The Case for Career Transitioners
I recently drove software engineering hiring for a small startup in SF. Attracting great candidates was a tremendous challenge. A handful of behemoth companies soak up and retain a large percentage of capable engineers while startups, even well-funded ones with good traction, are left to fight over a small slice of the talent pool.
The engineering talent shortage is not new, and the industry is starting to see new sources of talent. The most prominent is a group of intensive software engineering programs (commonly known as coding boot camps). These programs churn out potential new software engineers with basic training at a rapid clip. Their graduates are, by and large, individuals who have succeeded in their prior field and decided to take a leap of faith into a completely new field with more promise for growth. These career transitioners are taking a calculated risk to pursue more creativity, more challenge, and more impact.
After going through a rigorous application process and grueling boot camp curriculum, they’re met by a largely unwelcoming hiring market. Most software engineering job openings explicitly require a computer science degree or state that it is strongly preferred. When I talk to engineering leaders, most say they aren’t opposed to hiring boot camp graduates but are unwilling to give them their first professional opportunity. This is a mistake and a missed opportunity to capitalize on this new source of software engineering talent.
If you look at any job in any field at any level of management, the same set of traits are common to every high performer. High performers are self-starters, hungry for more challenges. They take risks, they have grit, and they learn quickly. Career transitioners are flush with these traits. We know because of the journey they’ve been on, the decision they made to pursue software engineering, and their success in the intensive coding curriculum. They will be more than solid contributors — they are the future leaders of our engineering teams.
In addition to having the right core traits for success, career transitioners bring valuable skills and perspectives with them to their new software engineering jobs. There are generic skills like collaborating and communicating effectively with teammates, empathizing with the customer, and analyzing data. These skills are critical to being an effective software engineer, and many career transitioners are already experts. Additionally, there is often a specific alignment in prior experience and needed expertise. A former accountant’s perspective and industry knowledge will be particularly valuable at a fin-tech startup. The same is true for a former nurse at a health tech company or a former sales rep at a CRM company.
If for no other reason, the software industry should invest in hiring career transitioners because they’re available and ready to start today. Some forward-thinking companies have set up apprenticeship programs that are designed to attract talent from this rapidly growing source, but this is not yet the norm. Hiring many great engineers is one of the hardest problems that engineering leaders face. It’s time to take a different approach.
