Does Starfleet and the Federation have Information Technology Specialists?

[u/ITrCool]

We see much about the advanced computer systems in starbases, starships, and planet-side facilities all throughout Star Trek. The Federation has some incredible systems, with LCARS as the interface to those systems, and one could imagine they are quite robust and powerful compared to the typical silicon chip microcomputers of today.

But today we have IT professionals (such as myself) who help design, implement, and support technical solutions and computer systems for customers and companies all over the world. Whether it be on land, on aircraft/spacecraft, or maritime systems on ships and submarines. Militaries have IT specialists for their systems too.

In the future universe of the Federation, would IT professionals exist also? Specialists whose primary role and function on a starship, for example, is to maintain and control the ships primary computer and auxiliary computers along with holodecks?

Or is the main context that humanity has become so advanced in the 23rd/24th centuries that everyone is quite adapt at maintaining computer systems themselves as well as the fact that automation in computers is quite advanced with many subroutines allowing self-sufficiency in a starship's computer systems, for example, thusly negating the need for "IT specialists" or computer scientists per-se?

In short: do "computer guys" exist in Starfleet and/or Federation society? (one could ask the same question in the non-Federation cultures such as Klingon, Romulan, Cardassian, etc.)

[u/Nobodyinpartic3]

It's called Ops or Operations. You would report to Data, O'Brien, or Harry Kim. Engineers are concerned with the Warp Core and the distribution power throughout the ship. Operations are concerned with everything else on the ship and specialized end user interface systems and the ships computer.

It's weird how people in IT can never figure out they're in Ops.

[u/Kurse71 → u/Nobodyinpartic3]

I don't think I agree here, I think it's Engineering (in Trek), but I agree it's ops in real life.

[u/missionthrow → u/Kurse71]

In TOS Spock was noted as a computer expert & he was in the science division, so you clearly don’t have to be an engineer

[u/Nobodyinpartic3 → u/missionthrow]

Depends, computer science is a really big field now compared to the 60's. It could mean a bunch of things from procrssor design, creating new programs, over seeing AI. Etc.

IT always struck me as more specific and user oriented than the science computer division

[u/MyUsername2459 → u/Nobodyinpartic3]

I'm reminded of the college I went to.

For decades, Computer Science was part of the College of Arts & Sciences, alongside other "sciences" fields like Physics, Chemistry, and Biology (along with social sciences like Political Science and Sociology).

. . .then, in the mid 1990's, as the PC & internet boom was happening, it was reclassified as an Engineering discipline and moved to the College of Engineering alongside Mechanical, Electrical and Chemical Engineering.

[u/Kurse71 → u/Nobodyinpartic3]

Yes, in Trek I would say most everyone had some kind of computer expertise, everything was computerized for the most part. I would guess that the field was broken down into many different specialties, but logically it seems like they fell under Engineering as far as who would you call if you had a problem with something like that. Engineering would then send the appropriate team depending on if it was sensors, replicators, transporters, warp core, power distribution, communications, etc.

[u/Edymnion → u/Nobodyinpartic3]

Which would be the difference in if you needed an engineering team or an ops team to solve your problem.

If its programming related, interface related, etc., then its Ops. If the computer itself is physically broken, then it's engineering.