These Grab, IBM, and Microsoft employees prove that anyone can join a tech company

This week in Tech in Asia Jobs shares insights into how successful companies operate, hire, and more.

Ong Chin Yin, head of people at Grab / Photo credit: Young NTUC

Picture the office of a typical technology company. Rows and rows of software engineers plugging away in front of multi-monitor displays probably comes to mind (I blame The Social Network for this).

For fresh graduates who are looking to join the thriving tech industry, it can seem like a coder’s world with little to no opportunity for the rest.

However, contrary to popular belief, the best tech companies don’t survive on programming talent alone. Like any other type of organization, they need to fill in a lot of non-tech positions in human resources, marketing, sales, and so on.

Even so, those who are entering the job market for the first time might find many of the non-tech roles unfamiliar—think marketing technologist, information architect, or accessibility specialist, for instance. A report published by Dell Technologies even estimates that 85 percent of the jobs that will exist in 2030 haven’t been invented yet.

Which begs the question: In an ever-changing, fast-paced industry where the career ladder is practically non-existent, how can young jobseekers with little to no tech skills find their way in?

At a recent series of events organized by Young NTUC, I had the opportunity to listen to a group of young people from Grab, IBM, and Microsoft talk about how they managed to land a spot in these tech giants. Here’s what I learned from them.

Acquired skills trump formal education

People tend to equate what they study with the role and position they will eventually take. The reverse is also true. The assumption is that if you want to become a software engineer, you need to have a computer science degree (which is completely untrue).

These days, however, modern jobs tend to require multifaceted skill sets. Take product management, for instance. Grab’s country product manager, Nadia Goei, candidly shares that “there is no defined path to becoming a product manager.” In fact, a decade ago, Goei went to law school with the intention of becoming a lawyer.

“If you ask any product manager how they got to where they are today, you’ll definitely get a different answer each time,” she adds. “Their backgrounds can range from insurance to chemical engineering.”

Clearly, many unlikely skills can be carried over and applied depending on the context. For instance, Goei learned how to negotiate and communicate well when she worked at an embassy. These were soft skills which help in her current role as a product manager.

“These roles are all about empathy,” she explains. “In particular, product managers need to bring the opinions of multiple stakeholders together into one cohesive voice every day.”

Similarly, having majored in media and communications in university, IBM iX consultant Paul Selva Raj never thought he’d end up working in a tech company. His grasp of technology was limited to “how to connect to a wifi network,” he recalls with a laugh.

Technical background not required

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