INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY CAREERS IN OIL AND GAS

Hello and welcome again to another post on my blog. I am introducing a new category, “Careers in Oil and Gas”. In this category I shall be sharing on how different fields of study can make a career in the oil and gas industry.Today I will start with the Information Technology (IT) courses and how people from this specialty can fit into the oil and gas discipline.

In my previous posts, you should have noticed some courses specific to IT and oil and gas. Just to remind you, there are courses such as Msc. IT for oil and gas, Msc. Oil and Gas computing, Bsc. Oil and Gas Technology, etc.

So, if you have a general or oil and gas specific IT background, do you have an idea of what your career can be like in the field? Personally, I didn’t know, now I do, and still learning, but lets share the little we have okay?

What I will list as desired skills beside each job shall exclude the general skills that are required for most jobs. Skills like;

• Ability to work under pressure
• Communication skills
• Issue resolution abilities
• Self-motivation and ability to deliver under minimal supervision or none at all
• Ability to multitask

Those are the first and foremost skills that most jobs require and if you have them, your way to the top will not be such a difficult task. Just a tip, in order to improve in those areas, all you need is your own personal efforts. Reading personal development books, surrounding and learning from people with those abilities work perfectly for me.

Now, let us see what are the different jobs that you can do within the IT frame in the oil and gas sector.

With an IT background, you can work as;

• Infrastructure Project Manager; to work for this position you must be good on the infrastructure side of IT. Such as networking(you know the switches and routers things, yes, those), Oil & Gas domain knowledge, Project Management skills, good requirements gathering and analysis skills. Experience in Cloud based infrastructure/services will be an additional advantage.

• IT Consultant; among many, you will assist with implementation of different software systems.

• Radio Operator; together with other key responsibilities, you will also be operating radio equipment in order to communicate with ships, aircraft, mining crews, offshore oil rigs, logging camps and other remote operations.

• Business Development Manager; some of your duties will be to Present technical presentations and papers to customers, Develop marketing media and website content, reporting and others that may be specific to companies.

• SharePoint Analyst; some of the skills needed will be Good website development skills including HTML, JavaScript and CSS as well as understanding of SharePoint platform hosting models and environments.

• IT Systems and Applications Support; in many cases you will act as a point of escalation for Service Desk technical queries. Basic IT skills will be required and any technical certification (e.g. MCSE) is an advantage.

• IT Service Desk Analyst; as a Service Desk Analyst you will handle application issues, communication and hardware calls, queries from all levels and be the primary interface between system users, IT staff and external service providers.

• Desktop Support / IT Local Support; you will need technical knowledge of desktop and laptop hardware together with other basic IT skills.

• Software Engineer/ Programmer; among other key responsibilities, you will work to develop new and innovative products, visit global energy companies to gather client requirements, produce system and design specifications. You must be good in programming.

Those are only few and specific job positions to give you an overview of how IT can be practical in oil and gas. Generally, with an IT background you can work in categories such as;

• Data Management

• Database administration

• Developer – database, software and web

• Networking

• Internet

• Project management

• Security

• Software engineering

• Administration

• Communications

Finally, like every other discipline, you can excel to the highest levels of management as well. You can be the director, sky is the limit, so it’s all up to you my friend.

I hope this will give you some light on how broadly you can put your IT skills to practice.

Until next time, bye bye!

Prepared by Epiphania Kimaro