Career 2030: What to learn if everything changes every 6 months

Mels Seitov, CTO Bank Center Credit

IT is currently experiencing a renaissance. Previously, we simply wrote services and focused on customer experience. Now, artificial intelligence, big data, robots, IoT, smart devices, and digital cities have emerged. The value of data has become extremely high, and anything moving in this direction becomes a competitive advantage.

Many specialists are afraid to enter IT. On the contrary, now is precisely the time to go into IT, because someone must develop and implement technologies. The Fourth Industrial Revolution is underway, and someone must create it.

Developers are very worried that AI will take their jobs. Code has become democratized. But along with this, new opportunities and new directions are emerging—for both those who are just entering IT and for those already working in the industry.

When people talk about layoffs, I would rather call it transformation. Some professions will indeed disappear or be automated—primarily routine and repetitive ones. We will become more focused on the human aspect: empathy, relationships, and communication. We will free ourselves from routine and start thinking more about the human element.

IT is unlikely to stop growing; rather, it will be redistributed. What used to require ten people can now be done by three. But competition will not cease, and the pace of change will only accelerate.

AI is a large library. However, it cannot create innovations, it is not empathetic, it does not build teams or lead them forward, and it does not take responsibility. It is precisely this that makes us human, and this is our strength.

Agis Konkabayeva, CIO Beeline Kazakhstan

For me, AI is already a new concept: augmented intelligence. When AI helps increase efficiency so much that tasks that used to take a month are now completed in a week.

But the most important thing is to double-check and carefully read what AI generates. There is human intelligence and there is artificial intelligence, which expands our capabilities.

My personal request to employees is to bring new ideas that help simplify processes and increase efficiency. Do not think that all this is happening somewhere in another country.

For me, a certificate is not a primary factor when hiring. A portfolio, experience, and the way a person thinks are much more important.

I had an experience where I needed to train a team. Previously, preparing materials took a week. Now, it is enough to record a voice message, give the task to AI—and within a few minutes, you have a link to an HTML page with design, logo, my ideas, and tests. The next day, you can already show it to the team.

Dana Kausova, Head of Recruitment ProHunters

Careers are no longer linear. People move from FMCG to IT, from analytics to product management, from QA to development. The speed of learning has become more important than a diploma, and a set of completed projects is much more important than a resume.

Continuous retraining will soon become not an exception, but the norm.

Kaysar Amanzhanuly, B2B Partnership Acquisition Manager Yandex Practicum

In the last quarter, 78% of corporate requests from clients were related to neural networks. The most popular areas are neural networks for business and programs for top managers. Everyone wants to teach their leaders how to optimize processes and routine tasks.

Five years ago, most corporate requests were related to marketing, sales, and development. Over the past year, everything has changed. Companies no longer come with the request “give us a course for an employee,” but with the request “help us make a specific process more efficient.”

The top three skills to learn right now are: neural networks, critical thinking, and analytics.

If a person can think critically and analyze, they will be able to solve problems in almost any field.