The following diagram shows IT fields together with the approximate level of Governance, Process and Technical service involved for each role. This graph is intended to highlight the transition of skills and experience between fields.
The leftmost fields are Service and Support oriented, these are technical jobs and customer facing jobs. To the right, process oriented jobs are identified in red. The bottom of the graph highlights governance oriented skills in green.
KeyGovernance JobsProcess JobsService & Support JobsService & Support
Process
Governance
MANAGEMENT JOBS
Information Technology leadership and governance roles provide direction to technology teams. Direction is a cruicial component of delivering information systems that add value to the business.
CIO or Chief Information Officer - Oversees the management of all Information Technology systems in an organization.
IT Director - Senior task master of Information Technology within a business.
IT Manager/ Technical IT Manager - Responsibe for the proper operations and maintenance of computer systems in a company.
Operations Manager - Responsible for the ongoing support of corporate networks and services.
Project Manager - Responsible for the delivery of a large body of work to develop, install or enhance IT systems.
Technical Project Manager - To utilize a technical background in order to organize a team of individuals to accomplish a given objective.
Help Desk Manager - Oversees the daily operations of the help desk or service desk.
Program Manager - Plan, scope and lead services engagements with clients.
Data Center Manager - Take responsibility for the ongoing support, maintenance, performance and uptime of corporate data center facilities.
IT General Manager - Provide leadership, strategic vision and direction to the IT infrastructure, customer service and application development departments.
Service Delivery Manager - Manage the performance and quality of services rendered.
Client facing jobs typically suit friendly, sociable people with excellent communication skills. Interviews for this type of position normally include a range of behavioral questions. Candidates facing behavioral questions should avoid emotive responses, be client focused and handle difficult situations with rational process-driven outcomes.
Client Facing Jobs
Helpdesk Analyst - A helpdesk analyst is the first line of assistance for all IT related queries from business users.
Desktop Support - Responsible for the upkeep of desktop operating systems and common applications.
PC Support - PC roles include operating system skills as well as knowledge about a variety of business applications.
Computer Technician - Includes skills and knowledge in computer hardware components and models. Knowledge of current video card hardware, for example, is important for advising customers about gaming PCs.
Sales - Sales roles require a high level understanding of IT systems and excellent communication skills.
IT Recruiter - The IT Recruiter is responsible for advertising and filling IT related job vacancies.
Technical Jobs
Systems Administrator or Systems Engineer - These are technical roles that specialize in just a few technologies or operating systems. It is common for a systems administrator to have experience with a number of different technologies that are provided by the same vendor. For example, a Windows systems administrator with Microsoft Exchange server skills.
Server Administrator - Install, configure, support and maintain server infrastructure and server operating systems.
Network Administrator - Support and maintain network infrastructure such as switches, routers and firewalls.
Database Administrator or DBA - Ensures the proper operation of business systems software concerned with the storage and processing of large quantities of data. Some widely used database software platforms include Oracle, Microsoft SQLServer and MySQL.
Developer/Programmer - Developers and programmers write software in different languages. Some languages are intrinsically tied with certain technologies, for example, HTML is associated with web developers. While other languages such as C# have a more universal use.
Programmer Analyst - Responsible for software development as well as evaluating user requests and identifying business processes and requirements.
Security Administrator - Security roles vary in scope and skills. Some security roles are tied closely with vendor firewall software, patch management, virus scanners or IPS/IDS while other security roles are policy based and do not have a technical requirement to the role.
Network Engineer - Design and implement network infrastructure.
Network Architect - Provide standards and frameworks that can be used in solutions design.
As the Information Technology industry continues to grow and increase in complexity process driven roles are expected to become even more important. Process roles generally help to define or coordinate different groups, departments or entities.
Change Manager - Change managers ensure that IT related changes in an organization are managed in terms of risk, impact and reporting. Very large IT departments can make hundreds of changes to the production network in a month and the management of these changes falls under the responsibility of the change manager.
Incident Manager - An Incident manager is required to coordinate technical staff from many different teams when there is a major system failure.
Business Analyst - Business analysts examine and review business processes and relay that information to technical IT staff in order to assist them (the technical staff) to improve existing systems.
Consultant - Usually an expert in one field, a consultant works to solve or improve an organizations' IT systems or processes.
Enterprise Architect - Considers business process, finance and other key inputs in order to develop a strategy moving forward.
IT Auditor - Conduct and report audit findings making recommendations for improving process, ensuring compliance, improving operations, reducing costs and mitigating risk.
Information Technology Roles and Job Descriptions
Information Technology has many different fields, each with its unique set of skills. The following groupings categorize the vast majority of IT roles.
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