How to Choose the Right IT Career Path During Engineering

Choosing IT career path during engineering days is one of the most difficult and confusing decisions for students, especially with so many options like coding, DevOps, cloud, data engineering, AI, available today.

To clear all this confusion, I am writing this blogpost to help my fellow engineering students from IT and Computers field to choose the right career path in IT. As I am from an IT background and have gone through the phase of confusion in choosing the right career path during my engineering days, so I decided to write this blog which will help you all at some point in your engineering career phase. 

Why Most IT Engineering students feel Confused. 

Many students struggles with selecting the right IT career path during engineering because the academic syllabus often lag by far behind real industry requirements.

Currently in the IT engineering field there are too many options available in terms of the technology available out there in the market, Many IT organizations are shifting to new technologies as well as building their own products and hiring engineers who have the knowledge of these new technologies whereas in the academic syllabus, of engineering old technologies are still been taught which has no relevance to what’s going on in the current market. 

For example, let me share with you some of the technologies which have been used on a day-to-day basis in the IT industry and you can compare it with the syllabus or curriculum of your college if you have at least one technology been taught in your college . 

AWS 
KUBERNETES 
TERRAFORM, GITHUB ACTIONS, GITHUB, ANSIBLE
AZURE, OPENSHIFT, RANCHER, 
PROMETHEUS, GRAFANA, ELASTICSEARCH, KIBANA 

The technology stack which i mentioned above has been used on a day-to-day basis in mostly every IT organization. As an engineering student you should be familiar with all these tools as having knowledge of this will give you an added advantage over a large pool of candidates when applying for a job in future. 

Understanding the IT career Path During Engineering 

Understanding the different roles early helps you choose an IT career path in engineering and match your interest, strength, and long-term career goal.

Here are some of the popular career roles you can opt in for: – 

1. Software Development:- java, python, DSA 

2. DevOps / Cloud Engineering:- aws, docker, kubernetes 

3. Data Analyst / Data Scientist:- SQL, Python, Power Bi 

4. Cybersecurity Engineer 

5. QA / Automation Engineer 

Identify your strength 

As there are so many career path available in it choosing the right career path can become sometime difficult, It is not that difficult if you self-assess yourself rather than taking an advise from someone doing some random course which guarantee a job placement, You can come across lots of courses and classes which guarantee a job placement or an interview arrangements after doing a particular course, You can self-assess yourself by asking the right questions to yourself like:- 

• Do you like coding or configuring systems? 

• Do you like implementing logic? 

• Do you like hands on learning or theoretical learning? 

• Comfortable with linux/windows? 

Don’t Fell for the Trap “Courses with 100% Job Placement” 

Many institutes currently in the market takes lots of fees from the students giving the hope of a heavy package job of 10lpa 20lpa for freshers, and students enroll to it without cross verifying it, and once you complete the course they do give some opportunities for the students but does not help them to the extent that they can get placed and this gets pretty frustrating and depressing for the students who gave 3 to 6 months of time in hoping to get job, and this mostly happens after engineering when the students are not placed and are in desperation to get the job and gets enrolled in to such institutions which just wastes their precious time. 

Plan to Choose your IT career path based on year of Engineering. 

1^st-2^nd year:- 

• Explore basics: Programming + linux + git  

• Create your social media presence and share your learning on the platform. 

• Don’t specialize to early at this stage 

3^rd year:- 

• Pick one primary IT path 

• Build small projects + internship 

4^th year:- 

• Deep focus + resume + interview prep 

• Avoid switching different career paths 

Skills matter:- 

Focusing on skills early helps students build a strong IT career path during engineering rather than relying only on academic scores.

Skills + project + consistency + online presence = placement 

You also does not need a heavy course to get placed nowadays, Online learning, small project level internships, self projects, Opensource contribution if possible can get you and entry level job very easily. 

Common Mistakes by Engineering Students 

Due to so much availability of the tech information there are always high chances that the students chase the tech trends blindly like chasing the technology which is difficult to learn, or which is not your strength and wasting your time learning it which is like “Learning everything  but mastering nothing ”.  

A practical Action plan: – 

I am sharing a simple roadmap which i followed to get entry-level job in IT and hope it will help anyone who is reading this blog post: – 

1. Pick one IT role 

2. Learn core skill 

3. Build 2-3 projects 

4. Document everything on Github 

5. Apply for internship / Entry-level job 

Conclusion: 

Choosing the right IT career path during engineering is not about following new trends but understanding your core strengths and staying consistent. Always Start early, focus on building real industry skills, and remember that there is no perfect career choice—only the one you commit and grow.