When we speak of working in Silicon Valley, what comes to mind? This is the tech industry hub, the place with a huge number of jobs for IT professionals. If you are looking to make a career in this field in the United States, this place is probably on your list. The options are endless, and the salaries are amazing.
But, how do you land an excellent job at Silicon Valley? In this article, you’ll learn all that you should know about working in this region.
What Is Silicon Valley?
Silicon Valley is a region in California known as a global center for technology and innovation. It’s based in the south of San Francisco Bay Area with San Jose as its largest city.
This is the region where IT professional thrive, and it’s also one of the richest locations in the US. The San Jose Metropolitan Area has the third highest GDP per capita, right after Zurich and Oslo.
In Silicon Valley, you can find some of the biggest names in the IT industry, such as LinkedIn.
What does this tell you?
It tells you that, once you have the skills in high demand in the tech industry, Silicon Valley is a great spot to build your career. But first, we need to get you there. Here is what you should do.
Skills and Knowledge for Professionals Working in Silicon Valley
As a tech hub, Silicon Valley is known to have the highest international standards for talent. It attracts the best people in this industry so, if you want to work there, you need to train and obtain some experience first.
Education Preferences in Silicon Valley
For starters, let’s go through the list of top universities that big companies in Silicon Valley value the most:
- Stanford University
- University of California, Berkeley
- University of Southern California
- Carnegie Mellon University
- Georgia Institute of Technology
Naturally, these aren’t the only places where you should study if you want to get a job at Silicon Valley. Still, if you have the chance and option to study there, they are definitely a great choice for you.
However, know that studying at the top schools is rewarding, but also very challenging.
Let’s say that you study at Stanford. As a student, you’ll need to work hard and study a lot to get high grades. This will, of course, be dependent on your software and coding skills, but also on other skills such as writing. In Silicon Valley, it is far more important for IT workers to know mathematics and coding rather than be masterful at writing content. Even so, chances are you’ll be assigned with many research paper and essay tasks while you study at these schools. If you struggle and need some assistance, go online and search for a professional company that you can say write my papers to whenever you need them. You should do your best to keep your GPA high if you aim to work in Silicon Valley, so let us give you a piece of advice.
Skills in Demand in Silicon Valley
You can find a good job in any field of technology in this area seeing that it is the richest in such positions. Even so, the top skills that are in highest demand in Silicon Valley will give you more opportunities for employment and higher salaries. These include Python, C++, Algorithms, Java, HTML, Linux, Verilog, and Java Script.
When studying these, you’ll need to do a lot of practice and write many assignments. Prep yourself for some hard work, but if you master them, all it takes is a year or two of good experience and you can start applying to work in Silicon Valley.
The Technical Know-How to Work in Silicon Valley
Most positions in the IT field require things such as:
- Advanced experience and knowledge with algorithm implementation and design
- Ability to debug and solve problems fast
- Efficiency in writing readable, smart code
- Solid grasp coding in languages such as C++ and Java
- Comprehension of databases such as SQL and Redis
- Knowledge to translate project descriptions and tech specification into programming languages, code structure, and suggested architecture
As you can assume, this is all learned with time and proper education, so get applying to those schools or, if you already have a degree you could use, work on your experience and resume first. Good luck!
Author’s bio:
Angela Boggs is an IT expert that works on app creation and optimization. She’s been working as an app developer for a long time. Today, Angela creates apps as a freelancer, but also works full-time as an IT content writer helping students with their papers.
