Which area of IT am I best suited for?

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Aspergers computer job: which area of IT am I best suited for?

I'm mild aspergers so I'm not autisic enough to be a programmer yet i'm still aspergers
enough not to be able to communicate over the phone at all and struggle in office environments.
Please help which area of IT am I best suited for?

How do you know you wouldn't make a good programmer?

In all IT jobs you will have to communicate with people, sometimes on the phone, sometimes face to face.

But in IT most communication is about getting to the detail of an issue or problem or requirement, so it's mostly all focused.

I'd say programmer, DBA or system admin, and probably others too are all conceivable. I guess it depends on what you are good at.

I'd suggest you focus on where you can work instead of what you can work with.

The places of work vary alot, some positions are good for aspies, some are not that good. You will do much better in an environment where you can continuously work with updating a process (develop corporate software products, or a DBA like suggested) than to work as a consultant with a specific subject.

Example: Imagine you get a degree as a network tech and...

1) You start at a consulting company and you find that you have to have lots of contact with customers and manufactorers as well as the internal staff which can cause lots of stress and anxiety.

2) You start at a organisation within a municipality/government and have to deal with people on occation, but mainly can focus on doing your work and have a boss that you have at least daily contact with.

Which sounds better?

I am in IT and over time have worked in most areas of it. I find I do best as some form of admin (DBA, Sys Admin, etc.). I found that being an Analyst required more negotiations between client and developers than I was comfortable with. Testing was ok. Programming was good for awhile but after a few years got bored with it. I did best in web design where I worked rather independently to come up with and implement designs. IT auditing was bad news - very analytical, but lots of confrontation and negotiation - ugh ! ! The absolute worst for me is any type of end-user or desktop support, for reasons I bet most aspies can imagine.

Like Marky, I've worked in most areas of IT, starting from an IT helpdesk to systems engineer to systems developer/programmer. My current role allows me to work across the board on both systems and databases, everything from DBA to programmer and architect. Like Marky says, helpdesk and desktop support were a struggle, I could get very impatient with people but instead of allowing it to get me down, I used it as a platform to give me the push and excel. You often find with IT that it's a very difficult field to get in to and sometimes you have to start at the bottom of the ladder, but you don't have to stay there.

Nothing suits me better than being able to sit down with a blank sheet of paper, an idea and just put the whole thing together. I'm given the freedom to do that and it's a special relationship with my company because when it comes to putting the idea to the board, my boss steps in and deals with the people side of things. If you speak to my family, they will tell you that I'm taken advantage of because I can be working on several different projects at once and work for 3 days without a prolonged break, if you ask me personally my company respects me for who I am and sees my strengths. If anything my side of things comes very easy to me, so in my mind my boss has the harder job. We play off each others strengths and weaknesses.

Marky is also right about becoming bored of programming, there is only so much repetition you can take and sometimes it gets so slow, your brain overtakes the work you are doing. As an aspie, I have an unusual habit of collecting things. I collect languages at first it was spoken languages where I can have conversations in 8 different languages but after I started working in IT, I changed over to computer languages. It adds a bit of variety if you go down a programming path because there is always something new to learn.

Ichinin hits the nail on the head. Find somewhere that opens a door for you and just get in. You find now that a lot of helpdesk support jobs are scripted anyway so if you have to grin and bear it for a couple of months as a stepping stone, then just keep reminding yourself that it's only temporary but that the door is open. I used to hate talking to people on the phone because they would frustrate me but my bosses at the time would see me remote connect to someones computer and resolve the issue for them instead of just talking them through it. It got me promoted within 2 months but then I had to deal with people face to face, so that's when I started to learn programming.

Depends on your skills and interests, I suppose. Here are the IT positions I'm mostly familiar with. Most are in office environments, but IT people are always typically seen as more eccentric so it usually isn't as bad as if you were in a more blatantly NT function like sales or marketing.

Developer - You need at least adequate mathematics skills (enough to be able to understand algorithmic thinking) and the ability to form complex systems of logic (e.g. while A is true: if this happens, then do this, else this do this and make A false). What's great here is it's pretty easy to learn programming on your own to see if you can see yourself doing it. I'd recommend checking out online lectures on basic programming and install a software development kit so you can experiment along with it. I started out with Java, but you could really start with any of the higher-level languages (C#, C++, Python, Visual Basic, etc.).

Software Engineer - You need to have a huge degree of mathematical skill for this, and preferably a degree in Computer Science. It's like development, except you are also engineering how the software program will be implemented for efficiency and for quality rather than just coding to specifications.

Web Designer - This is more creativity-based than logic-based, but it still requires some programming. To see if you'd like this, do what I said for Developer, but try to find lectures on HTML, JavaScript, PHP, etc.

Database Administrator - You work with databases at all levels: making sure they are run and maintained, giving permissions to other IT people to use the database for their applications, and keeping track of the whole infrastructure of the database. The bread and butter programming language to know for this, if you're interested, is SQL. Entity relation diagramming is also relevant if you are also taking part in designing or adding to the database.

Data Analyst - Like above, you would use a lot of SQL to query from databases and you'd probably use other tools, but your job would be to look for trends in the data and make conclusions based off of them. I imagine statistics knowledge would also be important for this kind of role.

Systems Analyst / QA - This area really depends on the company, but for the most part a systems analyst or QA analyst is the bridge between the purely technical guys and the business guys. For this, you don't need an encyclopedic knowledge on business or on programming, but you need to be able to systematically think about both and how they interact with each other. Systems analysts would typically focus on getting requirements from the business guys and then formulating the implications it has for the technical guys in charts and documentation (things in particular to look up would be data flowcharts and UML diagrams). It does require at least faking NT communication skills since you have to interview with business people to get requirements, but it shouldn't be too bad if structured communication environments are not a problem (it isn't like a social party).

Help Desk/IT Support Technician - This one I definitely have personal experience with. Basically, you typically have a ticketing system which assigns certain tasks to technicians, who then fix the problem and send word back to the Help Desk or IT Support group. One of my college jobs involves repairing computers, which involves basically unscrewing things and putting new parts, troubleshooting software problems, removing viruses, and keeping track of all the different tickets and parts that are present.

If you have any questions, feel free to PM me.

My experience I would say if little previous experience, QA analyst. You are given tasks and you complete them. Simple. You will more than likely excel as you probably have attention to detail. Once you move over to analyst or business analyst or anything similar, it gets very rought dealing with business/marketing/sales NTs...I am there now.

I am also considering moving into this field after unsuccessfully finding employment in my original field of study. I've not had a job since finishing grad school in my original field of atmospheric science in May 2010 and went back to community college locally for Computer Information Systems at the advice of my psychologist. My state's vocational rehab agency helped to pay for my schooling the past 3 semesters, but am finishing this semester and still don't have a clear idea of what I want to do or what I'm qualified for.

At the beginning of my going back to school, I wasn't sure if I wanted to do IT or Computer Science so I took courses from both areas. I quickly found out I hated the IT but liked the CS since the IT stuff was highly hands on and collaborative while the CS was more of an individual effort as it mostly involved programming. I've always been better at intellectual stuff than with hands on stuff and have a hard time associating with other people in a team environment. I am also not good in a customer service environment, so I don't think I could do help desk stuff.

Problem is, it seems like IT jobs are more abundant around here than CS jobs. Plus, many of the CS jobs like Software Engineering require a baccalaureate degree in CS, meaning my certificate in technical programming probably won't suffice. Given my age and the fact that I already have a bachelors and a masters in another field, I don't think I want to pursue a 2nd bachelors in CS. I've already applied to a couple of software engineering jobs, but to no avail.

That said, I'm trying to get a better sense of what type of job I'd be qualified for. I have background in C++ and Java from my courses and programming in an object oriented paradigm. I took 3 semesters of C++, the final of which is Data Structures using C++. I also have knowledge of scripting languages such as bash and Perl. I also have some knowledge of Fortran from my atmospheric science days as well.

Given my qualifications, what types of jobs would be best for someone who has knack a for programming but does not possess a full CS degree? I'm looking to potentially break into the field with an entry level position. Thanks to anyone who helps.

What has worked for me is to find a large company that has IT/CS opportunities of all types, then accept any (and I do mean *any*) position in IT/CS just to get a foot in the door. Build credibility and during subsequent career planning and development sessions begin to maneuver into something more suitable for me. I have successfully used this approach in the past. I recently returned to IT after a few years of self-employment in another field, and so I am again taking this approach. At the moment I am having to do my best in a position that would not be my first choice, but I have already set the wheels in motion to move on to something (hopefully) better for me. I have found that larger companies can sometimes have more forward-thinking HR policies and can be more accepting of diversity, including perhaps neuro-diversity.

This thread bothers me tremendously.

Part of the problem is that a lot of people these days are trying to position themselves so that they "can work in computers". Because they heard there are jobs there. That's an oversimplification, but not as much as you might think.

I'm a senior software developer.

And right now very few of you are persuading me that you have any business working in this field.

And it's not for lack of schooling or for lack of a line on your resume saying "I have a degree in X". Rather, it's because you seem to have no particular interest in technology.

And until you demonstrate such an interest, wtf are you doing here?

Read this: http://www.popehat.com/2013/02/12/one-wave-behind/. The salient takeaway is that technology has become the primary driver of human development. Originally we were hunter gatherers, and so the best and luckiest hunters thrived. Then we figured out agriculture, wherein the landowners thrived and the hunter gatherers starved. Wars broke out over land, it was so important.

Then came the industrial revolution, and now the factory owners thrived and even the landowners starved. Communism arose and wars broke out over what? Not land! Rather, wars broke out over the means of production; the factories. Control over production and the resources required for it. Wars broke out over oil, over energy, over minerals and natural resources, because industry operated on energy and resources. Think about that.

And now where are we?

We are in a place where someone with a $400 million factory can be outproduced by someone with a $20 million factory but who has the superior algorithms and software and technology.

No s**t.

The industrial age is over. Gone and dead. Stick a fork in it.

We're in the information age now. The technology age.

Every industry right now is getting slaughtered by small hordes of technologists like myself. I can't walk into any company and not say "I can see a way to do that automatically". The only caution I'd ever have is to say "the automatic way would be more expensive than your $7/hr unskilled monkey laborers."

And that line is lowering constantly, as technology and hardware becomes cheaper and cheaper.

This is a world in which technologists will thrive and non-technologists will starve and riot. There is no other way to look at it. The last 5 years of economic failure in the United States weren't about some finance problem, or about mcmansion overproduction. They were about technology replacing the paper pushers in the middle class. The middle class has been decimated in the last 5 years in particular.

Do you know that over 50% of the jobs lost in the last 5 years have been middle class jobs?

And of the new jobs created in the same time frame, how many were middle class? Take a guess.

The answer: <2%.

Those middle class jobs didn't "have a downturn". They were erased by people like me. They are NEVER EVER coming back. That's why the US labor participation rate has dropped like a f*****g rock for the last five years straight, and why Obama is thrilled to announce a monthly new-unemployment number that for the first time in his five years in office has reached as low as the highest it was in any of Bush's 8 years in office.

This is not a blip or a swing. The Titanic has finally slipped beneath the waves and it may not come back up ever again.

This is the future you face. One in which there will be two types of jobs:

1. The "barrista" at Starbucks who actually just pushes the button on the cash register that has a drawing of a triple mocha whatever, then waits until the register dings to turn around, pick up the dispensed cup of whatever, and turn back and hand it to the customer. Imagine the movie Idiocracy. Or...

2. The person who develops that software, or those algorithms, or those machines. That could be you. And every company on earth will be beating down your door asking for a few minutes of your time. And maybe you'll give it to them, or maybe you'll just work on your own world-changing projects.

The people in job 1 won't be creative. They won't be imaginative. They won't be free. They will be disposable menial laborers utterly beholden to technologists.

If you want to create, to imagine, to leave your mark, to be free to think about how to do things and then to magically conjure systems that accomplish those imaginings, you will have to become a technologist.

And nothing in your experience will likely have prepared you for that. Public school was about teaching you to show up at 9 am and be in your seat, in your carefully lined up row and column, when the bell rings. And then to dutifully listen to and obey explicit instructions and to memorize and recite responses and response behaviors. Just like a factory.

That's one wave ago. That's ancient. That has nothing to do with this world we're in now. That's industrial training for industrial work which I can design a self-replicating robot to perform better and cheaper than you ever will, and with lower health care costs and compliance regulations.

It is as nonsensically irrelevant to today as if it were someone training you to husk corn long after the industrial revolution created automatic crop harvesters.

So all this talk about "I'm thinking about working in IT or maybe CS or maybe CIS or maybe tech support or maybe this or maybe that", and "I don't want to stare at a computer all day", that's just BS. It's nonsense.

It's not about whether you're in this job or that job or QA or whatever, or whether a computer is in front of you or not, as many IT support people have discovered lately.

If you are creating technology solutions, then you are in the growing technologist sector and you will have great control over your destiny.

If you are not creating technology solutions, then it doesn't matter whether you're using a computer all day or not, or even programming languages. You are simply not a technologist and so you are in the bin of expendable menial laborers.

That is the future, and you should think very carefully about how you want to approach it, and what kind of personal investment you are willing to make to do so. Most technology can be learned on your own for free without external direction. Just a good book or tutorial or IRC channel for help, and a free IDE or SDK or whatever. And from that baseline you can then PRODUCE VALUE INDEPENDENTLY. You don't need a job, you can create a personal project and even portfolio that demonstrates simultaneously A) what you can do, B) how good you are at doing it, and C) how passionate you are at doing it.

That option is available to anyone interested in it, and many of us stand eager to support those people in their hard-fought personal endeavors.

And portfolios like those are worth more than any CS degree in the country, because they demonstrate what CS degrees merely suggest; that you are a skilled and driven technologist who can and will create value in this new world.

Now, Murbay in his post above captured my ponit very well. Reading his post, it screamed at me that here is a guy who knows what they're doing, and is always trying to do more. They are a technologist at heart.

Notice how they talk about their job. It's not "I love to program" or "I love to fiddle with technology". It's "I love to sit down and turn an idea into a product". Nobody sane loves to program. Programming can be utterly excrutiating. But it can also be highly satisfying when it allows you turn pure imagination into real and tangible value.

And just stop and think about that idea of Murbay sitting there on a beach with his laptop creating valuable products from his imagination, making a $20 million factory or office building the equal or better of a $400 million competitor, because it's f*****g breathtaking. And terrifying.

You people are nearly all trained by your schools and experiences to be industrial age workers who can contribute value in factories.

But Murbay doesn't have a factory.

He *IS* the factory.

And you don't have a seat in that factory. There is no place for you there. So this BS about "looking for a job" is nonsense. There is no factory eager for another trained monkey to push levers in this world. If you want to be valuable and to be rewarded and appreciated, you have to BECOME a factory. You have to MAKE a job.

And I'm deeply concerned that some of you can't do that, or don't even understand what it means.

Repairing computers? Someone out there is designing software and processes that will reduce the cost of a new computer to an absurdly low level, and making them more and more self-diagnostic and capable of automated (maybe even remote) service and repair.

Who the f**k needs an expensive trained monkey sitting in an office with a screwdriver? That's not something that exists in the future except in ass-backwards throwback factories that linger on inertia the way a 12-acre family farm might have found itself nestled among giant factories a century ago.

Now, don't think I'm saying there will be no valuable non-technologist jobs in the future. Medicine, veterinary science, dentistry, stuff like that for instance requires highly skilled manual labor that's very difficult to automate, although strides are constantly being made. Think about how opthalmologists have been raped by the advent of laser optical surgery. How many eyeglass repair shops are still around?

I guess my point here is...

Stop thinking that you should be looking for a job.

Start thinking about what value you want to create, and how to prepare and position yourself to create that value.

And you can tell me I'm smoking crack, but go ahead and try to find a "fastest growing jobs" list that doesn't have five separate jobs that are all basically synonyms for "technologist". Networking architects, programmers, developers, systems architects, business analysts, etc. I dare you. And half of the rest will be BS medical industry jobs designed to cater to those technologists and to the aging baby boomers and to do so on a budget. For every new nurse practitioner or physician's assistant, a doctor will close up shop and change careers, balancing out the job gain there. And then the baby boomers will die and health care layoffs will inevitably follow.

And then who's left? Just the technologists.

This is seriously terrifying stuff, and I worry that it's not being talked about more. But they're trying. Why do you think Obama just commissioned a video extolling the benefits of learning how to program?

Don't dismiss it. Start thinking hard about where you want to be in twenty years, and what you're willing to do in order to get there.