ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Designing computer systems that simulate human thinking, learning, and reasoning abilities.
COMPUTER ARCHITECTURE
Designing and developing new, more powerful computing systems.

COMPUTER DESIGN
Research, design, and development of electronic computer components, such as microchips,
microprocessors, circuit boards, etc.
OPERATING SYSTEMS AND NETWORKS
Designing and developing software and network systems.

ROBOTICS
Designing and developing robotic systems used in a variety of industries (e.g. industrial production).
SOFTWARE APPLICATIONS
Designing and developing computer software to research and solve problems outside of the
computer engineering field (e.g. medicine).
List of IT Job Categories
By Jackie Cohen

Information technology generally refers to corporations' purchasing

managing and maintaining computer hardware, software, networking and
services, but a list of IT job categories would cover a wider range of activities
 than that. Positions are typically categorized based on programming language
or protocol, types of platforms, the extent to which things are created,
maintained or managed and involvement with technology budgeting or
purchasing.
A List of IT Job Categories
Depending on the size of the company, there are varying degrees to which IT employees handle
technology implementation, maintenance, repair and support.

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Professional Pecking Orders

Here are some of the different levels of involvement with technology reflected in IT job titles.
They're listed in alphabetical order, not hierarchically, which is worth noting because
organizational structures do vary from one company to the next. For example, some employers
might use the title technician to refer to an employee with more seniority than an administrator,
other employers might call administrators more experienced than technicians, while still other
employers would limit administrators to maintenance and have technicians only do installations.

 Administrator: Like the word implies, administrators install, maintain and repair a type of
technology within a company. Most prevalent are network administrators and database
administrators.
 Analyst: Analysts assess the performance of technology and diagnose technical problems as they
arise. These jobs can also involve financial analysis of a company's technology purchasing.
 Architect: This individual draws up plans for technology systems and implementations, including
software, hardware and websites.
 Chief Information Officer: Akin to being chief executive officer of IT, the CIO oversees all the other
types of personnel listed in this article and plans a company's entire technology budget.
 Consultant: Professionals with "consultant" in their job titles tend to have a free agent status,
meaning they work for multiple clients and are their own bosses. Some consultants are contractors
who receive hourly compensation without benefits or tenure while others work on a retainer
basis..
 Designer: This role can involve planning new technology, enhancing application usability, designing
websites, or other duties depending on the company's organizational hierarchy.
 Developer: Sometimes the term "developer" is interchangeable with "programmer," referring to
people who create new software, or customize applications to fit a company's needs.
 Engineer: Typically engineers develop anew or upgrade existing software, hardware, networking,
or Internet applications.
  Manager: Like the title suggests, managers oversee other technology employees and encourage
them to meet standards of excellence. IT managers often have the authority to buy technology and
plan budgets.
 Programmer: This typically entails coding new software or web-based applications, but there are
also programmers who work at machine level to build hardware.
 Statistician: Measuring the performance of a company's technology is a job for a statistician, who
may work with analysts to apply these numbers.
 Support: Also referred to as help-desk staff, these employees respond to queries from their
coworkers in non-technology departments and get these colleagues' software, hardware and other
technology to run smoothly.
 Technician: This label is sometimes interchangeable with "administrator" or "support," depending
on the particular employer. Usually, technicians install, maintain and repair computer hardware or
other types of technology equipment.

Platforms
There are IT job categories focused on a single programming language, network protocol or type
of hardware. Smaller companies might group similar types of computer lingo together as part of
one employee's responsibility. Conversely, larger employers might have a group of people
working on the same language, or even the same brand of technology product. With that in mind,
here are some of the different languages, protocols and platforms that describe various roles
within IT departments.

Hardware
 Desktop personal computers
 Internet hardware
 Laptops
 Mainframes

Job Description of a Computer Technician

 Networking
 Personal digital assistants
 Storage hardware
  Security hardware
 Server hardware
 Telecommunications
 Workstations

Software
 Audio and video:
 Databases
 Graphics
 Middleware
 Operating systems
 Remote access
 Security software
 Server software
 Spreadsheets
 Websites
 Word Processing
 Workflow

Programming Languages
 C++
 Fortran
 HTML
 Java
 Perl
 PHP
 Ruby on Rails
 SQL
 Visual Basic
 XML
The groups of categories above are merely a sampling of how employers group different jobs
within IT departments. Technological innovations have a way of growing the lists of different
types of software, hardware, networking and technology services used by corporations.

Continued Growth
 As technology continues to improve the way businesses operate, the list of IT job categories will
likely grow with the pace of innovations.

IT Career Paths
 AutoCAD Drafter

 Chief Information Officer

 Computer Animator

 Computer Programmer

 Computer Scientist

 Computer Systems Analyst

 Database Administrator

 Data Scientist

 Graphic Designer

 Hardware Engineer

 Health Information Technician

 Help Desk Technician

 IT Manager

 IT Project Manager

 IT Security Specialist

 Mobile App Developer

 Network Administrator

 Network Architect

 Robotics Engineer

 Software Engineer

 User Interface Developer

 Video Game Designer

 Web Developer
 Mobile has become a $3.3 trillion dollar industry

 Security is projected to be a $60 billion dollar industry in 2015

 Big Data is just starting to scratch the surface as a $125 billion dollar industry
  Internet of Things is projected to become a $7.1 trillion dollar industry by 2020

 Robotics is a $12.3 billion dollar industry

 Cloud computing is a $100 billion dollar industry

 Health informatics is a $6 – $7 billion dollar industry

 APPLICATIONS DEVELOPMENT
 Problem solving-based, non-Web-based software development that includes programming
languages such as Java and C#.
 SYSTEMS DEVELOPMENT
 Designing and coding background software created to support application development;
includes program languages like C and C++.
 WEB DEVELOPMENT
 Designing software or applications to run in a Web browser and used programming
languages such as HTML, JavaScript and PHP.
 EMBEDDED SYSTEMS DEVELOPMENT
 Designing computing systems and software to work on non-computing devices, such as
automobiles. Uses programming languages such as C and assembly languages.

Mobile,software tool ,applicaton,api,security,cloud

Is Computer Hardware Engineering a Growing Field?

If you love designing logic circuits and solving interesting problems using math and physics, you may be interested
in a career in computer hardware engineering. However, this field is expected to grow much more slowly than
average over the next 10 years because most of the advances in computer technology are taking place in software
engineering. There are still jobs for microprocessor designers and hardware device engineers, but it’s difficult to
find a job without software engineering skills.

The Role of Hardware Engineers in Computer Architecture

To work in computer hardware or systems engineering, you need professional-level software development skills,
and the best approach is to learn low-level programming in Assembly language. With these skills, you can design
hardware as well as the software that works with it, and there are many jobs available in this field. Just about every
industry has problems that need to be solved with computer systems, and because these custom computers typically
have only one purpose, it’s not feasible to hire engineers solely to design the hardware.
The reason developments in computer hardware are increasing more slowly than in software is that there is simply
more room for algorithms and programming languages and frameworks to become more efficient. When software
becomes more efficient, the result is the same as when hardware becomes cheaper and more powerful. Consider a
program that executes in polynomial time using currently known algorithms; to process 100,000,000,000 input
integers, it takes a runtime on the order of 100,000,000,000^2, or 1.0 x 10^22, clock cycles. Maybe this runtime
translates to about 17 minutes. However, with an algorithm that solves the same problem in linear time, the program
only has a runtime on the order of 100,000,000,000 clock cycles and might return in a matter of four minutes or so.
To get this kind of improvement with faster hardware would be more expensive for companies to develop and for
people to buy, and it still wouldn’t be totally efficient without the improved software.

The State of Computer Hardware Engineering

Hardware engineering jobs with companies like Intel, AMD and Nvidia are not very abundant, and it’s more likely
that you’ll be working for a company designing hardware for enterprise rather than consumer use. The
microprocessor designers working for Apple, Samsung, Qualcom and other name brand device makers are the type
of people who were born to be hardware engineers and enrolled in schools like Stanford, MIT and Berkeley. It’s not
a shrinking field, but it’s not growing rapidly.

If you haven’t decided on a major yet, you’d have many more opportunities in your career by choosing computer
science or computer systems engineering. Traditional engineering jobs like the ones held by engineers in the 20th
century are being replaced by software engineering jobs, and the biggest area of development, as you might imagine,
is in mobile and networking software. In the technology market, the demand is for smaller, faster hardware with
longer battery life, and for the most part, the answer to this demand is more efficient software.

People are increasingly relying on technology to solve everyday problems, but at the moment, there are relatively
few significant developments to be made in hardware technology. If you’re interested in computer hardware
engineering, you should definitely learn as much computer science as you can while in college.

Software Engineering Degrees & Programs

Search the top software engineering degrees online. There are many subdisciplines for a
software engineering degree, including Programming, Web Development, Software
Application Development, and even Project Management. Learn about which Software
Engineering Degree is best for you.

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Software engineering in its most general form focuses on writing programming code for
applications. Businesses or companies large or small, universities, and even hobbyist
websites use some sort of code for their application. The software engineering field has
boomed since the emergence of computers in the 1980's and 1990's, and continues to grow
now as so many businesses are dependent on open source or proprietary code/applications
to run their business.

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Consider accredited online programs currently accepting applicants for their Engineering programs:

 Syracuse University's College of Engineering and Computer Science offers an online M.S. in
Computer Engineering, teaching students to create groundbreaking hardware and software
solutions, can be completed in as few as 15 months, and has GRE waivers available. A
Bachelor's degree is required.
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To help companies and set a standard for software engineers, the IEEE created “SWEBOK”
in 2004. SWEBOK (Software Engineering Book of Knowledge) details the knowledge
the IEEE recommends a four-year degree holder in software engineering should have
mastered.
Many software engineers find that having a degree can accelerate job opportunities, plus it
is an excellent way to learn hands-on training for writing applications. There are a number of
online software engineering degrees to choose from, and many people find it is a great way
to learn quickly. People looking at a career change tend to find online software engineering
schools as an excellent way to learn viable career skills while still being employed.
Below are some featured software engineering programs that are entirely online, so you can
learn on your own time in your own home. You can request more information from these
schools to learn more about their program. We recommend gathering information from at
least 3-5 programs. You should be sure to ask them questions about their online learning
management environment, class schedules and flexibility, and overall cost of the program.

Types of Software Engineering Degrees

A software engineering degree is a subcategory or concentration of both the computer
engineering degree field and computer science program area. As you may expect, there are
a number of subcategories of software engineering. Generally, software engineering is
extremely dependent on a smooth process in order to prevent bugs and have the most
optimal code for running software. As a result there are a number of specialties and types of
software engineering degrees. We have highlighted some of the most critical and popular
degree concentrations below.
Online Software Engineering Degrees

There are many online options for software engineering today. Pennsylvania State
University has one of the best online programs available. The program, like many others, is
100 percent online. Online programs cover the same core material without being restricted
to a formal classroom setting. More information can be found at Pennsylvania State
University’s software engineering website. View our comprehensive summary of software
engineering degrees online here.
Software Design & Development

Many people say the best products and software starts with the best planning. The
definition and design of the architecture, components, user interfaces, and other
components for software is an extremely important part of any software development
project. Likewise, after the scope is created by the Software Design Architect, the
Development Engineer (or team of development engineers) build the software through
coding, unit, integration, and regression testing, and debugging.
Software Quality Assurance & Testing

Quality Assurance (QA) is an integral part to any software. QA Analysts test in multiple
environments to find specific instances and provide provide stakeholders with information
about the quality of the product.

Software Engineering Configuration Management Degrees

It is important to have configuration specialists to configure the software over time and
maintain the integrity of how the software was built and intended for use. The maintenance
of software can sometimes get lost in the shuffle of a busy business, but it is important to
ensure updates and maintenance so the software does not become deprecated and allow
for security vulnerabilities.

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Web, Game, & Mobile Application Development Engineering Degrees

Game, web, and mobile application development is a popular sub category for software
engineer programs. Such programs focus on expanding graphic features and user interface
for the gaming community. Advanced software architecture in smartphones and computer
browsers are studied in mobile applications.

Information Security Engineering Degrees

Information security is a specialty that confronts a corporation’s databases systems to

prevent large scale identity theft. Digital image processing is another elective track pursed
by software engineers. These courses introduce voice and facial recognition software.
Image restoration, color enhancement, geometric processes are all explored within this
category.
Artificial Intelligence Engineering Degrees

Artificial Intelligence (AI), particularly law enforcement Artificial intelligence is another

concentration that is in high demand. Large businesses, the military and other government
entities such as NASA, often use complex software design. Artificial intelligence can be
used in situations to dangerous or impractical for humans.