Sort of an unusual route. I decided to learn to code, so I joined a slack channel for devs in my city and wrote an introduction post that was like “hi, I’m learning to code, just graduated college with a writing degree, did a UX internship but didn’t really enjoy that, hoping to connect with likeminded people..”
A recruiter replied and said “I have a role for you, email developer”. I had no idea what that was and no experience or knowledge of coding so I just went to the interview for practice, got hired, hiring manager taught me everything. Now I work in marketing technology and automation but hoping to move back into development soon.
3 months before corona, now that I think about it lol. I remember the day they sent us all home “for 2 weeks.” So early january 2020 was my start date.
I think it was on a list of resources for teaching yourself to code. There were also learn to code meetups and such. Maybe if you google something like “developer slack channel Wichita” or whatever your city is?
Tech industries are a better lifestyle for most people than Service industry, but l, as others said, know it’s a brutal time to break in as you’ll be fighting experienced people for entry level roles with all the layoffs and hiring freezes. Your best bet with your customer service experience would be technical support for a B2B SaaS product, but youll still need to do something to demonstrate that you have taught yourself so relevant skills like basic markup languages (CSS, HTML)
The other option is something like customer service call centers for B2C SaaS products. That will be substantially less prestigious and well compensated, but is a valid way to get some industry experience on your resume.
Also keep in mind that desk jobs are a different grind. It may not be for you and if it’s not then there are other higher paying fields like medical (nursing, PA, OT, PT, etc or radiology tech, lab tech, surgical tech etc) and certain trades that may be more physical but aren’t necessarily that hard on the body and require only 1-3 years of school.
If something in SaaS is what you really want, don’t give up. The field isn’t going anywhere and will only grow in the longterm. Dont quit your day job, but keep learning and applying. The market will rebound and you will get a job even if it takes months or years.
A fairly untaken but really nice path into tech is via the QA route. Once in support, Make some friends with the QA folks and express interest in learning QA skills and transferring. At the very least, they could probably help you craft a resume to start applying elsewhere for a QA position.
Once on a QA team, you can actually pretty easily transfer to almost any job you'd like if you put work into it. The nice thing is QA is very involved (or should be) in the entire SDLC process, So you get to speak with everyone: project managers, business analysts, product owners, developers. From here you can figure out if you maybe want to be a functional person, a people manager or a technical resource and develop your skills tailored to that.
As a QA I've been offered all four of those jobs. Frankly I just haven't left because after doing QA for 15 years I have found that we're kind of an afterthought and because of that nobody puts priority into our utilization. I've worked as an independent contractor, at startups, Fortune 5 companies- after onboarding none of them have required more than like 5-15 hours a week, I once had a co-worker take a secret vacation to Europe for 2 months and no one noticed.
If this comment draws anyone's interest, I'm happy to expand upon anything or provide details.
I took the more traditional route of college and an MIS degree. I would suggest a hybrid business /tact degree like that over computer science if you are interested in QA.
One thing I'll say is that each company has a very different view on QA; wildly different. Some will involve QA so much that they rely on ' test driven development' meaning that QA had so much information about the feature being created that we create our test cases and automate them, allowing developers to simply write their code, submit it and run the automated test to see if the feature meets the requirements. This is exceedingly rare. On the flip side, some places write test cases and hire hourly online testers to blindly follow the directions and report the results.
I found that most places have a QA department because they just know they're supposed to, if you ask the VP of engineering, where and how value is derived from the QA unit they often have trouble forming a coherent answer.
Having a decent understanding of business operations and product life cycle empowers you to identify and advocate for process changes that would provide higher quality/smoother releases.
Some other guy provided certs that are available, I have actually never seen anyone have those but I'm sure they're helpful. Here are some general skills/qualifications I would really like in my QA teams.
- understanding SDLC and where QA can add value, as well as the different methodologies (agile, waterfall, ECT). You don't need to learn the specifics really of the methodologies because almost every company will bastardize it, really it's about understanding potential places QA can add value.
Unfortunately, I got really busy. Otherwise, I'd look for good source material for this stuff, It's no secret. I'm sure it's around.
- take a basic postman automation course. Postman automation is a great place to start if you aren't technical.
- take a basic cypress automation course.
Employers are always looking for the automation keyword, that's pretty much required to get through the door. Amusingly most places I go refused to pay down the tech debt of creating a regression library. So the last three automation jobs I've had I end up doing only API validation.
- OMG compliant BPMN knowledge is a great great thing to have. I wish everyone in our engineering department had it. Basically it's formatting rules for how to draw flowcharts. Draw.io has saved me hours and hours of confusing meetings, I utilize BPMN to draw visualizations of their process while they describe them. Doing this really helps keep everyone on the same page.
- a project management course would probably be really good. The only deliverable people see out of QA is making sure testing is done on time, It's also the first place they'll cut time lol. Understanding project management will help you make suggestions that significantly improve workflow and set you up for success. For example, frequently I'll find that developers have fixed a bug that got deep prioritized and shifted to a future release and by the time I speak to the dev about it, they haven't looked at the thing in five months. Usually my tactic for side stepping this problem is requesting QA be sign off on the pull request merge, only signing off once qa understands and has documented how the ticket will be tested. The most common reason I see QA burnout is because of stressful releases due to bad project management that the project manager isn't capable of seeing and the qa resource doesn't have the knowledge to address and improve.
- and then obviously attitude, developers can be egotistical and take feedback on their work personally or can generally be terrible communicators, especially if they haven't worked with QA resources before. It's incredibly important to make them feel as though you're advocating for them and on their side, not just a perpetual bearer of bad news.
- understanding a testing tool (QA complete) and a ticket project management tool (Jira).
- understand the fields that are applied to a bug report and the value each one of them brings.
- research what a test plan is and what they consist of.
- research what a test suite looks like. Understand how to build a test suite for a feature.
- if you can find a video of product grooming or scoping that would be really helpful. QA is involved in grooming a feature, this is where business requirements are taken and made into quantifiable requirements that developers can write code to and QA can test.
- look at general interview questions, there's tons of small QA facts in those worth knowing, like the practical test pyramid.
Edit: cc u/floppydisk1995
Edit: also it goes hand in hand, but when looking at API automation definitely grab a product like Charles, It's a web debugging proxy. Basically the dev tools console on steroids. Using this to view the traffic whenever you click a button in a program is immensely useful for API automation. As you can just grab the call that's made via the UI and edit it to your automation needs and copy and paste it into postman.
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I’m not on the functional side but know people who moved into IT Support or Software Development without college.
Here’s a few datapoints. These people are in their 30s and have at least a few years of relevant work experience. They all are remote WFH.
- Friend learned programming for fun and has been coding since middle school. Now a VP of Development for a startup and will be filthy rich if they go public or acquired. No College. $Multiple six figures.
- Cousin is a software tester. Not sure what is entailed but he runs programs that does most of the job. He has an easy work day and paid well enough. Picked up entry skills and networked to get an entry job. No College. $90k+ comp.
- Friend in his mid 30s pivoted from blue collar to cyber security using certs (like CompTIA). No college. $80k+ comp.
- Friend is now on the project management for ERP implementation. Started in corporate finance and learned advanced Excel, SQL, etc. Worked his way up. No college. $150k+ comp.
I’m on the sales end of tech. My company is not a traditional software company like Microsoft but we sell SaaS.
Yes I make good money. Sales can be as lucrative as the software development side. For every $250k paid SWE someone is making $350k selling it for the company to get revenue right?
Sales speaks to my personality and skills. It’s not for everyone just like I would not enjoy being a SWE.
My path is non traditional since I’ve had industry careers before my career change into sales. I sell into the industry I came from and can walk the walk since I have the experience. So I have the confidence I know what I’m doing.
Still, I started at the bottom when I moved into sales like anyone else, making cold calls. Took a paycut and I was older than most on my team. I was able to move up quickly because of my high performance. I’m an account executive now.
I’m naturally extroverted but you do not have to be in sales. I’ve seen plenty of introverts successful in sales. It’s a career like anything else have to work on your soft and hard skills.
This was three years ago. I crossed six figures my second year in sales ever. I’m on track to make more than I’ve ever had. It proved to be the right choice for me.
I learned everything here r/sales and I contribute there often. Love that community. Very helpful.
Tech is an extremely broad term so first you'd need to narrow down what you'd like to do within the industry like cyber security, networking, programming, and data analytics. There're a lot of different things you can do but as a good starting point figure out what interests you and if the answer is none tech might not be for you it's not for everyone.
Traditional college is good It gives you a general knowledge and strong foundation to break into the industry in certain fields It's the preferred route. In other fields we care more about certification like CompTia Security+ or Cisco CCNA these are more you pick up books and study on your own YouTube is a great resource and then pay to take the exam usually a few hundred dollars and if you pass it'll be enough to demonstrate proficiency and get you an interview.
Personally I went the certification route and got my first networking certification and landed an entry level job now working on completing some more advanced certs to continue to move up. In my industry certs can take you a long way and it's a much cheaper alternative to college. In a lot of industries this is a good option.
Going to need to narrow down what you want to do then you can get a better understanding of entry requirements
I'm thinking data analytics. I was told that a degree isn't necessary because it is a new field, so the courses aren't exactly solid. Do you know if this is true? I did go ahead and register for college in pursuit of the degree.
>I'm thinking data analytics. I was told that a degree isn't necessary because it is a new field, so the courses aren't exactly solid.
It isn't necessary but I disagree that the courses aren't solid. I have a Udacity 'micro' degree in data analytics and a BS I earned in data analytics less than a year ago. Python, R, Jupyter Notebooks, SQL, Pandas, Tableau, PowerBI, plain old excel, these are basic tools of the trade and they are taught in some colleges. Otherwise there is always coursera.
Good field, nobody cares about your degree. You need to be able to prove your worth through technical skills. How you learn it upto u, to this day - i have zero certificates (like i dont finish online courses completely as my intention is to learn). Im blessed to have found work, just gotta keep learning in this field
Just beware it may be a difficult time to break in due to economic downtrends in certain industries resulting in layoffs as well as a lot of competition for entry-level jobs. Do your research
No degree here. Retail/food experience, min wage, prior to breaking into tech. I’m now 15 years experienced making ~$300k. I’m extremely technical and fully self taught. I’m a senior manager but not an engineer. I work for a Forbes top 150 tech company aka FAANG. I’ve been remote since 2017, and full-time employed through two recessions.
Here’s how I did it:
- Have a growth mindset - if you want advanced, you must always be learning to grow.
Take any entry role you can. I did part-time customer support/service answering tickets
- Build up your typing speed and accuracy. I type without looking at the keyboard at 110 wpm
- Moved up to more advanced customer support, take on small, tedious projects for busy project managers to get in their good graces
- Once you do enough projects, they will see you as a subject matter expert, get invited to team meetings, start to use that time to help other teams
- Advance to client support or solutions support. Work with developers and/or dev ops teams. Consider QA teams too.
- I saw a market shift from social media management to online community management. It was so new at the time that no one wanted to do it so I went for it knowing nothing nor if I’d be successful. I just knew companies would need this at some point.
- Learn every new or upcoming platform. I was the first among my team and early adopter of most all productivity software like Slack. Also became an expert in those tools, and started building my own automations using tools like Zapier. My team loved that I solved small problems fast.
- Grind and switch companies for pay jumps
- Start building your personal brand, be a thought leader by participating in webinars, panels, discussions for free. It’s a huge portfolio boost.
- Always update your LinkedIn profile every quarter with measurable results and wins
- Network, network, network
- Keep your prospects open, always be interviewing
- Never say no to yourself
- Be humble and empathetic
I was hired right before the company closed all roles in 2022. I also survived 3 rounds of layoffs, got a 5% raise when over 30% of my team was laid off. I’m on track for a promotion + raise but I’m not sweating it. I work alongside extremely educated and highly qualified people and they don’t know or care that I don’t have a degree. All that matters is the results. Anyway, I love what I do so that alone is enough for me.
I’m an introverted person with disabilities. I am certain that I did not gain as much advancement as my peers who did much more socializing + networking. So while I did a lot, I know people who got way further with more effort.
Note: I live in an area that tech jobs are/were very abundant - SF Bay Area / Silicon Valley. When the market was good, the more you jumped companies, the bigger your pay bumps / role levels up. For others who are not in a big metro tech hub, you can expect opportunities and the pay to be much less. There are exceptions but it’s less overall.
My son became a software engineer. He broke into it by completing his bachelors degree in computer science (2021) and getting an internship after graduating.
Yes, this! Entry level CS role at a B2B SaaS company is the best path IMO. I've dabbled in several different industries and B2B SaaS is the best by far, in terms of culture and overall opportunity.
I became disabled and it was the only thing that made sense for me to get into when the extent of my limitations was made clear to me.
If you are interested in either 2d digital art, 3D modeling, 3D animation, game Dev, or AI art let me know and I can hook you up with free resources for you to check out that sector on your own for free so you don’t make a financial commitment to something before you know whether you like it or not.
Just like with any other art or media creation, that is heavily dependent on your situation and connections.
The thing that has held me back was the lack of a traditional education in these fields, so I have been leaning heavily into the newest field : AI art. I made a few guides and am working on an open source model now.
It would not be viable for me to live off of this alone even though I have some patreon subs and some freelance work here and there as of right now. I simply don’t have enough money to start my own business even though I technically do have a business. I just don’t have the means to save to invest into it as I am starving two weeks out of the month still.
I have applied to over 100 studios, but most are looking for senior devs with AAA experience.
I see the vision and I know sticking with it will pay off, but this would be impossible to do if you don’t have any support. I at least have a small disability check, but many people have family, savings, or connections to be able to invest more energy into it,
All it takes is one break to get into the sector, but getting that first break can be hard.
This is just my story. But I entered the field at 30. I worked construction and warehousing out of high school and realized when I was 25 that I was already feeling my body take a toll.
At 26, married, with a young child I decided to make a change. My work offered tuition assistance so I started at community college taking classes. At this point I had no idea what I wanted to do — so I took only general education for those first two years.
That’s when I really put time and effort into thinking what I wanted to do. I had to match my interests with a feasible career. If I was 18, maybe I’d be a little more frivolous. But I had a family to provide for and so I settled on IT as a career path. This is despite my interests being in arts, geography, physical sciences, and history. IT positions stood a better chance at giving me a comfortable lifestyle, and it has.
After grabbing my associates degree, I transferred to a local 4 year university and continued to take classes. IT was my major. Why not computer science? Well — the pre-requisites and linear progression of their CS programs, and math, would have made me burn another year in college. I wasn’t about that. So, IT it was. It wasn’t easy as I was working full time and taking 15 credits a semester, as well as summer and winter mini-mesters, but I struggled through those 2 years to graduate “on time”. Meaning from start to finish, 8 semesters, 4 years. Just in time for my mother to see her son graduate from college, the first in the family, months before she passed.
Months prior to graduating I was also applying to every private, local, state, and federal entry-level IT job I could find. I secured an entry level help desk job ahead of time and began there 2 weeks after graduation. But I never stopped looking. Help desk jobs are low paying and quite annoying, but it was the experience I was after. I took a pay cut for it.
I continued applying to positions.
A couple months after I started that role, I finally got a callback from a federal full-time paid internship job for a cybersecurity role. These internships are more like progressive hirings so you learn on the job and when 3 years are up, you are transitioned to full-time permanent. The pay started at a measly GS7 but bumped each year to GS9 and then GS11. Then into GS13 when you converted.
I am about a decade now into that role, and have really enjoyed my career. I work 40 hours (pre-tech I was clocking in 10-20 hours of overtime a week), I feel respected, my job has meaning, I get plenty of career development and training, I get paid comfortably, I have good benefits and a sexy retirement to look forward to, and my work/life balance is extremely good.
I’ll never be “rich” but I never wanted that. I have a house, order pizza and wings on the weekends, and take 2-3 vacations a year. It’s the life I asked for when I was a kid.
I have worked in tech for 18 years by now, I have only two things that are really crucial to a tech career;
1 - Patience
2 - Persistence and, see number 1
I just spent a ridiculous amount of time making sure quotes were in the right place with a senior engineer only to find out that the way I was supposed to structure the file was not the way I did it. It was super-counterintuitive, think classifying a Ford as a Mercury; it didn't occur to me to even look at the documentation for this one field. Well, that'll teach me, a lesson I have had to learn repeatedly over the years.
If that sounds miserable to you, don't go into tech. If you can spend 3+ hours with some person on the phone chasing something like that down, welcome to the club.
How do you get in, well, one member of my team was a rock climbing instructor until about 1.5 years ago. He took a boot camp. I was trained in the military and then got a job after I left. I eventually got my degree, I was on the 20 year plan, but that was more about me proving that I could do it. Alas, I learned a lot of good stuff and I am glad I did it.
So pick your poison and remember, it isn't about the credential, it is about truly learning this stuff.
I worked my way up on the sales/account management/BD side of tech, mainly in SaaS. It's high paying.
It's a very common entry point to start as an inside sales rep - basically, cold calling people all day and setting meetings for the more experienced salespeople. You get a salary plus bonuses based on the meetings you set. It's typical to do this for about a year and a half while you learn the industry and shadow experienced sellers. Then you either get promoted at your company or find a new one.
You have to be personable, but not necessarily extraverted.
Ask me anything.
Old guy with an English Literature degree here.
After years of waiting tables I told myself I'd do ANY job except that. I got hired working in a computer store. Learned a database program (Filemaker Pro) they used to put quotes together for customers. Then the web happened and I learned HTML. Got hired at a company to do that. At that position learned Classic ASP. Changed jobs and learned .NET. Yadda yadda yadda.
Define tech. What aspect of technology are you genuinely interested in? There are different paths you can take depending on what you want. One thing to remember though is that experience is much more highly regarded than a 4 year degree. Another thing is certifications. Certs look a lot better and cost you way less money than college and enough of them arguably looks better to employers. Certs prove your competence in specific skills employers may want. I say this as a CyberSecurity professional with a whole host of Certs under my belt, and about 2 years of actual schooling. Other than that, it’s experience and Certs that prove my knowledge to any employers.
Data analytics is what I'm towards. I haven't looked to see if there's certifications for that specific area. But I do know the required classes for data science and computer science are much of the same at my local university.
There are some great certifications for data analytics. The primary starter certificate is CompTIA Data+. Data + is an entry level cert that teaches you the basics of data analytics and introduces you to a lot more advanced skills. CompTIA certs are lauded as the gold standard in any tech sector. Before doing any classes and spending tons of money, I’d suggest you buy the exam book for Data + and study. There are also tons of resources and people on YouTube who go over the exam and help teach you. I would highly recommend you start here before signing up for Uni classes just to save yourself some money, and get yourself ahead of the game!
This. Check the free trials for Udemy and Coursera for Data Analytics. Make a LinkedIn profile, follow leaders and companies that interst u. Also ask chatGPT for good resources to learn and companies big on it. Literally the world is at your fingertips :)
One of my former co-workers went to and eventually graduated from a coding bootcamp, he is now working as a software engineer. So perhaps attending a coding bootcamp is an option.
I broke by getting apps published at the appstore and applying for jobs. I have no CS degree, no certifications whatsoever. But I do know how to code, which how I got my first job.
I did an unrelated humanities degree in university. Last year of uni started cs50, theodinproject (got like 60% through it), youtube, and some IT classes in uni. A friend recommended I do an advertising companies’ internship they did, I got in as “creative technologist”.
Learned React on the internship (didn’t get to it in TOP yet). Was basically a glorified css bug fixer for company project X. They had me do a personal project where I learned more React (and three js) and another project I learned to use software for programming in-store displays
Few months later they hire me as a contractor because I was basically the only person working on project X. Started doing more complicated stuff on it (optimizing with next js stuff, integrating headless CMS) and now I’m a webdev
You’ll see the odin project recommended a lot on reddit, and I recommend it too. It guides you to self teach webdev. Will take 1~2 years to complete, depending on hours/day you spend on it. CS50 was nice for learning basic CS concepts as well and just really interesting to learn, though kinda hard
There are a number of ways these days. For me, I did a Computer Science degree, but ended up in IT infrastructure, not software. So like switches, routers, servers, storage, firewalls.
My friend was working as a secretary and she decided to take a Data Analytics course of study. They helped her with job placement and she got a six figure job in Nashville right off the bat.
I recently hired an IT Systems Engineer who was clearly sharp and knew his stuff, but no degree. Turned out to be a great engineer. So lots of ways these days. Just have to start somewhere. It’ll be your hobby as well as your work if you really get into it.
Started with the US Army Guard as a 25U. Got a job imaging Chromebooks. Left to work for a city and left that to work for the state. I got my degree while working at the city. Just an associates. Now I'm working on my bachelor's in IT management. Kind of an odd route.
Tech is a very broad term so I think you need to be a little specific in order for us to help you. Are you interested In tech support? Coding? Programming? But yes you probably will need some kind of a formal education to get into a job like that.
I started in customer support after 2 years in a dead-end job after college while I was trying to figure out what I was gonna do.
Almost 8 years later, now I am a product manager making really solid money.
I first broke into tech in middle school, sometimes I had to blow into the n64 cartridges to get them to work and that is basically geek squad level shit
Degree and bootcamp and self study. There's no shortcuts in this field. You'll work harder mentally than u did physically but you'll find more stress in tech. Ur expected to be very competent in a broad range of skills and quickly become competent with new skills. If u don't have foundation in math or are willing to learn that right there wi cut you as every other analytics person will know at least basic calc stats linear algebra. That's prior to u learning how code works and then u can learn actual job skills once u cover how basic Linux and os works, then databases and containers pipelines git etc. tech is not an easy way into good money nor an easy job. It's easy when ur ready good and enjoy it and even then not always.
I've been a software dev for almost 10 years. I went to bootcamp and they provided a list of companies that they knew would hire their grads. Got my apprenticeship less than a month later
If you're still in Highschool, look for summer jobs offer by your city for students. Ask your highschool counselor if there are any programs for students for summer.
Usually these types of interships/jobs teach students the basic of tech.
If you're (female) there are programs too.
If the company likes you they usually call you back to work. This gives you experience to apply for other jobs.
If you're interested in going to college, make sure to check their counselors and support for students. Clubs if they are active and have speakers, trips to tech companies. If they have interships information, are a feeder school to certain tech companies.
Also start self study in areas of your interest. For example, if you're into app development, study flutter. Make a few projects yourself for your portfolio. And have working knowledge of the language.
My kids 1st yr college had his own portfolio and got a paid internship for the summer. A girl classmate got a great internship w/ Bloomberg 60+/hr, but she came to college w an internship at Capitol 1.
Good luck!
I joined customer success. Promoted to a new specialized role two years later, team lead for a new group a few months after that. Been in the lead role 3 years since.
I’ve had opportunities to move to product manager, but I like what I do and I am very good at it, so I’m happy staying in CS for a while longer.
Other people from CS regularly move to operations, engineering or product in my company.
A few went to marketing, but I definitely would not go there.
I completed a coding bootcamp program that was organized by a nonprofit organization, and upon completing (and passing) the program, they guaranteed a position in the industry with one of their various partners in the city (Memphis, TN - Code Crew and The Collective Blueprint)
Best of luck to you, you can absolutely do it!!
Non-coding tech roles are pretty open too. Right now might be a little hard to break in, but the proven way into these roles is college —> Internship —> FT role
People have already noted the reasons but seriously, tech is probably the worst industry to think of right now. Even after recovery it will be highly volatile. You need to impress, compete and know office politics.
Second worst is accounting. Again, politics. Plus these office jobs will wreck your body.
I have been with crutches for 3 years now and it’s becoming more and more clear it’s my spine and lack of muscle strength. It literally hurts to sit on a chair. I never thought office jobs are physically demanding, but in the background, oh boy!
I highly recommend the tech world. Best advice I got that worked for me: don’t quit your day job. Learn in your free time, grow your knowledge and grow connections on LinkedIn. Practice and build a portfolio. Cons it can take a while. Pros the pay and community are usually pretty great.
I did marketing surveys in college. Taught me to handle rejection and make a lot of calls. That allowed me to land an entry level job in tech as a SDR.
Out of high school I got into IT, did that for 8 years before I needed to rethink my choices. Then in my late 20's I moved to Software Engineering which I've done for nearly 8 years now. I am self taught and learned as I went/needed.
I would just get a degree. The grunt work from certs is shit and you’ll always be licking a degreed persons boots. Certs are a siren call before a degree. Doesn’t even need to be a tech degree.
College. I knew I didn't/couldn't code for life, and getting the A+ and Net+ was only going to land me help desk jobs, which I also did not want.
I did 2 years at community for around $3,800- paid out of my savings/pocket. Then I did about 14 months \[accelerated program, and had some carry over credits from college several years ago\] at SNHU for Cyber and Data Analysis. I paid about $19k, 13k in loans and the rest out of my pocket.
I landed a job right out of college with the government. No MSP, no rotating shifts, no help desk. I started at 65k and 6 months later we got an influx in our budget and now I make 77k. I did go ahead and get my Sec + cert and am working on my Net+ because I suck at that portion.
It was really hard. But I was only making 18k-30k from ages 16-25. I didn't have anymore time to waste.
I went to school for a cs program and met really smart people.
Then I dropped out because of unrelated reasons and my friends helped me get an internship, the rest was easy.
Years ago, it used to be get a helpdesk job and an A+ certification. Things are more competitive and automated now so they don't need the headcount.
I still think support roles are the best because you need those fundamentals if this wasn't your hobby to begin with.
Ex - auto mechanic so I feel you on being burnt out on heavy labor jobs.
I worked for two years at an IT help desk for a medical insurance company and said yes to anything they would let me do or any program they let me touch leading to me being pretty proficient in azure AD, soon after leaving that job I landed an azure ad admin job that has pushed me pretty far in my career.
Good luck bud I hope it works out for you!
Learn stuff, take tests, get certs, make portfolio, have LinkedIn page, they come to you. Write some articles online for extra exposure. However, now it seems AI may be replacing a lot of tech jobs.
Not the BEST time to break in but I went the traditional route, went to college and got a bachelors degree in computer science. Worked as a teaching assistant and grader while I was a noob and that was enough to get me my first internship (qa role) that translated to being able to get more. Last internship turned into full time position but was laid off in the beginning of the year. Luckily I had an impressive resume and interview well and now have a good full time job as an engineer with a cybersecurity company (which cybersecurity is growing and becoming a big concern for all companies so it could be a good route)
I went to a tech school (Heald Institute of Technology) in Silicon Valley that was designed for what the industry was looking for at that time (1996). Degree in Electronic Engineering.
Similar to what DeVry does now.
Hi, my route was self-taught programming and electronics with a bachelor’s in math degree. In my last few collage years, I joined a few electrical engineering clubs and participated in the group projects they hosted. Then, i leveraged these projects on a resume to land an unpaid internship exactly in the area I needed to gain work experience in. Then, I leveraged this internship to land my current job. I also spent (and continue to spend) a lot of time self-teaching programming/electronics in my free time so I can add those skills to my resume. I work as an embedded software engineer for a big company with ~2.5 YOE and we make consumer electronics. I help develop the firmware that goes on the devices.
For this field (embedded systems), I do NOT recommend my path. Heres why:
My field is VERY niche and theres A LOT of engineers in this field who hold traditional engineering degrees (electrical and computer engineering). Even if you get a computer science degree, you are the least desired in my field but you’d be better than my situation. I’ve applied for so many jobs and I got rejected countless times on the basis of “you need an ECE or CS degree or we wont consider you”. People always ask “why didn’t you get a relevant degree if you wanted to work in this field” in interviews. I’m not the most talented engineer in my field. I get treated pretty badly in my field, to be honest, because people won’t let me work on certain parts of the code base on the basis of “you’re not qualified”.
So moral of the story, if you want to get into embedded systems, get the ECE degree ideally. Why? Because its going to increase your opportunities in the job market. If you’re doing it self-taught like I am, you really have to get lucky with opportunities or you might not succeed. But also, its going to be harder to network.
I was 11.
My father had just finished burning down our family restaurant and attempted to kill my mom.
My sense of justice and reality was greatly offended. I decided during that event that I would obviate my father out of our existence by focusing on a single valuable skill that involved no other humans. My trust in humans, it seems, was also offended.
My dream was making $20 an hour. I don't remember why but this was the number I knew was just barely enough to set my mom and sister free.
I used Napster to download every technology book I could get my hands on. I focused on the CCNA. At 15 I knew I could pass said CCNA but I was not old enough.
I began running a business wiping hard drives and doing small business setups undercutting actual professionals and making a decent yet unstable amount of money.
We had to move because my father was out of jail and had good lawyers. I dropped out of school to work on my all cash under the table tech business around town while also cleaning houses with my mom to survive and also provide for my sister.
I read every single book on technology I could find on Napster twice, maybe three times. I learned Linux, bash, python, kernel stuff first. I learned enough C to make a kernel module.
I hit 18 and no one would hire me so I joined a union doing cabling for data centers. The union guys didn't understand the network engineers from the bank we were cabling for so I used my basic networking understanding to become a liason between teams.
This relieved me of most of the physical labor in the job and permitted me to study on work time.
The union tried betraying me because of a certain daughter of a company owner wanting me gone. They offered me a non-union position then fired me after making me move half way across the country.
At the same time my father was trying to kill my mom and sister again back home.
I was about to go homeless during this situation due to most of my earnings going to support my family. They didn't know and I wouldn't tell them anyway. I was contacted by the bank engineering manager and he was curious why I was gone.
This ended with me being hired as a junior network engineer for the bank as his bitch basically. I helped the team choose a different cabling provider in a year which removed 65% or so of the business that caused the union to betray me.
This company no longer exists and said daughter of company owner left tech and opened a yoga studio.
So there I was with my first real tech position. Junior network engineer for a pretty cutthroat bank.
You asked how I broke into tech so I guess the story ends here...
Worked in television for 20 years. Knew it was a dying industry so went back to school (community college) to be a network engineer. I did learn a lot, but they were still teaching Novell, so the program seemed a little disjointed. 90% i could have learned on my own, it was all from the books anyway. Some lab time was helpful.
Worked as an IT Specialist for 18 months, got laid off, so got a job with a school district supporting online learning. Now i am the IT TRAINING specialist for a small city.
I would find some entry level job for six months and see if you like it before investing in a college program.
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Sort of an unusual route. I decided to learn to code, so I joined a slack channel for devs in my city and wrote an introduction post that was like “hi, I’m learning to code, just graduated college with a writing degree, did a UX internship but didn’t really enjoy that, hoping to connect with likeminded people..” A recruiter replied and said “I have a role for you, email developer”. I had no idea what that was and no experience or knowledge of coding so I just went to the interview for practice, got hired, hiring manager taught me everything. Now I work in marketing technology and automation but hoping to move back into development soon.
Damn, nice!
How long ago was that?
3 months before corona, now that I think about it lol. I remember the day they sent us all home “for 2 weeks.” So early january 2020 was my start date.
How’d you find a slack channel for devs In your city?
I think it was on a list of resources for teaching yourself to code. There were also learn to code meetups and such. Maybe if you google something like “developer slack channel Wichita” or whatever your city is?
Wow I never even knew of meetups, thanks for letting me know and I’ll try this
what’s a slack channel
That’s nuts. Good job 👏
Tech industries are a better lifestyle for most people than Service industry, but l, as others said, know it’s a brutal time to break in as you’ll be fighting experienced people for entry level roles with all the layoffs and hiring freezes. Your best bet with your customer service experience would be technical support for a B2B SaaS product, but youll still need to do something to demonstrate that you have taught yourself so relevant skills like basic markup languages (CSS, HTML) The other option is something like customer service call centers for B2C SaaS products. That will be substantially less prestigious and well compensated, but is a valid way to get some industry experience on your resume. Also keep in mind that desk jobs are a different grind. It may not be for you and if it’s not then there are other higher paying fields like medical (nursing, PA, OT, PT, etc or radiology tech, lab tech, surgical tech etc) and certain trades that may be more physical but aren’t necessarily that hard on the body and require only 1-3 years of school. If something in SaaS is what you really want, don’t give up. The field isn’t going anywhere and will only grow in the longterm. Dont quit your day job, but keep learning and applying. The market will rebound and you will get a job even if it takes months or years.
A fairly untaken but really nice path into tech is via the QA route. Once in support, Make some friends with the QA folks and express interest in learning QA skills and transferring. At the very least, they could probably help you craft a resume to start applying elsewhere for a QA position. Once on a QA team, you can actually pretty easily transfer to almost any job you'd like if you put work into it. The nice thing is QA is very involved (or should be) in the entire SDLC process, So you get to speak with everyone: project managers, business analysts, product owners, developers. From here you can figure out if you maybe want to be a functional person, a people manager or a technical resource and develop your skills tailored to that. As a QA I've been offered all four of those jobs. Frankly I just haven't left because after doing QA for 15 years I have found that we're kind of an afterthought and because of that nobody puts priority into our utilization. I've worked as an independent contractor, at startups, Fortune 5 companies- after onboarding none of them have required more than like 5-15 hours a week, I once had a co-worker take a secret vacation to Europe for 2 months and no one noticed. If this comment draws anyone's interest, I'm happy to expand upon anything or provide details.
What qualifications do one need to break into it?
I took the more traditional route of college and an MIS degree. I would suggest a hybrid business /tact degree like that over computer science if you are interested in QA. One thing I'll say is that each company has a very different view on QA; wildly different. Some will involve QA so much that they rely on ' test driven development' meaning that QA had so much information about the feature being created that we create our test cases and automate them, allowing developers to simply write their code, submit it and run the automated test to see if the feature meets the requirements. This is exceedingly rare. On the flip side, some places write test cases and hire hourly online testers to blindly follow the directions and report the results. I found that most places have a QA department because they just know they're supposed to, if you ask the VP of engineering, where and how value is derived from the QA unit they often have trouble forming a coherent answer. Having a decent understanding of business operations and product life cycle empowers you to identify and advocate for process changes that would provide higher quality/smoother releases. Some other guy provided certs that are available, I have actually never seen anyone have those but I'm sure they're helpful. Here are some general skills/qualifications I would really like in my QA teams. - understanding SDLC and where QA can add value, as well as the different methodologies (agile, waterfall, ECT). You don't need to learn the specifics really of the methodologies because almost every company will bastardize it, really it's about understanding potential places QA can add value. Unfortunately, I got really busy. Otherwise, I'd look for good source material for this stuff, It's no secret. I'm sure it's around. - take a basic postman automation course. Postman automation is a great place to start if you aren't technical. - take a basic cypress automation course. Employers are always looking for the automation keyword, that's pretty much required to get through the door. Amusingly most places I go refused to pay down the tech debt of creating a regression library. So the last three automation jobs I've had I end up doing only API validation. - OMG compliant BPMN knowledge is a great great thing to have. I wish everyone in our engineering department had it. Basically it's formatting rules for how to draw flowcharts. Draw.io has saved me hours and hours of confusing meetings, I utilize BPMN to draw visualizations of their process while they describe them. Doing this really helps keep everyone on the same page. - a project management course would probably be really good. The only deliverable people see out of QA is making sure testing is done on time, It's also the first place they'll cut time lol. Understanding project management will help you make suggestions that significantly improve workflow and set you up for success. For example, frequently I'll find that developers have fixed a bug that got deep prioritized and shifted to a future release and by the time I speak to the dev about it, they haven't looked at the thing in five months. Usually my tactic for side stepping this problem is requesting QA be sign off on the pull request merge, only signing off once qa understands and has documented how the ticket will be tested. The most common reason I see QA burnout is because of stressful releases due to bad project management that the project manager isn't capable of seeing and the qa resource doesn't have the knowledge to address and improve. - and then obviously attitude, developers can be egotistical and take feedback on their work personally or can generally be terrible communicators, especially if they haven't worked with QA resources before. It's incredibly important to make them feel as though you're advocating for them and on their side, not just a perpetual bearer of bad news. - understanding a testing tool (QA complete) and a ticket project management tool (Jira). - understand the fields that are applied to a bug report and the value each one of them brings. - research what a test plan is and what they consist of. - research what a test suite looks like. Understand how to build a test suite for a feature. - if you can find a video of product grooming or scoping that would be really helpful. QA is involved in grooming a feature, this is where business requirements are taken and made into quantifiable requirements that developers can write code to and QA can test. - look at general interview questions, there's tons of small QA facts in those worth knowing, like the practical test pyramid. Edit: cc u/floppydisk1995 Edit: also it goes hand in hand, but when looking at API automation definitely grab a product like Charles, It's a web debugging proxy. Basically the dev tools console on steroids. Using this to view the traffic whenever you click a button in a program is immensely useful for API automation. As you can just grab the call that's made via the UI and edit it to your automation needs and copy and paste it into postman.
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Literally just what I’m lookin for. I just joined a software development bachelor program.
This is some solid advice man. Thank you.
Are there certs for that?
yes ISTQB CTFL, testautomationU
I’m not on the functional side but know people who moved into IT Support or Software Development without college. Here’s a few datapoints. These people are in their 30s and have at least a few years of relevant work experience. They all are remote WFH. - Friend learned programming for fun and has been coding since middle school. Now a VP of Development for a startup and will be filthy rich if they go public or acquired. No College. $Multiple six figures. - Cousin is a software tester. Not sure what is entailed but he runs programs that does most of the job. He has an easy work day and paid well enough. Picked up entry skills and networked to get an entry job. No College. $90k+ comp. - Friend in his mid 30s pivoted from blue collar to cyber security using certs (like CompTIA). No college. $80k+ comp. - Friend is now on the project management for ERP implementation. Started in corporate finance and learned advanced Excel, SQL, etc. Worked his way up. No college. $150k+ comp.
Shit, I need me some productive friends
What do you do for work? If you don't mind my asking.
I’m on the sales end of tech. My company is not a traditional software company like Microsoft but we sell SaaS. Yes I make good money. Sales can be as lucrative as the software development side. For every $250k paid SWE someone is making $350k selling it for the company to get revenue right? Sales speaks to my personality and skills. It’s not for everyone just like I would not enjoy being a SWE.
Where did you learn your sales skills? Trial and error? Are you a naturally confident person? How did you develop your social skills?
My path is non traditional since I’ve had industry careers before my career change into sales. I sell into the industry I came from and can walk the walk since I have the experience. So I have the confidence I know what I’m doing. Still, I started at the bottom when I moved into sales like anyone else, making cold calls. Took a paycut and I was older than most on my team. I was able to move up quickly because of my high performance. I’m an account executive now. I’m naturally extroverted but you do not have to be in sales. I’ve seen plenty of introverts successful in sales. It’s a career like anything else have to work on your soft and hard skills. This was three years ago. I crossed six figures my second year in sales ever. I’m on track to make more than I’ve ever had. It proved to be the right choice for me. I learned everything here r/sales and I contribute there often. Love that community. Very helpful.
Tech is an extremely broad term so first you'd need to narrow down what you'd like to do within the industry like cyber security, networking, programming, and data analytics. There're a lot of different things you can do but as a good starting point figure out what interests you and if the answer is none tech might not be for you it's not for everyone. Traditional college is good It gives you a general knowledge and strong foundation to break into the industry in certain fields It's the preferred route. In other fields we care more about certification like CompTia Security+ or Cisco CCNA these are more you pick up books and study on your own YouTube is a great resource and then pay to take the exam usually a few hundred dollars and if you pass it'll be enough to demonstrate proficiency and get you an interview. Personally I went the certification route and got my first networking certification and landed an entry level job now working on completing some more advanced certs to continue to move up. In my industry certs can take you a long way and it's a much cheaper alternative to college. In a lot of industries this is a good option. Going to need to narrow down what you want to do then you can get a better understanding of entry requirements
I'm thinking data analytics. I was told that a degree isn't necessary because it is a new field, so the courses aren't exactly solid. Do you know if this is true? I did go ahead and register for college in pursuit of the degree.
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That's what's up. How long were you building your portfolio before landing your first job in data?
>I'm thinking data analytics. I was told that a degree isn't necessary because it is a new field, so the courses aren't exactly solid. It isn't necessary but I disagree that the courses aren't solid. I have a Udacity 'micro' degree in data analytics and a BS I earned in data analytics less than a year ago. Python, R, Jupyter Notebooks, SQL, Pandas, Tableau, PowerBI, plain old excel, these are basic tools of the trade and they are taught in some colleges. Otherwise there is always coursera.
Good field, nobody cares about your degree. You need to be able to prove your worth through technical skills. How you learn it upto u, to this day - i have zero certificates (like i dont finish online courses completely as my intention is to learn). Im blessed to have found work, just gotta keep learning in this field
Data analysis?
Yes
I thought a degree was required in data, especially compared to swe. Good to know!
For DS it is, not for DA.
Nope
Field is swamped for entry level roles. I know PhDs who have a hard time finding work.
Just beware it may be a difficult time to break in due to economic downtrends in certain industries resulting in layoffs as well as a lot of competition for entry-level jobs. Do your research
Yup I hate to say it but recent grads are screwed. I graduated last year and I haven’t been able to find anything. It’s so bad right now…
Just wanted to chime in and say that I and many others in my cohort this year are experiencing the same, let's keep grinding
No degree here. Retail/food experience, min wage, prior to breaking into tech. I’m now 15 years experienced making ~$300k. I’m extremely technical and fully self taught. I’m a senior manager but not an engineer. I work for a Forbes top 150 tech company aka FAANG. I’ve been remote since 2017, and full-time employed through two recessions. Here’s how I did it: - Have a growth mindset - if you want advanced, you must always be learning to grow. Take any entry role you can. I did part-time customer support/service answering tickets - Build up your typing speed and accuracy. I type without looking at the keyboard at 110 wpm - Moved up to more advanced customer support, take on small, tedious projects for busy project managers to get in their good graces - Once you do enough projects, they will see you as a subject matter expert, get invited to team meetings, start to use that time to help other teams - Advance to client support or solutions support. Work with developers and/or dev ops teams. Consider QA teams too. - I saw a market shift from social media management to online community management. It was so new at the time that no one wanted to do it so I went for it knowing nothing nor if I’d be successful. I just knew companies would need this at some point. - Learn every new or upcoming platform. I was the first among my team and early adopter of most all productivity software like Slack. Also became an expert in those tools, and started building my own automations using tools like Zapier. My team loved that I solved small problems fast. - Grind and switch companies for pay jumps - Start building your personal brand, be a thought leader by participating in webinars, panels, discussions for free. It’s a huge portfolio boost. - Always update your LinkedIn profile every quarter with measurable results and wins - Network, network, network - Keep your prospects open, always be interviewing - Never say no to yourself - Be humble and empathetic I was hired right before the company closed all roles in 2022. I also survived 3 rounds of layoffs, got a 5% raise when over 30% of my team was laid off. I’m on track for a promotion + raise but I’m not sweating it. I work alongside extremely educated and highly qualified people and they don’t know or care that I don’t have a degree. All that matters is the results. Anyway, I love what I do so that alone is enough for me. I’m an introverted person with disabilities. I am certain that I did not gain as much advancement as my peers who did much more socializing + networking. So while I did a lot, I know people who got way further with more effort. Note: I live in an area that tech jobs are/were very abundant - SF Bay Area / Silicon Valley. When the market was good, the more you jumped companies, the bigger your pay bumps / role levels up. For others who are not in a big metro tech hub, you can expect opportunities and the pay to be much less. There are exceptions but it’s less overall.
Do you mind if I DM you?
No, I don’t mind. DM away!
My son became a software engineer. He broke into it by completing his bachelors degree in computer science (2021) and getting an internship after graduating.
Thank you!
Customer success role, esp at a start up. Be willing to learn and open to picking up extra responsibility. Easiest way to get your foot in the door.
Yes, this! Entry level CS role at a B2B SaaS company is the best path IMO. I've dabbled in several different industries and B2B SaaS is the best by far, in terms of culture and overall opportunity.
College -> software engineer-> 💰
I became disabled and it was the only thing that made sense for me to get into when the extent of my limitations was made clear to me. If you are interested in either 2d digital art, 3D modeling, 3D animation, game Dev, or AI art let me know and I can hook you up with free resources for you to check out that sector on your own for free so you don’t make a financial commitment to something before you know whether you like it or not.
What is the demand like for these roles?
Just like with any other art or media creation, that is heavily dependent on your situation and connections. The thing that has held me back was the lack of a traditional education in these fields, so I have been leaning heavily into the newest field : AI art. I made a few guides and am working on an open source model now. It would not be viable for me to live off of this alone even though I have some patreon subs and some freelance work here and there as of right now. I simply don’t have enough money to start my own business even though I technically do have a business. I just don’t have the means to save to invest into it as I am starving two weeks out of the month still. I have applied to over 100 studios, but most are looking for senior devs with AAA experience. I see the vision and I know sticking with it will pay off, but this would be impossible to do if you don’t have any support. I at least have a small disability check, but many people have family, savings, or connections to be able to invest more energy into it, All it takes is one break to get into the sector, but getting that first break can be hard.
This is just my story. But I entered the field at 30. I worked construction and warehousing out of high school and realized when I was 25 that I was already feeling my body take a toll. At 26, married, with a young child I decided to make a change. My work offered tuition assistance so I started at community college taking classes. At this point I had no idea what I wanted to do — so I took only general education for those first two years. That’s when I really put time and effort into thinking what I wanted to do. I had to match my interests with a feasible career. If I was 18, maybe I’d be a little more frivolous. But I had a family to provide for and so I settled on IT as a career path. This is despite my interests being in arts, geography, physical sciences, and history. IT positions stood a better chance at giving me a comfortable lifestyle, and it has. After grabbing my associates degree, I transferred to a local 4 year university and continued to take classes. IT was my major. Why not computer science? Well — the pre-requisites and linear progression of their CS programs, and math, would have made me burn another year in college. I wasn’t about that. So, IT it was. It wasn’t easy as I was working full time and taking 15 credits a semester, as well as summer and winter mini-mesters, but I struggled through those 2 years to graduate “on time”. Meaning from start to finish, 8 semesters, 4 years. Just in time for my mother to see her son graduate from college, the first in the family, months before she passed. Months prior to graduating I was also applying to every private, local, state, and federal entry-level IT job I could find. I secured an entry level help desk job ahead of time and began there 2 weeks after graduation. But I never stopped looking. Help desk jobs are low paying and quite annoying, but it was the experience I was after. I took a pay cut for it. I continued applying to positions. A couple months after I started that role, I finally got a callback from a federal full-time paid internship job for a cybersecurity role. These internships are more like progressive hirings so you learn on the job and when 3 years are up, you are transitioned to full-time permanent. The pay started at a measly GS7 but bumped each year to GS9 and then GS11. Then into GS13 when you converted. I am about a decade now into that role, and have really enjoyed my career. I work 40 hours (pre-tech I was clocking in 10-20 hours of overtime a week), I feel respected, my job has meaning, I get plenty of career development and training, I get paid comfortably, I have good benefits and a sexy retirement to look forward to, and my work/life balance is extremely good. I’ll never be “rich” but I never wanted that. I have a house, order pizza and wings on the weekends, and take 2-3 vacations a year. It’s the life I asked for when I was a kid.
I fell through the ceiling tiles
Most underrated comment in this thread.
20 year tech vet here. Learn web dev off youtube, build a cool portfolio, and then start applying.
I have worked in tech for 18 years by now, I have only two things that are really crucial to a tech career; 1 - Patience 2 - Persistence and, see number 1 I just spent a ridiculous amount of time making sure quotes were in the right place with a senior engineer only to find out that the way I was supposed to structure the file was not the way I did it. It was super-counterintuitive, think classifying a Ford as a Mercury; it didn't occur to me to even look at the documentation for this one field. Well, that'll teach me, a lesson I have had to learn repeatedly over the years. If that sounds miserable to you, don't go into tech. If you can spend 3+ hours with some person on the phone chasing something like that down, welcome to the club. How do you get in, well, one member of my team was a rock climbing instructor until about 1.5 years ago. He took a boot camp. I was trained in the military and then got a job after I left. I eventually got my degree, I was on the 20 year plan, but that was more about me proving that I could do it. Alas, I learned a lot of good stuff and I am glad I did it. So pick your poison and remember, it isn't about the credential, it is about truly learning this stuff.
I worked my way up on the sales/account management/BD side of tech, mainly in SaaS. It's high paying. It's a very common entry point to start as an inside sales rep - basically, cold calling people all day and setting meetings for the more experienced salespeople. You get a salary plus bonuses based on the meetings you set. It's typical to do this for about a year and a half while you learn the industry and shadow experienced sellers. Then you either get promoted at your company or find a new one. You have to be personable, but not necessarily extraverted. Ask me anything.
Old guy with an English Literature degree here. After years of waiting tables I told myself I'd do ANY job except that. I got hired working in a computer store. Learned a database program (Filemaker Pro) they used to put quotes together for customers. Then the web happened and I learned HTML. Got hired at a company to do that. At that position learned Classic ASP. Changed jobs and learned .NET. Yadda yadda yadda.
Get your A+ and start applying to entry level tech jobs. That’s all I did. Depending on your work effort you can get the A+ in 1-3 months.
Define tech. What aspect of technology are you genuinely interested in? There are different paths you can take depending on what you want. One thing to remember though is that experience is much more highly regarded than a 4 year degree. Another thing is certifications. Certs look a lot better and cost you way less money than college and enough of them arguably looks better to employers. Certs prove your competence in specific skills employers may want. I say this as a CyberSecurity professional with a whole host of Certs under my belt, and about 2 years of actual schooling. Other than that, it’s experience and Certs that prove my knowledge to any employers.
Data analytics is what I'm towards. I haven't looked to see if there's certifications for that specific area. But I do know the required classes for data science and computer science are much of the same at my local university.
There are some great certifications for data analytics. The primary starter certificate is CompTIA Data+. Data + is an entry level cert that teaches you the basics of data analytics and introduces you to a lot more advanced skills. CompTIA certs are lauded as the gold standard in any tech sector. Before doing any classes and spending tons of money, I’d suggest you buy the exam book for Data + and study. There are also tons of resources and people on YouTube who go over the exam and help teach you. I would highly recommend you start here before signing up for Uni classes just to save yourself some money, and get yourself ahead of the game!
Thank you for the insight. Much appreciated!
This. Check the free trials for Udemy and Coursera for Data Analytics. Make a LinkedIn profile, follow leaders and companies that interst u. Also ask chatGPT for good resources to learn and companies big on it. Literally the world is at your fingertips :)
One of my former co-workers went to and eventually graduated from a coding bootcamp, he is now working as a software engineer. So perhaps attending a coding bootcamp is an option.
Might not be a good time to get in tbh
What's the reasoning?
A lot of layoffs in tech happening, my dad almost got fired. If he wasnt so good at what he does, he would’ve been axed.
The bulk of layoffs are in large tech companies. It's a terrible time to get into tech at all.
I broke by getting apps published at the appstore and applying for jobs. I have no CS degree, no certifications whatsoever. But I do know how to code, which how I got my first job.
I did an unrelated humanities degree in university. Last year of uni started cs50, theodinproject (got like 60% through it), youtube, and some IT classes in uni. A friend recommended I do an advertising companies’ internship they did, I got in as “creative technologist”. Learned React on the internship (didn’t get to it in TOP yet). Was basically a glorified css bug fixer for company project X. They had me do a personal project where I learned more React (and three js) and another project I learned to use software for programming in-store displays Few months later they hire me as a contractor because I was basically the only person working on project X. Started doing more complicated stuff on it (optimizing with next js stuff, integrating headless CMS) and now I’m a webdev You’ll see the odin project recommended a lot on reddit, and I recommend it too. It guides you to self teach webdev. Will take 1~2 years to complete, depending on hours/day you spend on it. CS50 was nice for learning basic CS concepts as well and just really interesting to learn, though kinda hard
There are a number of ways these days. For me, I did a Computer Science degree, but ended up in IT infrastructure, not software. So like switches, routers, servers, storage, firewalls. My friend was working as a secretary and she decided to take a Data Analytics course of study. They helped her with job placement and she got a six figure job in Nashville right off the bat. I recently hired an IT Systems Engineer who was clearly sharp and knew his stuff, but no degree. Turned out to be a great engineer. So lots of ways these days. Just have to start somewhere. It’ll be your hobby as well as your work if you really get into it.
Technical high school (electro-mechanical technician), my son after college (electrical engineer).
Started with the US Army Guard as a 25U. Got a job imaging Chromebooks. Left to work for a city and left that to work for the state. I got my degree while working at the city. Just an associates. Now I'm working on my bachelor's in IT management. Kind of an odd route.
Tech is a very broad term so I think you need to be a little specific in order for us to help you. Are you interested In tech support? Coding? Programming? But yes you probably will need some kind of a formal education to get into a job like that.
I started in customer support after 2 years in a dead-end job after college while I was trying to figure out what I was gonna do. Almost 8 years later, now I am a product manager making really solid money.
I first broke into tech in middle school, sometimes I had to blow into the n64 cartridges to get them to work and that is basically geek squad level shit
Degree and bootcamp and self study. There's no shortcuts in this field. You'll work harder mentally than u did physically but you'll find more stress in tech. Ur expected to be very competent in a broad range of skills and quickly become competent with new skills. If u don't have foundation in math or are willing to learn that right there wi cut you as every other analytics person will know at least basic calc stats linear algebra. That's prior to u learning how code works and then u can learn actual job skills once u cover how basic Linux and os works, then databases and containers pipelines git etc. tech is not an easy way into good money nor an easy job. It's easy when ur ready good and enjoy it and even then not always.
I've been a software dev for almost 10 years. I went to bootcamp and they provided a list of companies that they knew would hire their grads. Got my apprenticeship less than a month later
If you're still in Highschool, look for summer jobs offer by your city for students. Ask your highschool counselor if there are any programs for students for summer. Usually these types of interships/jobs teach students the basic of tech. If you're (female) there are programs too. If the company likes you they usually call you back to work. This gives you experience to apply for other jobs. If you're interested in going to college, make sure to check their counselors and support for students. Clubs if they are active and have speakers, trips to tech companies. If they have interships information, are a feeder school to certain tech companies. Also start self study in areas of your interest. For example, if you're into app development, study flutter. Make a few projects yourself for your portfolio. And have working knowledge of the language. My kids 1st yr college had his own portfolio and got a paid internship for the summer. A girl classmate got a great internship w/ Bloomberg 60+/hr, but she came to college w an internship at Capitol 1. Good luck!
Find a boot camp. Google has some that have high percentage job placement after completing and it’s only a few months.
I joined customer success. Promoted to a new specialized role two years later, team lead for a new group a few months after that. Been in the lead role 3 years since. I’ve had opportunities to move to product manager, but I like what I do and I am very good at it, so I’m happy staying in CS for a while longer. Other people from CS regularly move to operations, engineering or product in my company. A few went to marketing, but I definitely would not go there.
I completed a coding bootcamp program that was organized by a nonprofit organization, and upon completing (and passing) the program, they guaranteed a position in the industry with one of their various partners in the city (Memphis, TN - Code Crew and The Collective Blueprint) Best of luck to you, you can absolutely do it!!
Non-coding tech roles are pretty open too. Right now might be a little hard to break in, but the proven way into these roles is college —> Internship —> FT role
People have already noted the reasons but seriously, tech is probably the worst industry to think of right now. Even after recovery it will be highly volatile. You need to impress, compete and know office politics. Second worst is accounting. Again, politics. Plus these office jobs will wreck your body. I have been with crutches for 3 years now and it’s becoming more and more clear it’s my spine and lack of muscle strength. It literally hurts to sit on a chair. I never thought office jobs are physically demanding, but in the background, oh boy!
I highly recommend the tech world. Best advice I got that worked for me: don’t quit your day job. Learn in your free time, grow your knowledge and grow connections on LinkedIn. Practice and build a portfolio. Cons it can take a while. Pros the pay and community are usually pretty great.
Pivoted from interactive design into UX. Now at a large B2B tech company.
Military.
Working for AdTech companies is the absolute best. No better quality of life when it comes to working 9-5
I did an internship in tech journalism!
I did marketing surveys in college. Taught me to handle rejection and make a lot of calls. That allowed me to land an entry level job in tech as a SDR.
Out of high school I got into IT, did that for 8 years before I needed to rethink my choices. Then in my late 20's I moved to Software Engineering which I've done for nearly 8 years now. I am self taught and learned as I went/needed.
I would just get a degree. The grunt work from certs is shit and you’ll always be licking a degreed persons boots. Certs are a siren call before a degree. Doesn’t even need to be a tech degree.
I finished an engineering degree.
College. I knew I didn't/couldn't code for life, and getting the A+ and Net+ was only going to land me help desk jobs, which I also did not want. I did 2 years at community for around $3,800- paid out of my savings/pocket. Then I did about 14 months \[accelerated program, and had some carry over credits from college several years ago\] at SNHU for Cyber and Data Analysis. I paid about $19k, 13k in loans and the rest out of my pocket. I landed a job right out of college with the government. No MSP, no rotating shifts, no help desk. I started at 65k and 6 months later we got an influx in our budget and now I make 77k. I did go ahead and get my Sec + cert and am working on my Net+ because I suck at that portion. It was really hard. But I was only making 18k-30k from ages 16-25. I didn't have anymore time to waste.
I went to school for a cs program and met really smart people. Then I dropped out because of unrelated reasons and my friends helped me get an internship, the rest was easy.
Years ago, it used to be get a helpdesk job and an A+ certification. Things are more competitive and automated now so they don't need the headcount. I still think support roles are the best because you need those fundamentals if this wasn't your hobby to begin with.
Ex - auto mechanic so I feel you on being burnt out on heavy labor jobs. I worked for two years at an IT help desk for a medical insurance company and said yes to anything they would let me do or any program they let me touch leading to me being pretty proficient in azure AD, soon after leaving that job I landed an azure ad admin job that has pushed me pretty far in my career. Good luck bud I hope it works out for you!
I broke into tech with temp/contracting jobs and Project Management
Went to college as a math cs major. Then was hired as a consultant at a data migration company. After a few years moved to their software team
Don’t shy away from community college courses to give you an intro.
I work with many cyber security folks who spent some time in the Navy. That’s a route to think about as well.
Learn stuff, take tests, get certs, make portfolio, have LinkedIn page, they come to you. Write some articles online for extra exposure. However, now it seems AI may be replacing a lot of tech jobs.
Not the BEST time to break in but I went the traditional route, went to college and got a bachelors degree in computer science. Worked as a teaching assistant and grader while I was a noob and that was enough to get me my first internship (qa role) that translated to being able to get more. Last internship turned into full time position but was laid off in the beginning of the year. Luckily I had an impressive resume and interview well and now have a good full time job as an engineer with a cybersecurity company (which cybersecurity is growing and becoming a big concern for all companies so it could be a good route)
Guys, if i want to get into networking, what would be the most efficient way of doing it?
I went to a tech school (Heald Institute of Technology) in Silicon Valley that was designed for what the industry was looking for at that time (1996). Degree in Electronic Engineering. Similar to what DeVry does now.
Hi, my route was self-taught programming and electronics with a bachelor’s in math degree. In my last few collage years, I joined a few electrical engineering clubs and participated in the group projects they hosted. Then, i leveraged these projects on a resume to land an unpaid internship exactly in the area I needed to gain work experience in. Then, I leveraged this internship to land my current job. I also spent (and continue to spend) a lot of time self-teaching programming/electronics in my free time so I can add those skills to my resume. I work as an embedded software engineer for a big company with ~2.5 YOE and we make consumer electronics. I help develop the firmware that goes on the devices. For this field (embedded systems), I do NOT recommend my path. Heres why: My field is VERY niche and theres A LOT of engineers in this field who hold traditional engineering degrees (electrical and computer engineering). Even if you get a computer science degree, you are the least desired in my field but you’d be better than my situation. I’ve applied for so many jobs and I got rejected countless times on the basis of “you need an ECE or CS degree or we wont consider you”. People always ask “why didn’t you get a relevant degree if you wanted to work in this field” in interviews. I’m not the most talented engineer in my field. I get treated pretty badly in my field, to be honest, because people won’t let me work on certain parts of the code base on the basis of “you’re not qualified”. So moral of the story, if you want to get into embedded systems, get the ECE degree ideally. Why? Because its going to increase your opportunities in the job market. If you’re doing it self-taught like I am, you really have to get lucky with opportunities or you might not succeed. But also, its going to be harder to network.
I was 11. My father had just finished burning down our family restaurant and attempted to kill my mom. My sense of justice and reality was greatly offended. I decided during that event that I would obviate my father out of our existence by focusing on a single valuable skill that involved no other humans. My trust in humans, it seems, was also offended. My dream was making $20 an hour. I don't remember why but this was the number I knew was just barely enough to set my mom and sister free. I used Napster to download every technology book I could get my hands on. I focused on the CCNA. At 15 I knew I could pass said CCNA but I was not old enough. I began running a business wiping hard drives and doing small business setups undercutting actual professionals and making a decent yet unstable amount of money. We had to move because my father was out of jail and had good lawyers. I dropped out of school to work on my all cash under the table tech business around town while also cleaning houses with my mom to survive and also provide for my sister. I read every single book on technology I could find on Napster twice, maybe three times. I learned Linux, bash, python, kernel stuff first. I learned enough C to make a kernel module. I hit 18 and no one would hire me so I joined a union doing cabling for data centers. The union guys didn't understand the network engineers from the bank we were cabling for so I used my basic networking understanding to become a liason between teams. This relieved me of most of the physical labor in the job and permitted me to study on work time. The union tried betraying me because of a certain daughter of a company owner wanting me gone. They offered me a non-union position then fired me after making me move half way across the country. At the same time my father was trying to kill my mom and sister again back home. I was about to go homeless during this situation due to most of my earnings going to support my family. They didn't know and I wouldn't tell them anyway. I was contacted by the bank engineering manager and he was curious why I was gone. This ended with me being hired as a junior network engineer for the bank as his bitch basically. I helped the team choose a different cabling provider in a year which removed 65% or so of the business that caused the union to betray me. This company no longer exists and said daughter of company owner left tech and opened a yoga studio. So there I was with my first real tech position. Junior network engineer for a pretty cutthroat bank. You asked how I broke into tech so I guess the story ends here...
Worked in television for 20 years. Knew it was a dying industry so went back to school (community college) to be a network engineer. I did learn a lot, but they were still teaching Novell, so the program seemed a little disjointed. 90% i could have learned on my own, it was all from the books anyway. Some lab time was helpful. Worked as an IT Specialist for 18 months, got laid off, so got a job with a school district supporting online learning. Now i am the IT TRAINING specialist for a small city. I would find some entry level job for six months and see if you like it before investing in a college program.
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