We want to debunk the big stereotype of what working in tech is really like.
The stereotypical image is someone wearing a hoodie and coding twelve hours a day in the basement of a house, sipping Red Bull and eating pizza for lunch and dinner.
The reality is that life in tech can be far more diverse and exciting. Tech Jobs are people from any background and NO you do not need a technical degree to enter tech. So you must be asking, how do you enter tech.
Here are some ways to go about doing so:
Make it a habit to start reading
The tech industry is ever-evolving and expanding, it's very important to keep updated with it. Hence, in order to immerse yourself in the tech world, it’s important to start reading. Some popular tech news websites:
- Follow big names in the industry like Sam Altman and Paul Graham on Twitter.
- Browse the subreddits for the kinds of development you do (/r/androiddev, /r/ios programming, /r/webdev).
Try and understand where technology is now and where it is going. What’s hot in the market and what’s not?
It is guaranteed that you will be asked “why do you want to do ____?” in an interview. For example, its common in the interviews to be asked “why this technology?” and “what do you think of technology?” “I think it’s cool” is not a good answer. An informed answer such as “I really like how this company developed this technology and added features that were targeted to this market and it has now market growth as such” is a much better answer.
Check out this website for more resources!
By learning as much as you can about tech, you can develop a more fundamental understanding of how the industry works and also learn what you are passionate about.
Here are some tech books you can read:
Blitzscaling from Reid Hoffman, Conscious Business from Fred Kofman, First Round Essentials: Management from First Round Review, Founders at Work from Jessica Livingston, High Growth Handbook from Elad Gil, High Output Management from Andy Grove, Hooked from Nir Eyal Hot Seat from Dan Shapiro, Inspired from Marty Cagan, Lost and Founder from Rand Fishkin, Reboot from Jerry Colonna, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People from Stephen R. Covey, The Advantage from Patrick Lencioni, The Four Steps to the Epiphany from Steve Blank, The Hard Thing About Hard Things from Ben Horowitz, The Lean Startup from Eric Ries, Venture Deals from Brad Feld, Zero to One from Peter Thiel
Here are some blogs you can read:
AVC from Fred Wilson
Both Sides of the Table from Mark Suster
Built In David Cummings on Startups from David Cummings
Feld Thoughts from Brad Feld
First Round Review from First Round
Folklore For Entrepreneurs from David Skok
Glassdoor Blog from Glassdoor
Hitenism from Hiten Shah
Inside Intercom from Intercom
Kellblog from David Kellogg
Mind the Product Openview Blog from Openview
Paul Graham Essays from Paul Graham
Product Habits from Hiten Shah
Reforge Blog from Reforge
SaaStr Blog from SaaStr
SuccessSTORIES from Success Hacker
The Behavioral Scientist The Effective Engineer from Edmond Lau
The Future of Everything from WSJ
The Year of the Looking Glass from Julie Zhuo
Tomasz Tunguz Blog from Tomasz Tunguz
Venture Hacks from Naval Ravikant & Babak Nivi
YC Blog from Y Combinator
Here are some podcasts you can listen to:
“The Twenty Minute VC” or “How I Built This”
99% Invisible from Roman Mars
Acquired from David Rosenthal and Ben Gilbert
After On from Rob Reid
Business Wars from Wondery
Dealmakers from Alejandro Cremades
DearHBR from Harvard Business Review
Distributed from Matt Mullenweg
Freakonomics from Stephen J. Dubner
Geekwire Giv’m the Biz from John Tabis
Give First from Techstars
How I Built This from Guy Raz
If Then from Slate
Land of the Giants from Vox
Masters in Business from Bloomberg
Masters of Scale from Reid Hoffman
Naval Ravikant Podcast
Pivot from Kara Swisher & Scott Galloway
Planet Money from NPR
Seth Godin’s Startup School from Seth Godin
StartUp from Gimlet Media
Startup Pregnant The Growth Show from Hubspot
The James Altucher Show from James Altucher
The Knowledge Project from Shan Parrish
The Pitch from Gimlet
The Startup Chat from Steli & Hiten
The Sweaty Startup from Nick Huber
The Tim Ferriss Show from Tim Ferriss
The Twenty Minute VC from Harry Stebbings
This American Life from WBEZ Chicago
This is Product Management This Week in Startups from Jason Calcanis
Venture Stories from Village Global
YC Podcast from Y Combinator
Go To Tech Events
The tech community is notorious for holding multiple events, some are specifically for women, some for startups, some to promote diversity, most are a combination of many. Some yearly big tech events are:
GRACE HOPPER CONFERENCE FOR WOMEN
CES — GLOBAL STAGE FOR INNOVATION
There are also many smaller events held throughout the year, you can find out about these by checking eventbrite and searching for tech.
Hackathons are a great place to learn about tech and meet people: Check out Devpost to find out about the next hackathon in your area.
Different Career Paths In Tech
When we first start studying computer science, I envisioned my career to be sitting in front of screen coding from 9 am to 5 pm. I fretted this thought which also discouraged me from pursuing CS.
But 4 years down the line, I believe CS is one of the most versatile majors to pursue. You can choose any of the interdisciplinary career paths after majoring in CS.
There are many ways you can go —
- Software Engineer — If you want to work on code that impacts the product. If you write impactful code you can rise to the title of distinguished engineer.
- Product Manager — If you love working with people, this is the career path you would like to take.
- Founder
- Venture Capitalist
- Human Resources
- Marketing and Sales
- Business Development
- Designer — Product, UI/UX
- Analyst
Within the Engineering, there are different teams
- Backend
- Frontend
- Q/A
- UI/UX
- Platform
- Performance
Then there are teams that support the management teams
- Product Manager
- Project manager
- Customer escalation team
- IT support
- Technical writing team
- DevOps
This is just a basic outline, if you are interested in anything particular do shoot us a message and we will be happy to provide more resources.
