Childhood interest in IT and the choice of IT as a career: the experiences of a group of IT professionals

In this paper, we discuss the motivating factors behind Information Technology (IT) professionals and what drives their choice of IT as a career. In order to explore this a series of interviews with thirteen IT professionals have been undertaken including a set of preliminary interviews, interviews with IT professionals from a consultancy organisation and a tertiary institution working on a common project, interviews with IT professionals in a large government organisation, and questionnaires distributed to an online community. The individuals participating in this study generally described exposure to technology at an early age and a subsequent interest in technology. These participants went on in later years to show an intrinsic motivation for pursuing technology. For this group of people the opportunity to interact with technology while young assisted them in developing an interest in working with technology and in retaining that interest.