To get IT jobs, non techies eye e-learning

CHENNAI: Mariam Thomas, a social science teacher, took up an online course to change her career and bag a job as a front-end developer in an IT company. Thomas is joining the growing cohort of non-technical professionals joining the IT/analytics bandwagon by enrolling in online learning courses. “In the international school I was teaching in, there was little career development. Also, post relocating to Bengaluru, I took up a one-year foundation nanodegree at Udacity that helped me land a job in a startup, as a front end developer,” she added.

While it is usual for professionals in the IT sector who are looking out to climb up the ladder, to upskill or reskill themselves using online courses, non-technical professionals who want a complete change are beginning move away from classroom training and full-time courses. With availability of online courses, professionals can learn while employed in their previous roles as well.

“While around 15 million of young professionals are entering the job market annually, only about 25% of them are job-ready or have required skill-sets. The launch of our foundation nanodegree programme is another step towards democratizing technology education in India,” said Ishan Gupta, managing director, India, Udacity Plaforms such as Great learning and Upgrad see a 15 to 40% of professionals from non-tech roles and data analytics takes the cake among the preferred courses.


With knowledge on data becoming important, sales and marketing professionals in the same organisation switch to tech-based roles.

Hariram had transformed into an analytics consultant from a sales role in the same company – Saksoft. Mohan Lakhamraju, co-founder, Great Learning says that tech professionals who contributed to 90% of the total learners, now form 60% with non-technical roles gaining prominence.

“It is not that non-tech folks have not changed careers in the past, post gaining technical expertise, but that involved taking a break. Elearning courses have made more generalised professionals take up online courses,” he added.