What’s normal in the tech industry, but weird in other industries?

5 Weird Things You’ll Only Find In Tech

1. DressWant to show up to work in a hoodie with an unkempt beard? Sure! Go right ahead. Shorts with a weird polo? No problem! Dress is one of the first things that is pretty unique to the tech industry. There’s few other industries where a large part of the workforce can dress how they please and not be reprimanded. Now I’m not saying every company is like this, but for the most part, tech companies don’t care about how you dress, unless you’re client facing that is. Try explaining that to someone in finance or banking and they’ll just look at you weird.
2. KnowledgeIn most industries you go to college to learn the basic skills of the vocation and for the most part you’re set to enter the workforce. In tech this couldn’t be further from the truth. Oh you know jQuery? That’s cute. How about Angular, React or vueJS? You know CSS? Cool, but what have you built with SASS? Tech is one of those industries where new ideas, concepts and tools are constantly being invented. If you’re in another industry you could probably go through a large part of your career without having to stay on top of the ball, however, if you rest easy in tech for a few years, you may be under qualified for your next position.
3. Hours
   Damn it there’s another bug that just came up and we have to fix it now! With the internet, and thereby consumers, having no concept of time or hours of operation, everything is always on. As the builders of digital products and experiences, this can sometimes mean that 9–5 isn’t really an option. If something significant has broken and you’re the person that can fix it, expect to pull out your laptop and get to work. Granted good management, delegation, and process control usually mitigates this type of stuff, it does happen from time to time. You’re not going to see your mortgage broker or realtor scrambling at 2am to make sure something works for you.
4. CoworkersAge is something that I always find interesting in the tech industry. Yes, there’s some that are older, but honestly they are few and far between. Most tech workers I’d say are probably 40 or below. I believe this is why the whole culture is geared more towards play than serious buttoned up work. A younger workforce has different demands than generations past that just wanted stability and a paycheck. Check out this article for more on this.
5. LeadershipMost of the executive leadership of some of the largest tech companies are very young. Unlike in other industries where you may see a gray haired senior address board meetings, in tech you’ll see CEO’s no older than you or I at the helm of multi billion dollar enterprises, talking about their businesses while strutting around in jeans. There’s two sides that make this interesting. The first is that these CEO’s are more relatable because really they are no different than you or I. They built something from scratch which any of us could do if we applied ourselves. The second is that because of their lack of experience running large businesses they can make what may seem like amateur errors in executive behaviour. This is why we’re seeing more and more Silicon Valley companies have a young public facing founder, but a much more experienced and battle weary board of advisors.