I've been on both sides of the coin and gleaned a lot of insight from both.
When I started working as a software developer (back when things were much different than they are now), things were going well for the first few years, but then I started to get bored.
The main reason for this is lack of interaction with other people in the team. I was sitting at work where I was in a tech stack and other people nearby were in other tech stacks. And the project I was working on literally had no other team members in common.
Additionally, it was a service-based industry, and it was mostly about “editing/updating” existing code rather than building something from scratch.
Daraka, me is assumed You may want to explore other career options. Long story short, I stumbled upon the content strategy part of marketing. I have come to enjoy the level of interaction that my team and clients have while working. After joining the marketing team, I started to enjoy it.
But then I started realizing that content marketing is the most underrated and overlooked area of marketing, and basically anyone can question your work.
And more importantly, most content writers are poorly paid in exchange for doing less market research and putting extra effort into reaching people.
TL;DR My opinion from both sides.
Personally, I feel that marketing, sales, and technology departments are still siloed.
why?
This is because each department is familiar with its own ABCs and has little interest in learning other departments' jargon.
What happens because of that? There are many misunderstandings.
for example,
Let's say your marketing team needs to promote a product feature. To do this, you need to work with your technical team. Even though both teams have come together, the technical team may be using technical jargon to describe their latest product and the marketing team may be rolling their eyes internally.
Similarly, when a marketing team explains strategy to a technical team, team members may feel that the discussion is irrelevant.
do you understand? If both teams don't talk and understand each other's terminology a little more, things become siloed.
So, which department is ideal for your career?
Now that I've had a taste of both, I choose the technology side. I think the technology side is my preference.
why? I think technology is easier to understand and suits my personality better.
But I have to say that if you are a technologist who wants to become an entrepreneur, you need to step into marketing. Even if you have a great product, you still need PR skills and people outreach skills.
It’s 2024, so whether we like it or not, marketing and outreach are more important than ever.
My advice to you (for those interested):
If you get tired of talking to people over and over again, or if you can't take a lot of feedback or criticism, marketing may not be for you.
If all you want to do is build and deliver, technology may be for you.
But if you want to be an entrepreneur, it helps to be a generalist rather than just a specialist.
I hope my insights are helpful 🙂 Cheers!
