What career options can I pursue with do not involve full-time coding?

Question

I am seeking career directions from HN community. I have a Masters in Computer Applications. Over the last decade, I have worked with various IT services companies which mostly involved writing code (apps, backends, scripts) as the primary activity.I feel writing code as the primary activity is not that I am, or will ever be very good at. But, I love the domain and have a decent understanding about where my skills lie (highly interested in learning deeply about system/technology, self learning & mentoring colleagues, reading, and communicating with other people).I am looking for alternate career avenues in the computer technology domain, which can best leverage my strengths along with my decent understanding of computer programming.I have a really good understanding of Apple developer ecosystem along with in-depth knowledge of Apple and related hardware, software and services.What are the career avenues that I can look towards pursuing? I am pretty flexible about options (on-site, remote, part-time, consulting). I am trying to understand what kind of jobs my skills can be useful in, where I won't be expected to doing programming as the primary activity.Thank you for your time and inputs.

toyg · Accepted Answer

Education/training services seems the natural option. The job is typically “deep-dive in tech X for three days, then build a three-day course on it and hold it a few times”. Opportunities for fulltime roles in the sector tend to be relatively rare, though, and there is plenty of competition.
Otherwise, product management / UX expert.
At worst, sysadmin for smaller companies, where you’ll have to deal with a bunch of different issues. Since you’re an Apple guy, I guess you would concentrate on clients from the media sector. It’s a bit of a blind alley in career terms, though.

kohanz · Answer

Sales? I have a couple of friends who were educated as computer engineers, but like you coding was not their preference. They coded a bit in their junior years and then transitioned into sales and both now lead sales teams at Google and seem happy. It does appear (to me), as a higher pressure environment, especially when you are "paying your dues" early on. But that's just my impression as someone that would not be comfortable in a role like that.

eswat · Answer

Have you looked into cybersecurity in a non-engineering role? I&rsquo;ve transitioned from a web development background towards penetration testing specializing in web applications. While I don&rsquo;t get to code as much as before I still get to retain some of that knowledge through coding small proof-of-concepts every now and then.

quickthrower2 · Answer

I&rsquo;d imagine working for apple as a product manager or customer support. Or working for a company that produces Mac software in a similar role.As a curveball could you write a book about the apple ecosystem or some aspect of it that would be useful for developers to get an overview?

dman · Answer

Become a product manager?