The top non technical jobs in tech (2023)

Software development and data science may get all the media attention, but there’s much more to tech than the hype suggests. So don’t worry if you are not technically inclined, or would rather write a blog post than write code. There is still a career in tech waiting for you. 

Let’s take a run through the top non-technical jobs you can find in tech.

Marketing

I started my tech career in marketing so it holds a special place in my heart. The role of the tech marketing team is to develop the positioning, messaging, promotion and price for the products and services on offer. This broad set of responsibilities means there are many roles available, including product marketing, growth marketing, content marketing, brand marketing, social media, affiliate, influencer, SEO, PPC… the list goes on and on! With so many options to choose from if you have a good mix of creative, strategic and analytical skills then marketing could be the path for you.

Customer Support

No matter how much time is devoted to making tech products as simple to use as possible, there will always be someone who needs a hand. It’s the job of customer support to help these people, responding to support queries as they come in via email, chat and social channels

Some customer support roles are available with no prior industry experience required, so they can be a good way to break into tech. You’ll need to have strong communication skills, and if you do have any previous experience working in a customer-focused role it will be helpful.

UX/UI Design

There’s so much more to design more than pretty colors or a fancy logo. Within tech companies you’ll find User Experience (UX) designers who focus on how users interact with a product. They conduct user research and use their findings to build wireframes designs of the product, which are basically sketched layouts of the screens and components within an app. These wireframes can then be connected to create a simple prototype of the app to use for testing.

Later, it’s the job of the User Interface (UI) designers to create the visual look and feel of the product. They’ll take the wireframes from the UX designers and turn them into beautiful pixel-perfect designs, right down to the colors, fonts and images.

Design roles obviously require a lot of creativity. It will help if you have previous experience in areas like branding, graphic design, typography or color therapy, although there are plenty of courses available where these skills can be learned.

Customer Success

While customer support handles inbound customer enquiries, customer success is proactively contacting customers to make sure they are getting value out of the product. They can do this by helping to train and onboard new users to the product, and working with existing users to make sure they are using features correctly. 

You’ll usually find Customer Success teams at Business-to-Business Software as a Service (B2B SaaS) companies as they charge enough for their products to cover the expense. Customer Success is a great option for those of you who love working with people and building relationships, but aren’t interested in a pure support or sales role.

Corporate Development

CorpDev, as they are commonly known, are responsible for any mergers and acquisitions activity within a technology company. They’ll be on the hunt for new deals, building financial models and presenting business cases to senior management for approval. Corporate Development is a great fit for people coming from fields like investment banking or private equity who are looking to move to the relatively laid-back working culture found in many larger tech companies.

Tech Sales

The tech sales team bring in revenue by connecting potential customers with tech products that can solve their problems. Tech sales is commonly broken into Sales Development Representative (SDR) roles that are focused on the initial stages of the sales pipeline, and Account Executives (AE), who are generally trying to close a sale.

The sales industry doesn’t have the best reputation, but tech sales is generally viewed more positively as the products being sold can genuinely help customers solve their problems. 

If you have the positive “can do” attitude needed for a sales role then there is the potential to earn great money in tech sales. The combination of salary and commissions means top salespeople are often among the highest paid members of the company (executives included).

Business Development

While tech sales are bringing in revenue through customer sales, the business development, or BizDev, team is busy working with other companies to try and create mutually beneficial partnerships. A good example is the Spotify and Shopify partnership – Spotify partnered with Shopify’s ecommerce platform to make it easier for musicians to sell merchandise through their Spotify profiles. This is win-win(-win) for all involved: Spotify gets to promote a new benefit to artists, artists can make money selling merchandise, and Shopify get more customers selling through their platform.

BizDev is all about partnerships and deals. It’s a good option for people coming from professional business backgrounds, especially if they have relationship building and negotiation skills like you’d get from a field like law or management consulting.

Product Management

Product Managers (PM) sit between the business and technology sides of the company, helping take products from the idea stage through to when they’re in the hands of customers. While the title is “manager” they won’t necessarily have any direct reports, instead working alongside teams like engineering, design and marketing to make sure the product development process goes smoothly.

Product Managers come from a relatively diverse set of backgrounds. Some of the larger companies have product management training programs and are open to hiring junior-level PMs with little or no previous tech experience.

How to choose the right tech job for you

If you want to learn more about the technical and non-technical roles then check out our guide to popular tech jobs. We also have a learning path that is designed to help you choose the perfect tech career.