The pandemic’s impact on the economy and the layoffs that took place have eclipsed the other good things that happened in 2022. Most companies introduced flexible working hours, and the focus shifted to upskilling and reskilling employees. Academic institutions also increasingly adopted an experiential teaching approach to meet the industry demands. In addition to developing technical problem-solving skills, colleges now recognise that an engineer needs to have effective communication skills, ability to work in a team and creative thinking to shine in the workplace. Here are some of the specialised career options that will take centre stage in 2023 based on the learnings gained in the past year:

Leveraging data

Web developers will be important in 2023. These are the people behind every piece of online content we use on a daily basis, including social media and shopping websites. There is an increasing need for front-end developers and full-stack developers as more and more people start using the internet.

Many different cloud computing career options (cloud system engineer, cloud administrator, cloud network engineer, cloud consultant) have emerged in the market as more businesses switch from their traditional data-centric strategy to cloud-based services.

Businesses all over the world produce enormous amounts of transactional data, log files, web server data, and other customer-related data. Social networking websites also produce a huge amount of data. Companies need data analysts to make the most of the data generated and spot undetected trends.

Careers in artificial intelligence and machine learning (machine learning engineer, data scientist, NLP scientist) are no longer in the future, they are already here. The value of specific tools and approaches for creating blockchain-oriented software is also growing. Since the world needs engineers (blockchain project managers, blockchain developers) who can create blockchain-based software to handle and regulate its usage, it is a significant trend that will have an impact on software engineers.

Making the metaverse

Various companies have begun to investigate the immersive, three-dimensional features of metaverse reality. These need to be created with certain design sensibilities. The designers who will be responsible for building the worlds that users of the metaverse will explore will be an asset.

The emphasis of today will be on developing a stable but meaningful career choice, and in this sense, nothing will reward candidates as highly as investing in strengthening the fundamental skills for these high-paying jobs.

The writer is Associate Professor, School of Engineering and Technology, BML Munjal University.

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