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So you have a non-technical role in the tech industry—maybe you’re a designer, a digital marketer, a product manager, or an entrepreneur. You’re probably used to focusing on your craft and handing off more technical tasks to developers and engineers. It makes sense—you have your expertise and they have theirs.
But as we head into an increasingly technical world, the lines between these roles are beginning to blur. Some even say that you can never truly design an efficient website unless you know how to code one.
I believe there’s a sweet spot where non-technical people can learn a little code and exercise forward-thinking, tech-friendly approaches to their work, so that when a developer takes over, he or she can work efficiently and effectively.
Let’s discuss six ways that learning to code can be hugely beneficial for your tech career, regardless of your role.
1. Communicate and Validate Your Ideas with Developers
Learning to program can teach you to communicate better—especially when it comes to communicating with developers. In this digital age, it’s almost inevitable that you’ll need to collaborate with engineers, so the more technical knowhow you have, the better you’ll be at understanding developers and their workflows. If you can credibly talk through the ins and outs of GitHub, Agile product management, test-driven development, continuous integration and deployment, you’ll be able to more effectively get on the same page and work through decisions with developer. There are plenty of free online coding courses out there that can help you get enough familiarity to communicate better with developers, including Flatiron School’s free Intro to JavaScript course.
2. Sharpen Your Problem Solving Abilities
Apart from being able to build and implement things on your own, there’s value in simply going through the process of learning a skill like coding. Programming not only strengthens your logic and problem solving abilities, but it will also change the way you see the world. Even outside of programming, you may just find yourself "debugging" other problems you encounter, from design roadblocks to writer’s block to digital marketing campaign hitches.
3. Build Better Teams
Whether you’re a freelance designer looking for a like-minded developer to collaborate with or you’re a startup founder hiring a whole team of engineers, if you want to run a successful business, you need to have a strategy for finding and hiring amazing talent. Having a technical foundation is a real asset when assessing and hiring for your projects or teams. If you’re trying to attract a potential CTO or interviewing prospective members of your technical team, showing them you’ve taken the time to learn what they do—that you can speak their language—goes a long way in attracting the best of the best. Going a step further and actually building a basic version of your product on your own also shows these potential collaborators how serious you are about your business. As Flatiron School’s co-founder Avi Flombaum says, "The more you can correctly identify tremendous talent and bring them onto your team, the better your startup and products will be."
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