative Flexibility:

Web developer

The great thing about being a web developer is that you can work on so many different types of projects: just think about how many kinds of the online systems there are. In addition to working on standard pages, you could work on forums, interactive utilities, apps, or back-end frameworks. That variety itself provides room for creativity, but great web developers also get creative with the execution by finding their own methods for overcoming the challenges they encounter.

Theme creator

There are more people than ever before pursuing careers that are related to (or overlap with) the tech world without actually having any technical knowledge, and e-commerce is the prime driver of this. By setting up an online store, anyone can start selling without the overheads and logistical confusion of conventional retail — but they need help. They want to stand out, but they can’t code, and that’s where you can help by developing themes. Themes are templates that can be applied to sites and then tweaked as needed, and choosing a theme is part of the basic setup process, so why not create and sell them? That way, you can be as creative as you like.

UX designer

User experiences can be incredibly rich at this point, which is why being a UX designer offers such creative freedom. While you will need to get involved with programming to some extent, you can largely focus on designing systems and patterns of interaction that will dazzle users enough to keep them coming back. That’s your goal — impress users as much as you can by meeting and exceeding their needs — and what could be more motivational than that?

Technical author

If you enjoy writing and communicating tricky concepts in addition to talking about tech, then technical authorship could be a great option for you. Whenever a software or hardware system is developed, there’s a good chance that certain complexities will need to be explained to those who’ll be using said system, and technical authors make it happen by reducing difficult ideas to language that anyone can understand. While being a technical author makes you closer to being a translator, you get a lot of room to choose how you’re going to explain something.

Game developer

Though there are plenty of horror stories to be found concerning working in the gaming industry, it’s still a very desirable path to take if you have the courage and vision to strike out on your own and be more than just a cog in a wheel. At the helm of your own title, you can do anything with it provided you ultimately create something that people will pay to play — and since crowdfunding has become a standard investment option, you don’t need a conventional publishing deal.

How to Start a Tech Career in San Diego?

This list of tech careers that offer creative flexibility isn’t exhaustive, of course. Far from it: there are many more tech roles that can (with the right companies and clients) be very creatively satisfying. If you’re looking for somewhere to start you tech career, LEARN academy, a coding bootcamp in San Diego is the perfect place for you. We offer individuals a chance to learn the fundamentals of coding in one weekend, or you can jump into the 4-month, full stack web developer program and start your journey to becoming a professional web developer.