Do you want to get a job in tech, but are not sure where to start?
Maybe you want to build a tech-skilled career and are trying to figure out what roles are out there, and what to learn + apply for first?
Or perhaps you just want to work in any role in a tech company, so you can get some of those benefits that they offer, such as remote work, good pay, a free laptop, and more?
Well, good news! In this guide, I’ll share 12 different entry-level tech jobs, along with their average salary, job requirements, and tips on how to get the skills needed to get hired.
So let’s dive in…
As you might guess, there are different types of ‘entry-level’ roles in the tech industry. Technically, the Janitor at Google is an entry-level role, but I’m not sure they get the same perks package as other employees.
With that in mind, I’ve limited this list to entry-level roles that have the opportunity for career advancement.
Keep in mind that the required skills for entry-level roles in different departments can vary wildly. Some of them you could apply for today with your current skills and experience right out of high school, while others you’ll need to take specific training programs before you could apply.
I’ve broken down this list into 2 sections:
Where possible, I’ll also give you paths for how to learn what you need for each.
These first 4 roles are perfect if you just want to get hired as soon as possible with your current skill set.
Some do require certain skills or attributes that you may have picked up already, but I break that down below.
One of the biggest costs to running a successful business are refunds and ‘churn’ (where an ongoing customer cancels/stops their service).
An easy way to stop this from happening is to have customer support people in place to assist with any issues, answer questions and solve problems.
It's not the most exciting role, but it is a great entry-point into a tech company, if you wanted to start immediately.
Nothing huge to start with, but again, no prior experience required.
The average salary for customer support roles is around $27,000:
There's a few options from here. You could stay in customer support and gain experience into a more senior role, or you could pivot into a Customer Success Manager.
That being said, if you're good with people then you could even apply for that CSM role right away instead...
This role seems similar to the previous, but there are a few differences.
You'll still be providing help and answering questions, but the main focus of the CSM is on 'onboarding' new users so that the customer can learn how to use the product ASAP.
This is either done in person, via email, or over video conferencing software such as Zoom.
Why care about onboarding?
Well, lack of early product usage is a high indicator that the customer may not stick around very long, or worse, ask for a refund.
Add in the fact that Enterprise customer contracts at tech companies are typically worth $10,000+ at a minimum, and can be as high as $100,000+ or even $1,000,000+ per year, and the CSM becomes vital to ensuring the customer is happy and sticks around year after year!
The CSM role is a perfect entry-level job if you don’t have any current technical skills, or just want to get into a tech company - but are good with people.
Most of the information you need to know will be given once you’re hired, so there is a focus instead on soft skills, such as empathy and communication.
However, depending on the company, they may ask that you have some previous experience with their product if possible, or even a niche skill set.
For example
Here we can see a position at Google for a CSM that would focus on helping new customers with Google ads.
The niche skill however is that they require that you can speak both English and Swedish.
Although it looks super technical, the actual role requirements are pretty simple (as long as you hit that one niche factor):
As I said up top though, not every CSM role requires these types of niche skills, and this exact same job is also available in just English.
You’ll often find positions where the only niche skill is some relevant experience with the product, and even then, it’s not always the case. If they think you can smash the role, they’ll teach you as they go.
Salary varies based on company and location, but the average salary for an entry-level customer success manager role on ZipRecruiter is currently $86,000 per year.
There are a few paths you can take with this role. You could continue to skill up and apply internally for other roles such as programming, or, you can take this particular career path further.
Senior technical support at some companies can have a salary as high as $110,000!
That's some serious money!
When it comes to tech, you usually have companies with:
With that in mind, tech companies will often hire large teams of salespeople to help explain products, run demonstrations, answer live chats, or simply cold call and email to help bring awareness and make the sale.
For example
Google Analytics is a free tool that literally millions of companies use.
However, they also offer Google 360, another analytics tool that has a heap more features, but pricing starts at $150,000 a year!
Most users will never need this or even be aware of it. For some people though, it could make a massive change to their business and actually make them more money, as they can become more data-driven in their decisions.
But, it’s a big price jump from free to $150,000.
This is why their pricing isn't listed on the website, and the CTA on the page is to chat to sales.
This way a salesperson will reach out, answer questions, and run those demos to help people see the value, before handing it off to the CSM to then onboard those users.
Key responsibilities may include:
Again, this can vary based on company and location. Some early start-ups may even offer salary plus commission which opens up the opportunity for huge earnings.
For non-commission roles, the average salary is currently around $77,000 on ZipRecruiter.
If you find a salary plus commission role, you could easily clear $10,000 a month or higher, depending on the company and your skills.
Good salespeople can often be head-hunted by new startups for crazy salaries. (They want the best so they can get growth ASAP).
However, if you want to stay in the same company, you can usually move up to a more senior role such as an Account Executive, Sales Manager, or even into broader roles in business development, product management, or marketing.
The salaries in senior roles can be literally insane…
Just a cool $777,000 per year for a senior sales manager at Google.
Have you tried turning it off and on again?
Rather than being an external-facing role, IT support is an internal role that assists other people in the company with technical issues and ensures everything is set up, up-to-date, and working correctly.
Key responsibilities may include:
Here’s where we start to get a little more niche, as you need specific skills or training to perform this role before you can be hired.
If you're anything like me, and have nerded out and built your own PC, then you're probably fine with this role already.
According to ZipRecruiter, the average salary for this role is around $52,000 per year:
The IT technician role is a great starting point for other, more advanced roles in a company, such as a Systems Administrator ($85,000 a year), or a Network Administrator ($75,000 a year, going up to $82,000 if they migrate to the cloud).
Or you can even take it a step further and learn both these fields, and become a full DevOps Engineer. (Click to follow a set career path and learn what you need to learn, and in what order).
It’s a little more effort, but the average DevOps Engineer salary is around $127,000 a year, so not bad at all!
Do you have a way with numbers and want a clear path to higher-paying roles?
If so, then data entry is a great entry-level tech job.
Basically, you spend your time inputting, updating, and maintaining accurate data within the company's systems. This means a lot of managing and organizing information, ensuring data integrity (i.e. is the information correct), and supporting various departments by accurately entering and retrieving data as needed.
Key responsibilities may include:
Again, this can vary depending on company and location. The current average salary for data entry in the US is around $57,000.
The beauty of this role is it can lead into more analytical roles that pay much higher, such as a Data Analyst ($79,000), Data Scientist ($127,000), or Data Engineer ($129,000).
The tasks and responsibilities vary between these three positions, but all are data-focused and in high demand.
You could also train right away for a Data Analyst role (as it’s still technically entry-level, just in the data analysis department). However, it will take longer and will require some specific training.
More on this in a second though.
Each of the roles below qualifies as entry-level in different tech departments. However, because these are often more technical departments, they will require you to take additional training before you can get hired.
It’s more effort upfront, but the starting salary and opportunities for advancement are amazing.
It’s also worth noting that when we talk about required skills or education, some companies will want degrees, but not all of them. In fact, very few tech companies care if you have a college degree.
The tech industry is unique in that it only cares that you can do the work. If you’ve taken an online course and learned the exact same information, built a portfolio, and can do the work - then that’s good enough for them to hire you.
We’ve had people with no college experience get hired at Tesla, Google, Amazon, Uber, and more - all from following our online training instead of a college degree.
With that out of the way, let’s get into each of these roles.
Remember how I said earlier that refunds and churn are major issues? Well, another cause for refunds is poor quality products.
There's nothing more annoying than when a product isn’t functioning as it should. You click something and it doesn’t work, you get frustrated, and eventually, you stop using it or look for a competitors' products instead.
This is why tech companies will hire Quality Assurance (QA) Engineers to use and test the products to see if everything is working as intended.
Identifying and reporting bugs, collaborating with dev teams to address issues, and contributing to the overall improvement of the software development lifecycle.
The faster they iron out the kinks, the quicker the product goes to market and makes money!
Key responsibilities may include:
The average salary for a QA Engineer is around $96,000.
Not bad for an entry-level role right?
Senior QA engineers don’t make much more money (on average) than others on the team, with the average salary being around $115,000.
However, because you’ve been working directly with the product in a technical role, you could continue to skill up and transition into the software development side if you so wished.
Interested in design? Then a junior UI/UX Designer might be the perfect role for you!
You’ll be creating visually appealing and user-friendly interfaces for digital products, under the supervision of a design team lead.
This role involves understanding user needs, designing intuitive user interfaces, and collaborating with cross-functional teams to deliver a positive user experience.
Key responsibilities may include:
The average salary for a Junior UI/UX Designer is around $56,000.
A junior-level role is usually less responsibility and has lower pay. However, once you start to skill up further and gain more experience, Senior UX designers can see an average salary of around $131,000.
But I've also personally worked with many UI/EX designers earning significantly more than this. (Notice how this is the average salary. There's jobs available right now that are paying $213,000!).
It should also be worth mentioning that design is a great career if you want to freelance and earn money on the side.
Or, you could even specialize further into specific design fields (ex: motion design, user experience, illustrations, game design, etc). The more you specialize and improve, the higher your earning potential as you gain experience.
Want to build websites or apps? Well, the junior Web Developer role is the perfect entry point for this.
You start out working closely with more experienced developers, learning and gaining practical experience in the development process while continuing to skill up.
The coolest part about web development is that it is as close as it gets to meritocracy.
What do I mean by that?
Simply put, if you can show you can do the work, you can get the job. Tech companies really don't care about much else. Degrees are great but the majority will hire you based on your project portfolio and proving that you can do the work.
The crazy part is you can even learn to code and get hired using completely free resources.
Don't believe me? This is exactly what I did and I've helped 1,000s of others do the same. (I cover the process that I followed in the guide above).
Sidenote: Web development and programming has technically 3 core areas of focus:
You have people building the front-end of your website or application
People who build the back-end (so that it all works)
And then those people who can do both are referred to as ‘full-stack’ developers.
We’ll be covering entry-level roles for all 3 of these.
However, when we talk about Web Developers, most people assume you’re focusing on front-end work and tasks associated with that, so that's how we'll filter this role.
Building sites and apps!
Key responsibilities may include:
The average salary for a junior Web Developer is around $61,000 right now.
The great thing about a web dev role, is it pretty much opens the doors to any career in tech. You can keep going to become a Senior Developer or transition into other areas of focus.
Heck, you can even work on freelance projects and get paid while you're still learning!
I may be a little biased (seeing as we started out with our very first courses teaching Web Development here at Zero To Mastery), but it really is a gateway role to so many areas of the tech industry.
Experience in Web Development can help you transition to pretty much any other role, as it's all applicable.
If this role stands out to you, then be sure to check this career path guide.
It'll teach you front and back-end, so you can become a full-stack web dev. You can easily complete the first section, get hired as a front-end developer, then carry on learning and transition to full-stack and earn even more!
A Junior Database Administrator (DBA) is a back-end developer role, that focuses on assisting in the management, maintenance, and optimization of databases, under a team lead.
Back-end is the glue that makes apps and websites work, so that sales can happen, and services can be delivered.
The Junior Database Administrator role's average salary is around $77,000.
If you continue down this career path, you can expect an average salary of around $118,000 for a Senior Database Administrator.
Or, you can choose to specialize in areas such as database development, data architecture, or even system design.
Most people will usually focus on either front-end or back-end skills first, but there are a few people out there who decide to learn full-stack development before getting hired.
This is mainly because certain languages and frameworks exist that allow you to learn a single language that works on both the front and back-end.
With that in mind, there are opportunities to join a company on an ‘entry-level’, as a full-stack developer, and work on both the front-end and back-end aspects.
This role is basically everything from a front-end and back-end role combined. Building and maintaining web applications, collaborating with cross-functional teams, and contributing to the full software development lifecycle.
Key responsibilities may include:
Here’s why it's worth learning both the front and back-end. The average full-stack developer salary is around $76,000.
There are so many options from here. You can stick it out into a more senior role, or niche down into a specific area.
Cyber security is a growing concern, which also means that there's a lot of demand for people in this field.
If you fancy implementing security systems or even trying to hack your teammates to find vulnerabilities, then this is the role for you!
A Junior Cyber Security Analyst plays a critical role in protecting the organization's computer systems and networks from security threats, under the supervision of a team lead.
Your responsibilities include monitoring security systems, analyzing potential vulnerabilities, and implementing measures to safeguard digital assets.
Key responsibilities may include:
Salary starts at around $61,000.
This career is cool in that there are a lot of different focuses in Cyber Security. You can build systems, hack systems, find bugs, and more, or stick with where you are and become a Senior Cyber Security Analyst ($113,000 a year).
There are even opportunities for freelance work finding bug bounties, which can be extremely lucrative.
That’s a $3 million dollar reward if you can find a vulnerability that gives remote code access!
The final role on my list, and one I hinted at earlier with the data entry role.
The Data Analyst is a great career progression path from Data Entry, however, there’s no reason why you couldn’t train and start out as a Data Analyst right away if that's what you wanted to do instead.
It would just mean more training upfront before you could apply, but a much higher salary once you do get the role.
Click here to check out our recommended skills for this career path.
A Junior Data Analyst is less about inputting data, and is instead more focused on understanding what that data means, so that it can be used to support business decision-making.
Key responsibilities may include:
The average salary for a Junior Data Analyst is around $79,000.
Same as the Data Entry path but you’re already a step further ahead. You could go on to become a Data Scientist ($127,000), or Data Engineer ($129,000).
So there you have it. 12 entry-level tech jobs. 5 of which you could start today with no previous experience and no matter what your current skills or background is.
Or 7 others thatn if you put in a little extra effort, you can quickly train up and start a career track that can lead to $100,000+ salaries.
Heck, there’s nothing to stop you from starting in one of these tech roles that don't require any previous experience, and then continue learning on the side once you’re in the company. That way, you get access to internal hiring opportunities, are earning money right away, and then can transition after a few months.
The choice is yours - you just need to decide which job you want to apply for!
And if you’re not sure which sounds best for you?
Well then, take our tech career path quiz.
You answer a few questions and it’ll help you figure out the best tech career for you and give you a personalized step-by-step roadmap to make it happen.
Good luck 😀!