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Explore different tech roles to find your best fit. Each role below includes an overview, example project, daily activities, and what companies look for in candidates.
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AKA: BD, BizDev
Overview: BD is like sales without money. You work with other companies to form partnerships - but instead of closing a paid deal, the companies barter something valuable to each of them. For instance, early in Google's existence, it did a BD deal with Yahoo! that made it the default search engine. In exchange for getting access to Yahoo's millions of users, Google made Yahoo more effective for its customers.
Example project: Partner with HBO to make sure that its original programming is available on the Apple TV at launch.
What you do all day: Explore opportunities, build relationships, propose/close deals
Roles: Business Development Manager/Representative
What they look for: Candidates with strong interpersonal and negotiation skills
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AKA: BizOps, Business Analysis
Overview: Think of BizOps as a company's internal consulting agency. Whenever there are big, meaty questions to unpack, BizOps folks are brought in to crack the case.
Example project: Conduct a SWOT analysis on the smartphone market.
What you do all day: Research questions, gather data, analyze data, make recommendations to stakeholders
Roles: Business Operations Analyst (more junior), Business Operations Manager (more senior)
What they look for: Former bankers and consultants with strong spreadsheet and presentation skills
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AKA: Corp Dev
Overview: CorpDev is all about M&A. In other words, the acquisition of smaller companies that you're constantly reading about in the headlines: Facebook gobbles up Instagram, Google buys Nest, Apple acquires Beats.
Example project: Lead the acquisition of a startup with a high-traffic news site.
What you do all day: Analyze opportunities, build relationships, negotiate deals
Roles: Corporate Development Analyst/Associate (more junior), Corporate Development Manager (more senior)
What they look for: Former financial types with M&A experience (investment banks, private equity)
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AKA: CS, Customer Service
Overview: Customer Success is sometimes maligned as the least sexy part of an organization. However, as churn rate has become a critical metric for judging tech firms both large and small, it's now also one of the most essential parts. Because unless clients actually use, renew, and evangelize their technology purchases, the vendor has no chance of hitting the hyper-growth VCs demand.
Example project: Manage 40 accounts to ensure that 95% renew their subscriptions.
What you do all day: Create support content, respond to support requests, reach out to current customers
Roles: Customer Success Manager (responsible for the success of a portfolio of customers - from onboarding to upgrading), Customer Service Representative (providing front-line support to incoming customer requests)
What they look for: Candidates with deep empathy for customers and who are also good at juggling many tasks
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AKA: Product Marketing Management (PMM)
Overview: Marketing solves the Field of Dreams problem: Wrongly assuming that if we just build it, they will come. By bringing the product directly to the market, marketers make sure that customers are actually aware of the latest and greatest.
Example project: Develop a go-to-market campaign to launch the iPad.
What you do all day: Research your audience, plan campaigns, execute campaigns, measure results
Roles: Product Marketing Manager (manages how a product is brought to market), Copywriter/Voice + Tone (generates copy for marketing campaign), Marketing Operations (executes marketing campaigns via email and advertising), PR/Communications (engages press to get the word out)
What they look for: Candidates with a mix of creative and analytical skills
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AKA: Market Research, UX Research
Overview: Understanding users from both a qualitative and quantitative perspective.
Example project: Design a survey to understand what content Apple TV users prefer.
What you do all day: Plan studies, conduct research (both digitally and in-person), analyze results, make recommendations
Roles: UX Research (analyzing how customers use products), Market Research (analyzing how customers think and buy)
What they look for: People with psychology, design, or statistics backgrounds
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