Tech-industry careers for psychologists [How-to]

I’ve predominantly been on the non-clinical side of psychology, even though my degree says clinical psychology. At first, it seemed like there was not much to do as a psychologist. I mean… the training was all about mental health, well-being, and research. But I’ve learned it’s far from the truth. This is my career advice for psychology students and early-career psychologists who want to work on the non-clinical, non-wellness side of the tech world.

Sooo… let’s assume you recently finished your master’s degree or have <4 years of experience and want to make a career shift toward tech. Don’t just start applying, read this first.

I’m focusing less on neuroscience and cognitive science here because their path toward tech is quite clear.

My context

For the last 5 years, I’ve been doing more and more IT & business-focused tasks as a psychologist And I love the role shift and merging of tech & psychology. I work part-time with an EdTech company and run my blogs.

I’m sharing this because undergrad psychology did not open my eyes to this 13 years ago.

I want psych students to know – Tech needs you. AI needs you.

And it’s very rewarding.

I run 3 blogs – one on psychology (this one), one on guitar learning^[1] (Psy Guitar), and one on Human-Ai interaction^[2] (The Human Premium). It’s almost 6 years now since I started Cognition Today, and I also self-manage the other 2. I had to learn the internet tech stack, build sites, manage them, design graphics, manage social media, troubleshoot technical issues on my server, etc. Before that, in 2015, I founded a company called The OWL, which focused on student learning using tech and then semantic analysis of learning content. That forced me to code and learn, since we had no money to hire. I made no money on it even later and shut it down. But I learned some things about operating a company, hiring, networking, etc. I had to upskill and learn to code and use AI models for classification tasks. I had to learn to prepare business documentation.

The blogs pulled me to other startups. I’ve been working with an EdTech company called Myelin for 2 years now – and worked on R&D, product, content, and branding & design strategy. We’ve built tech products for teachers & schools with a strong focus on innovation and behavioral engineering.

Real-world psychology is what engineering is to physics.

Psychologists are needed in startups in non-traditional roles. Typically, psychologists are guided toward HR, counseling, managerial, or content roles. But that doesn’t even begin to describe the potential value of a non-clinical psychologist in the tech industry.

As I see it, human-technology interaction and consumer behavior are psychologists’ areas. It’s a role that needs a human-centric approach.

It is a very lucrative career option for psych people. I’ve myself fallen in love with that role.

Students: explore these options. Look at anthropomorphism, gamification, nudging and behavioral engineering, and consumer behavior. Click the linked articles to see just how much of business and technology is about psychology.

Let me elaborate.

1. Anthropomorphism: Humans project humanness on products and technology. This affects their technology use. This makes them expect things from technology. Anthropomorphism (or the lack of it) contributes if a user adopts a product and feels good about it.
2. Gamification: This is behaviorism on steroids. Gamification is about incentivizing and finding ways to keep users engaged with a product and continue using it.
3. Nudging & behavioral engineering: This is about guiding users to engage with a product in a desired way. It’s behavior change.
4. Consumer behavior: Consumers buy, think, get desperate, ask for discounts, choose brands, make bad decisions, overpay, go broke, assign value to things, trust companies, fall for adverts, ignore good products, etc. That’s all consumer behavior.

Knowing these and finding solutions means you impact the company’s revenue. As a psychologist, you are in a unique position to understand all 4. These are also avenues to get creative and innovate.

Psychologists have a renewed role in startups and tech product companies.

– Product usage variables. E.g., features, app layout, physical handling
– Finding points of human error. E.g., product safety, complex features
– Conversational design & Empathy. E.g., what to say, when to say
– Product adoption & repeat usage. E.g., making products sticky
– Choosing what should be Human-touch vs. AI-touch. E.g., AI recommendation vs. human recommendations in food apps and OTTs.
– Analyzing the conditions for people’s risk appetite, purchase appetite. E.g., when and why people buy, when do they take risks?
– Setting user expectations. E.g., are we building what users expect/need/desire?

These go beyond your standard applications of psychology like marketing, gamification, nudging, incentivizing stakeholders, and branding.

Plan after Masters in Psychology

Post-Masters Learning Path

• Immerse in psychology relevant to various industries: consumer psychology, user-experience-user-interaction (UIUX). Do this with a project like a personal website or app in mind. Partner with a friend if you’d like.
• Gain foundational knowledge in economics and buyer behavior. This will help you understand how money flows and what people need.
• Whenever you see any kind of data, figure out how you can meaningfully extract insights from it. As a psychologist, treat data as your client.

Technological Proficiency

• Understand the workings of different technologies. Read about how AI and LLMs work, what sort of data is used for machine learning, how the internet is structured, what layers (data, API, UI, etc.) go into an app.
• Learn how different products are manufactured and assembled. There is always a design philosophy here, so learn that by reading about the clothing industry, FMCG distribution, quality testing facilities, etc.
• Develop a website and learn programming languages like Python or JavaScript. Try setting up a full site on your own – make the logo, title, branding, content, marketing, and legal compliances (everything is doable in 5 days if you have an idea – start with Squarespace, or take the hard route with wordpress.org)
• The harder sciences about the brain – neuroscience, cognitive science, cognitive psychology, etc., will prep you with technology well in advance, but then your value will be in how you can use experimental data and R&D in designing games, AI, medical technologies, OTT platforms, e-commerce, etc.

Hands-On Experience

• Collaborate on a DIY project with a friend or colleague to build, market, sell, and profit from a product, practicing micro-entrepreneurship.
• Assume there is a professional for all fields, but learn basic website-building (HTML & CSS), video-editing (Reels & Shorts), and creatives (Canva) so you can execute and do things on your own.
• Write content for the sake of writing but also for marketing, persuasion, branding, and informing.

Network and Learn

• Engage with tech professionals. Understand their problems and workflows. Figure out what their users actually get from them.
• Acquire a deep knowledge of how gadgets and tech tools function.

Upskilling and Re-skilling

• Complete a coding BootCamp on platforms like Coursera or Udemy. Use that knowledge on your laptop to do some basic tasks so you feel comfortable with coding.
• Study design guidelines for creating apps, websites, stores, and communities without focusing on development software.

Tech Industry Insights

• Learn how tech companies generate revenue and identify their investors.
• Research various tech products and their purposes.
• Contemplate your potential contributions to the tech industry.
• Learn the limitations of different technologies that help humans in everyday things like learning a language, conversing, dating, etc. Learn the technological limitations of AI in terms of where AI is good vs. insufficient.

Proof of Skill

• Undertake 1 or 2 DIY projects to showcase your understanding of tech, business, and product development.
• Help someone else improve their business. Take some risks; they probably can afford them if their business isn’t doing well. Start with helping someone get more clients/viewers, help them improve their product’s design, improve their e-commerce/physical store & branding.

Build a Shared Vocabulary

• Learn the language of professionals in different industries and connect it to behavior & cognition.
• Interpret feedback different companies get from people to understand what they are missing and failing to articulate. E.g., if users are complaining about an app being too complex, think about cognitive load and decision-making issues, or uncertainty in app-usage, etc. Communicate those to other professionals.

Transition Time

• Confidently approach tech companies. Present your solutions.
• Maintain your core psychology work as part-time or full-time until you’re ready to transition.
• Moonlight (extra effort during off hours) as a tech entrepreneur or psychology consultant in tech.

FAQs

1. Where will I learn these skills?

On-the-job, DIY experimentation, and self-motivated upskilling.

2. What aspects of psychology do you need?

Basic behaviorism & cognitive theories. Academic complexity isn’t always needed.
E.g., instrumental learning, conditioning, behavior modification, response classes, working memory, executive functions, sensory processing, learning processes. Don’t stick to a single framework.

3. What business skills do you need?

Observation and analysis of different business models, product development processes, and operations.

Let’s take a more granular look now.

4. How can psychologists help tech companies?

• understand consumer behavior
• ethical use of AI, transparency in technology, and data safety
• market research
• UIUX
• defining & measuring human behaviors about consumption patterns, adoption patterns, habits, purchase patterns, review patterns, etc.
• informing tech industries as Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) in your area of specialization. E.g, cognitive science majors working with AI companies
• validating features as useful or not, translating user feedback into an improvement strategy
• gamification strategies, anthropomorphism
• nudging for product appropriate product use
• creating sales and ad copy based on consumer psychology
• internal training for productivity & well-being
• finding bottle-necks in an organization
• HR
• R&D for product design, web design, app design
• product content (what goes on the packaging, physically on the product, digitally inside the app, etc.)
• consulting for product decisions
• being a bridge between departments that have to work together
• thinking creatively about user stories (empathy-centric user predictions)
• marketing (behavioral marketing, social media strategy)
• behavioral engineering (modifying market/user behavior with specific goals)
• AI data preparation and AI communication
• branding and brand story-telling

The list will not end, but I’ll stop here. This is everything you can do as a psychologist. This is the value of your unique understanding of human behavior.

You can now choose specific skills to learn from this article on the early-career skills a psychologist needs to be in a dynamic career path.

Sources