sanantone Wrote:I was just curious to know if it's possible to have an IT career without doing or knowing how to program. I've already gone down another path, but several years ago, I was briefly a computer science major. The Visual Basic course I took solidified in my head that programming is boring as heck. I tried working through Udacity's Java course the other day, and I couldn't take it anymore. I have a very short attention span, so I don't think coding could possibly ever be interesting to me. I prefer studying living, breathing things, hence my interest in the social and life sciences, but I also like putting things together. Even though I have taken a different path, I'm wondering if I could have made a career in networking or fixing hardware without coding. Those two things don't bore me to tears.

clep3705 Wrote:It's called management, actually clueless management. Read Dilbert. The pointy haired boss doesn't know anything about coding - or much else, either.

There are many people who hate coding but do it for a living. Jobs that are fun generally don't pay well. Jobs that most people hate tend to pay better. Have you every heard the term golden handcuffs? That applies to many coders. It's really rare to see someone in IT break the golden handcuffs and go pursue a passion such as healthcare. Would you rather hold a computer mouse or a person's hand? Touch a touchscreen or touch a person?

sanantone Wrote:I was just curious to know if it's possible to have an IT career without doing or knowing how to program. I've already gone down another path, but several years ago, I was briefly a computer science major. The Visual Basic course I took solidified in my head that programming is boring as heck. I tried working through Udacity's Java course the other day, and I couldn't take it anymore. I have a very short attention span, so I don't think coding could possibly ever be interesting to me. I prefer studying living, breathing things, hence my interest in the social and life sciences, but I also like putting things together. Even though I have taken a different path, I'm wondering if I could have made a career in networking or fixing hardware without coding. Those two things don't bore me to tears.

publius2k4 Wrote:I'm totally with you on coding. I've barely gotten past writing the "Hello World" script that is considered the first step in programming. But I love hardware. I built my own dual booting linux/windows system, water cooled, with a 660ti nvidia graphics card, 16 gigs of ram, and a processor that cruises at a decent 3.8 MHz. I'm all about hardware mods and I'm even pretty decent with the linux command line, but trying to teach yourself programming is very similar to studying the rate of growth of the vegetation found in one's own front yard.....(you know, watching the grass grow).

I'm sure it would be fairly easy to get a basic troubleshooting job without any programming knowledge. I don't often see the IT professionals in my job having to write their own programs. My agency usually just buys whatever software they need.

I'd love to get a job in computer forensics. I don't think I'd have to know how to program, but I'm sure I'd at least need some knowledge in programming languages.

scorched Wrote:My career in IT spans 20+ years now, and while I did do some coding I have never held the title of programmer.
I consider myself a jack of all trades and master of none.
At my company I am considered an "individual contributor", just means I am not a manager, but my company recognizes me as a director of the company due to title and level.
My job is to coordinate all aspects of what it takes to convert companies from standard IT operations, into It as a Service(ITaaS) better known by the over hyped name called a private cloud.
This means I have to know a bit of high level programming at the API level, all the way down to the compute, network, san, and storage infrastructures.
Think of the term "System Engineering", not Systems Engineers like IT companies like to call pre-sales technical guys. We are talking Systems integration, that has been my focus and so far has allowed me some serious fun at start ups and very old companies alike

So yes you could have had a good life in IT without programming.. .

And as a non-programmer, I make just about more money than any other person I know in IT regardless of where they live or what their title has been.
Except billionaire founders of many start ups.

drozx12 Wrote:It is 1000% possible!! What provides direction depends on your interest, experience, education level, skill set, etc.

So about 15 years ago I took some certifications and some programming classes and set out to be a programmer right up until I wrapped up my BASIC and VB intro classes and climbed to C and C# and couldn't make heads or tales out of the darn homework assignments. That was when I knew being a programmer may be beyond my reach. Soon after I got an entry level I.T. job (tech support) and was exposed to what programmers and other positions actually really did. At this time I thanked god the programming classes discouraged me so much because to be honest, being a full time programmer takes a special person (i.e. extended periods of solitude, a lot of math, deep thought, etc) and I'm not built like that. To shorten the story, I worked my way through a handful of positions since and I'm now in Sr. Management (Sales to boot) at a global software company in the ERP space making more money than many lawyers (partners not included) and other professional positions do, and I just completed my B.S. degree requirements last week.

So for advice per se......if you're not working in the I.T. field today, try and see if you can switch career fields/jobs, volunteer or something so that you can get exposed to other positions in the field. There are jobs such as support, quality assurance, systems analyst, requirements analyst, business analyst, consultant, project manager, system administrator, systems engineer, product manager, database analyst, network engineer, database administrator, and many other positions I either held, worked along side of, or managed.

A lot of opportunities that fit a variety of interests, skills, experience, education levels, etc so you knowing a little more about different positions....well you can better decide what may work best for you. Also many of the job titles I previously mentioned are very mobile (company to company or state to state) and offer pretty descent salaries and can easily get into 6 figures. Lastly the industry that you ultimately end up in also plays a part regarding compensation (i.e. a network admin working in the public school system will probably make considerably less than a network admin in a company like EMC, and EMC will surpass comp for a small organization with about 100 employees) healthcare, aviation, transportation industry, etc.

Side note hardware techs have been a dying breed over the past decade, and network engineers have consolidated as well (i.e. Cisco certified engineers pay top $$ but you have to be a stud to get the certification and experience not far behind a darn Dr.) Then you have to consider are you a geek per se that enjoys reading about the newest technology that's slated to hit the market, newsgroups, getting trial copies and tinkering well beyond your normal hours of 8 to 5 not including being on call If this doesn't appeal to you then you may want to back away several of the previously mentioned job titles because you will get left in the dust by your peers because some of them will be geeks.

Hope the info was helpful. Good luck!!