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I pretty much succeeded in all programming classes in university. But due to some reasons, that didn't translate to real world knowledege. For eg-: I tried my best to make projects in university, but could never succeed in doing so, I just didn't get the picture of how a code could produce something that works. I wrote 2000 lines of code in c for nothing in return.

But I did excellent in all programming classes simply because they didn't have any projects to do in it. And I could easily understand small code that were done in labs as we had lab manual where code was written. We still had exams but you could just practice those labs and give the exams.

I can read code, I can write some code but I can't do say something like web development from my own.

I did my best with cs subjects that were taught in college.

Computer Engineering is a mixture of computer science and electronics engineering.

So I want to look for careers in IT that aren't related heavily to programming, what could be some careers? One I can see is IT helper. But I can't imagine what else could be there.

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  • 4
    Are you saying you passed your programming classes without having to learn or do any programming?
    – shoover
    Jun 3, 2022 at 3:24
  • I did lots of programming, but as I said they had nth to do with building real world projects. some examples are implementing line drawing algoriths, transformations. learning basic c with programming, learning oop with programming labs, artificial intelligence with some short coding technique language, microprocessor programming, data structures programming, numerical methods programming etc and I did well in all of them. But they didn't made me learn real programming like building projects.
    – kudmea
    Jun 3, 2022 at 3:50
  • I tried to learn but failed.(I haven't till date seriously learnt to make web dev projects but I can get the feel that I can't learn it). {Based on my failures and aptitude)
    – kudmea
    Jun 3, 2022 at 3:50
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    If you wanted to get into IT why'd you do Computer Engineering?
    – jcm
    Jun 3, 2022 at 11:01
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    @kudmea Getting a degree is extremely helpful. Many companies won't look at you without a degree or significant industry experience. It will take you months longer to find your first job without a degree, and you'll be paid significantly less for years, possibly the rest of your career, without one. I have a degree in Computer Engineering from UIUC, that opened doors for me for years. Less so after 20 years in the field, but the program is respected enough that when it comes up I still see some people reappraise me. Jun 3, 2022 at 17:20

3 Answers 3

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Lots of IT careers require no programming at all. Network engineering, system administration are both huge fields and there's lots more. Programming is just a small subset of IT.

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  • how much programming does network security require?
    – kudmea
    Jun 3, 2022 at 3:51
  • Probably none depending on what it is. You work with professionally produced and maintained applications rather than build them yourself. So you're just configuring and maintaining. As a network engineer and systems admin I do zero programming. I do a bit of very low level programming for other things unrelated to those jobs. But probably 99% of IT jobs don't require programming.
    – Kilisi
    Jun 3, 2022 at 5:18
  • I shouldn't be in this position at the first place, but your reply is encouraging. It is not like I don't understand any computer science, I just don't can program web development in django(or any frameworks big projects).
    – kudmea
    Jun 3, 2022 at 5:46
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    No reason to be discouraged. You only need to program if you want a job as a programmer. Otherwise general knowledge of how programming works is more than enough for every other IT job.
    – Kilisi
    Jun 3, 2022 at 10:08
  • @kudmea lots more to software development than web frameworks. I've been a successful software engineer for almost 20 years, but frameworks like Django and Rails make my head hurt. Web development is its own beast. Don't give up just because you have trouble with Django. There's lots of other stuff to do.
    – Seth R
    Jun 3, 2022 at 13:56
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I wanted to join in saying that there isn't really a job called "programmer", at least not in any European country I have lived in. What we usually mean is a software developer. But of course, many more positions require programming. So it is important to understand that there is much more to software development than just programming. There is the analysis (what does the customer want, need), the design (how will the software be structured) and the implementation (writing the code, i.e. "programming").

There are plenty of positions that focus on the first two aspects rather than the latter. Project manager and scrum master were mentioned in another answer already: they require knowledge of implementation, but don't usually carry it out themselves. Another option would be a position focusing on databases. They require also design and implementation, but it's a different kind. You might find database schemas and complex SQL statements more intuitive than programming the business logic.

Another career track that might suit your needs is Data Science. There is a lot of buzz surrounding this field, but essentially you could become a business analyst (focus on business strategy, customers), a data engineer (focus on databases and data maintenance, warehousing), a data analyst (performing analysis on data), and so on. When you write code for Data Science, you don't construct whole software. Since you are actually okay with coding, just not with the software design behind it, this may be an option.

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There are many non-programming jobs in the IT sector. Some of these are listed below:

  1. Test engineer (quality assurance = QA)
  2. Project manager
  3. Customer services engineer
  4. Sales engineer
  5. Technical recruiter
  6. Scrum master (Agile)
  7. Maintenance, Configuration, Network, or Lab engineer

Note: The order above is random, and does not mean "Test engineers" are better, and more important than "Technical recruiters" or other non-programming jobs. :-)

All the jobs above are important to the success of a software product. All companies have to hire people to fill out these roles.

Even in startups, while it may appear that most workers are software developers, in reality, some workers have to take on the roles of both software programmers and the non-programming jobs at the same time to ensure the successful delivery of a software.

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