Career

Rice MBA: A Launch Pad to a Career in Technology

by Joe Soto

December 21, 2022

As tech opportunities outside traditional hubs like Silicon Valley and New York continue to grow, Houston is becoming a hot spot in the field. In Sept. 2022, business technology news site CIO ranked Houston fifth on a list of the 12 fastest-growing cities in the U.S. for IT talent. And MarketWatch has praised Houston businesses for pivoting from the legendary oil and gas businesses of the past to focus on fostering technology.

As a student in any one of the MBA programs at Rice Business, you’ll be at the center of all of that innovation. And, you’re close to the other two top tech hubs in the state, according to Forbes, Austin and Dallas.

Twenty percent of graduates of the MBA program go on to careers in tech, where they earn a mean starting salary of $129,121 (Full-Time MBA stats). And they’re ready for these careers thanks to coursework that covers entrepreneurship and product development. Plus, the MBA offers concentrations in accounting, energy, entrepreneurship, finance, health care, marketing, operations management, real estate and strategic management, so you can customize your degree for the type of tech work you want to do.

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The Rice Business Career Development Office (CDO) will be an essential partner as you work towards a career in tech. During the summer before your first semester, the CDO offers an alumni panel dedicated to technology, and past panels have featured alums working at Dell, HPE, Facebook/Meta and Apple. Each fall, there is a Technology Career Connections event that brings together students and recruiters in the technology industry, organized by the CDO’s dedicated relationship manager for tech companies. Throughout the year, the CDO also offers career education workshops designed for students interested in product management roles in technology.

And while there is plenty of access to tech companies at home in Houston, the CDO also hosts an annual Austin trip, where students can network with Rice Business alumni at tech companies with outposts in that city, including Dell, Facebook, Indeed.com, Rackspace, Oracle, Tesla and eBay.

Phil Heavilin, the executive director of the CDO, also recommends that students interested in tech careers utilize the office’s technology career communities site. “On this page, the CDO team curates career development information, job search strategies, articles and resources specifically for the technology industry,” Heavilin says. “Students can also view alumni that work in the technology sector and have active profiles on the Rice University online networking platform, Sallyportal.”

The CDO collaborates with the Student Technology Association to host networking and panel events, plus networking trips to San Francisco and Seattle.

Beyond the alumni networking events and trips to other tech hubs, the Student Technology Association also helps prepare members for careers in the field with skill development workshops in statistical analysis programs Tableau, SQL and R.

Hear From Rice Business Alums in Tech

To get a sense of what it's like to work in the tech industry — and how an MBA from Rice Business is an asset in the field — take a listen to Full-Time MBA alumni who’ve shared their stories on the “Owl Have You Know” podcast, produced by Rice Business. Check out some of our episodes:

Aruna Viswanathan '01 joins host David Droogleever to discuss her pivot from engineering to tech investing and entrepreneurship, provide essential tips for beginner investors and talk about AlphaX Decision Sciences, the energy AI software company she co-founded.
This episode is part of a set of short interviews which were recorded during Alumni Reunion Week 2021. Tamara Hughes '16 joins host David Droogleever in the Owl's Nest.
Devina Bhojwani '06, president and co-owner of IDEA Lab Kids International, talks about her pivot from working at an international offshore drilling contractor to entrepreneurship within the education space.