They perform these tasks to ensure that the company or organization they work for has the ability to solve large-scale logistical problems that may arise as part of its daily business. Students and career-changers often explore this career because it is well-compensated. It also offers several types of entry-level roles. And it can be an exciting job because one encounters many different challenges along the way, which many workers find uniquely stimulating to tackle and resolve. IT professionals also gain satisfaction in their careers from serving a larger organizational purpose as they are helping a business’s technological operations run smoothly.
You are most likely familiar with the term “IT,” referring to the department in a workplace or school that is responsible for resolving issues with computing equipment. Information technology departments are indeed responsible for investigating and fixing issues with hardware and software. And they do, in fact, maintain a company’s networks and networked devices. But the field of information technology goes far beyond these tasks. There are three main areas that IT professionals are typically responsible for attending to. If one wants to get a job in IT, one must be competent to work on any one of these areas. Studying IT in the Miami area can help you acquire these competencies.
The aspect of IT that you are almost certainly familiar with, as described above, is called IT operations. This term refers to doing technical support and network maintenance. This realm of IT work also includes working with communication protocols, security testing, and device management.
Few people outside the profession of information technology are acquainted with the second area, which is called IT governance. This concept refers to the policies and processes implemented by a particular organization to ensure the optimization of the functions of its IT systems, making them do the most they can to serve the specific technical needs of that organization. This means that IT workers must not operate in a vacuum. They are not solely tinkering with technology. Instead, they need to be mindful of the mission of their company or organization. They must also keep thinking about the question of how they can support those goals through their daily work with the company’s technological resources.
Another responsibility of IT professionals is working with an organization’s hardware and software infrastructure. Working with hardware infrastructure entails setting up and maintaining crucial devices. This does not mean just individual computers, but servers, routers, and phone systems too. When it comes to software, their infrastructure work consists of installing and maintaining the vital programs that drive the organization’s success. By this means, they are able to support the organization’s technological and computing needs. It’s critical for IT professionals to learn broadly applicable skills with software infrastructure before they enter the workforce. This is because which particular softwares are essential will change a lot depending on the organization and its brief. Even the software used by a single organization may perform a wide range of tasks. For example, the same company may use software infrastructure for everything from data storage to graphic design to coding support and beyond.
Best IT Classes & Schools in Miami
#1: BrainStation Miami—Software Engineering Bootcamp
In BrainStation Miami’s Software Engineering Bootcamp, students receive a comprehensive introduction to the fundamentals of computer science and the central concepts of software engineering. They work with HTML, CSS, and Terminal. They also discover how to build multi-page web products from the ground up. The tools they use to build these static webpages include BEM, Flexbox, and Sass. Next, they explore the work systems that seasoned Software Engineers apply to their projects, including the use of Git to maintain version control. The course wraps up with an introduction to Copilot, as well as other generative AI tools, and a discussion of AI-powered software development in the future.
Key Information
This course is available full-time or part-time. The full-time version lasts four months, while the part-time version takes ten. There are no expected prerequisites.
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Students say that learning at BrainStation gives them the feeling of “being able to accomplish anything.” They “feel confident” in the “strong foundation” provided by this “eye-opening” course. The tuition cost is $16,500. Scholarships and payment plans are available.
#2: Certstaffix—Administering Microsoft SQL Server Databases
In the Certstaffix course Administering Microsoft SQL Server Databases, students become familiar with the primary responsibilities of a Database Administrator, and they learn the skills needed to perform the necessary tasks. The course teaches them how to install SQL Server instances, as well as configure databases and settings on an SQL Server. And they learn how to monitor an SQL Server’s performance. They gain skills in database maintenance and protection, including how to control whether and to what extent users can access the data inside an SQL server. After completing this course, students will have the capacity to prove they are qualified to plan, deploy, administer, and maintain SQL Server databases.
Key Information
This full-time course is a five-day sequence. It has no prerequisites. The cost of tuition is $2925.
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Students call Certstaffix’s “amazing” classes “easy to follow.” They “definitely recommend” studying there because the instructors do “a wonderful job” of conveying information and making lessons engaging.
#3: Noble Desktop—Software Engineering Certificate
If you are seeking a more in-depth education, you might consider pursuing Noble Desktop’s certificate in Software Engineering. It can turn a student with no previous knowledge of the field into a freshly qualified software engineer. The initial unit of the course covers front end development, beginning with HTML and CSS. Students discover how they can use Git for version control. They also get to know the fundamentals of JavaScript. And they explore how Flexbox and Grid can help them in designing appealing user interfaces.
The next portion of the course focuses intensively on development using JavaScript. Students become familiar with the language’s fundamental coding concepts, including datatypes, loops, and variables. They also learn how a number of powerful tools—such as React, Node.js, Express.js, and MongoDB—can help them achieve more challenging aims in a JavaScript development environment.
Python, which is another essential language for software engineers, especially if they focus on data, is the topic of the course’s third unit. Students start with exploring the lexical syntax of this language, fundamental knowledge for developing in Python. Next, they discover the language’s central features, including custom functions, dictionaries, and sorting algorithms. Delving into the data manipulation capacities it offers, students use SQL for querying databases. They also work with APIs to mine data from the public internet. The next step is learning how the Django web framework can help them automate tasks and create models for querying.
To close the course, Noble provides career preparation help for students The main product here is a portfolio of projects students have developed in the course. In addition, the school provides feedback on resumes and LinkedIn materials, preparation for interviews, and general guidance for the job search.
Key Information
This is a full-time, 20-week course. There are no prerequisites expected. Tuition is $10,995. Students may set up a payment plan if desired.
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When they first register, each of the students in a Noble course is sent a proprietary workbook from the school. Noble is widely known for its small class sizes. These allow for individualized attention to students from its expert instructors. If they choose to do so one year of completing a course, students may retake any course for free.
Students who took a course at Noble say that it was “a very worthwhile investment” because they “learned tons” there. They also note that its “excellent” teachers “keep you engaged” in the classroom.
#4: Careerist—Manual QA
Careerist’s live online Manual QA course gives students an introduction to quality assurance testing. They learn the skills that are needed to perform it successfully. The course starts by introducing software QA’s fundamental concepts. Next, students learn about and practice testing, both for web and mobile. The course then covers software testing environments as well as test cases and bug reports. It also delves into the larger realm of how devices communicate with servers. The final skill set that the course covers is more advanced testing practices. To complete the course, students do a unit on job market preparation.
Key Information
This 15-week course is part-time at six-eight hours per week. It has no prerequisites. For tuition, students can pay either $6100 upfront or a total of $6950 if they secure a payment plan.
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An attraction of Careerist is its 100% money-back guarantee: if students don’t find a tech job within the first year after completing the course, they get a refund. To help them achieve getting a job in tech, the school also provides career support. This includes resume feedback, mock interviewing, and personalized career coaching.
Students say this course gave them “a fast track into the tech field.” It was even able to accomplish this for those with “zero technical background.” The “accessible” instruction is “valuable” to the students. Indeed, they call the course “a life-changing experience.”
Miami Industries That Use IT
The major industries in the Miami area include education, healthcare, transportation and logistics, professional services, hospitality, financial services, manufacturing, tech, and construction.
Educational institutions, from preschools to colleges, use networked technology to track critical operations information. This may include student data, grades, and course schedules. As live online and asynchronous instruction have increased in importance over the last several years, technology has also turned into a crucial means of delivering instruction. Because of their particular need for large-scale data storage, operations tracking, and educational technology, universities especially tend to have substantial IT departments, so that they can maintain the infrastructure of their software and hardware.
The healthcare industry depends on IT because doctors, hospitals, and pharmacies need an efficient way to store large amounts of information about their patients. They also need to be able to gain access to that information quickly and easily. And they also have to be able to update it in a user-friendly system that operates efficiently. These needs make information technology workers extremely important in the world of healthcare. This information has to be kept in a form of data storage that does not corrupt it, as its accuracy is critical for effective treatment. IT specialists assigned to maintain these systems can gain a sense of fulfillment from their work because they provide life-saving services to people who need them. Cybersecurity measures also need to be strong when it comes to healthcare data because medical professionals and institutions have a legal obligation to keep patient data private.
If one wants to maintain successful business operations in transportation and logistics, an effective IT department is vital. In this industry, businesses use technology to perform many critical functions. These include automating tasks to reduce labor costs, tracking product movement through the supply chain, and improving the overall efficiency of their work processes. Another essential role that IT plays in this industry is improving the customer experience, such as by making it easier for customers to obtain information about orders and shipping.
The professional services industry is in the midst of a digital transformation. Companies are using technology more and more for customer interactions, workforce management, service delivery, and cloud data storage. All of these critical functions require competent IT professionals at each company to maintain the software and hardware required to perform them.
In the hospitality industry, Information technology has become increasingly central because of the growth of online booking systems and online ordering. If a hotel reservation system breaks down, the hotel may lose customer data. This could potentially result in guests having no room available to them when they arrive expecting one. In a similar way, if the online booking system for a restaurant experiences errors, customers might be in for a disappointment when they arrive for their meal. These online ordering systems can affect a business’s bottom line when customers get frustrated with an error-prone program or give up on a non-intuitive user interface. For these reasons, hospitality businesses need IT professionals, whether contracted or in-house, if they are to keep these essential systems running smoothly.
Maintaining IT security is crucial for the daily operations of a financial services company. Leaving customers’ financial data vulnerable to hacking or scams can ruin a financial company, as their trust in the business may be lost forever. That means a bank or brokerage has to have a high-quality security system to protect customer data from potential cyberattacks. This makes cybersecurity specialists indispensable in financial services.
When it comes to the manufacturing industry, IT is important computers and networked devices help workers to design new products, as well as create systems for building them efficiently. In addition, software is needed to notify them of errors in the process. This can help to prevent a slowdown in productivity, inventory damage, or even a potential workplace injury. So manufacturers need qualified IT professionals who have the knowledge to maintain this vital monitoring equipment.
To a certain extent, the relationship between the tech industry and information technology is evident: the tech industry’s role is to produce the hardware and software that information technology specialists are then responsible for installing, maintaining, and fixing. However, there is another, less obvious relationship as well, in that even tech companies have IT departments. If the computer a developer is coding on breaks down, that developer needs someone to call, especially if it’s the hardware that is at the root of the issue. It’s also important to be aware that working in IT for a tech company could be a great way to get noticed if you are ultimately looking to break into software development or a similar field.
In construction, professionals use software for computer-assisted design, project management, and storage of critical data, such as inventory manifests. Software whose function is to facilitate computer-assisted design, or CAD, is vital in the early stages of a construction project. It’s architects and engineers who generally use this kind of software in the construction industry. As for project management softwares, these are designed to be versatile, so companies can use them for many critical functions. The roles of these programs can include establishing and monitoring construction timelines, tracking materials in transit, logging payments from customers and to employees, and facilitating communication between workers on a project. If this software were to break down, the company’s operations would have to come to a halt. Similarly, if important data, such as inventory or payment logging, were to be lost, productivity would suffer. Information technology professionals hold the essential role of maintaining this software and safeguarding the data.
IT Jobs & Salaries in Miami
Miami-based IT professionals have a wide range of career specialties they might choose. Some entry-level roles generally available in the area include IT Technician, Support Specialist, and quality assurance (QA) tester. If your studies have provided you with more specialized knowledge, further roles may be open to you. These include IT Security Specialist, Systems Analyst, Network Engineer, or Cloud Systems Engineer. If you are interested in roles that involve administrative responsibilities, you might seek out work as a Database Administrator or Web Administrator.
The person at your company that you call when your work computer breaks is an IT Technician. Their job is to analyze and diagnose computer issues. It also includes maintaining hardware and installing software. The average salary for an IT Technician in Miami is $60,000 a year. Support specialists, on the other hand, typically operate behind the scenes compared to an IT Technician. The work they do is to assess and solve larger software and hardware problems with the infrastructure of the business. They may be employed by that business directly or by an IT contracting firm. In Miami, Support Specialists make $55,000 a year on average. Another role where entry-level IT workers are typically welcome is quality assurance tester. This type of professional is responsible for assessing software to make sure it is fit for an industry-standard level before an organization adopts it. Miami’'s QA Testers make an average of $80,000 a year.
If you choose to do an intensive bootcamp or complete a full certificate in a particular topic, your studies may qualify you for a more specialized role. One of these roles is IT Security Specialist. This is a professional who holds responsibility for protecting the customer data, intellectual property, and other digital assets that belong to the business they work for. An IT Security Specialist in Miami can expect to make $130,000 in an average year. Another specialty you could think about pursuing is systems analysis. This is the field of identifying infrastructure problems and then solving them in order to streamline a company’s technical operations. Miami-based Systems Analysts make about $75,000 a year on average. You might also consider the role of Network Engineer, meaning the person responsible for maintaining and improving a company’s computer network. These workers are tasked with optimizing such networks to efficiently serve the particular technical needs of a given business. The average annual salary of a Network Engineer in Miami is $95,000. Students who find themselves especially interested in cloud computing may decide they want to specialize in it by becoming a Cloud Systems Engineer. In this career, they will be responsible for maximizing the efficiency of an organization’s use of the cloud for storing and processing data. A Miami-based Cloud Systems Engineer will make about $130,000 annually.
You could also consider taking on the unique responsibilities that come with an administrative role. One career option along those is database administration. Database administrators are experts who solve complex IT issues that affect an organization’s data, including its storage and security. A Database Administrator working in Miami makes about $90,000 a year. Another rewarding administrative role is Web Administrator. This type of administrator deals with networked systems, specifically maintaining the infrastructure that supports them. In Miami, this career provides an average annual salary of $70,000.