From Linguist to Developer: Transferable Skills You Didn’t Know You Have

At the university/ies, I studied English language and literature, and recently — technologies for translation and interpreting. Linguistics is my passion in life, and I’ll always love it with all my heart. After graduation, I worked as a translator and language teacher, and for a long time, I had no intention whatsoever of switching to tech. Despite low salaries, job insecurity, and constant comments like, “Oh, so you only know English, it’s not a real profession”, I didn’t plan to change anything. My obsession with all things linguistic was stronger than any of the hardships. In fact, my interest in linguistic research, and, in particular, working with language corpora, i.e. large collections of texts in an electronic format based on specific criteria: language, author, language variant, historical period, etc., encouraged me to explore interdisciplinary fields and guided me in the direction of natural language processing. Having realised what incredible things are possible with Python, regular expressions, and linguistic data, I started to explore new technologies and skills.

Despite my genuine desire to learn coding and the availability of numerous resources on the Internet, my journey was rather bumpy. Not because of laziness or lack of motivation or intelligence but because of my low self-confidence and fear that tech is not for me. I can’t say when exactly I started thinking like that. At school, I liked math and was rather good at it. I finished school with only excellent grades in all subjects on my certificate. I have always loved reading and learning new things. I enjoy playing board games and solving puzzles. And yet I believed (and probably still believe it deeply in my heart) that I am not smart enough to make it into tech.

I’ve seen far too many comments from men saying coding is not for women. And, what is more important, it’s not for humanities scholars/humanists. Somehow if you studied linguistics, literature, history, or any other humanities subject, your brain is damaged for good, and you inevitably lose the ability to think logically. I’ve heard too many jokes about STEM graduates being intelligent and logical, while humanists unable to perform elementary mathematical operations. Sadly, many of those jokes came from my colleagues. When some organisations offered free coding courses for Ukrainian women affected by the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, I read comments like, “Teaching women to code? That’s the end of IT!”

I know that there are many other women who would like to work in tech but are too scared or insecure to start. I prepared a list of transferable skills you probably already have that will make your transition much easier. Although I’ll be giving examples from my teaching/translation background, many other professions and roles can relate.

Pattern recognition/ logical skills. Machines are good at processing structured data, following rules and identifying patterns. Therefore, you should be good at it, too, at least to some extent. The good news is that you’ve been doing it for quite a while. As someone who speaks five languages, I can say that language is all about patterns. Word collocations and grammatical constructions, grammar and punctuation rules, and word order are just a few examples.

Attention to detail. Quite frequently, forgetting a semicolon or a closing bracket results in pain and suffering from getting error messages. Similarly, for a translator, missing a comma, misspelling a word or using the wrong apostrophe results in being told off by an editor or client.

Communication and presentation skills. No matter what your role in tech is, you will need to use your soft skills on a daily basis. It might be a job interview, explaining your work to other colleagues or showcasing it to the business. Whatever it is, presenting the information clearly and in simple words is an invaluable skill in tech. Unfortunately, I’ve met some brilliant developers whose poor communication skills made life unnecessarily complicated for many people, including themselves.

Curiosity and life-long learning. Being fond of learning and self-development, I feel blue when I don’t learn something new and see that I’m making progress. That’s what I love about learning languages. A lifetime is not enough to master your native language, and there are roughly 7,000 of them to try. Fun fact: according to some resources, there are up to 9,000 programming languages. Luckily, you don’t need to be proficient in all (or even half) of them, but being a developer means constant learning.

Independence and ability to work remotely. As a translator, I often had to work remotely, manage my time, and organise my workplace at home. It proved helpful both during the pandemic and in my new role in tech. Working on your own and remaining productive when the new mattress is so soft on your bed, your cat is craving your attention, and cookies in the kitchen are begging to be eaten is definitely a skill to acquire.

Patience. I have always considered myself a patient person. Who wouldn’t think so of oneself if you could explain the use of Present Perfect for the tenth time in a row to the same student and stay friendly? However, I found out that this ability to be nice to people and smile and be kind when they don’t understand what you’ve repeated so many times is a different skill to staying calm when your code doesn’t do what you want. You can easily tell from the expression on my face when things go wrong, and I can’t find a solution. My close friends also know that I am not patient with myself and demand more than is reasonable and possible at the moment.

Creativity. I’ve always thought coding leaves no room for creativity. What can be so creative in telling the computer what to do? However, I found out that there is always more than one way to solve a problem, and I enjoy discovering other solutions while tackling coding challenges. Moreover, some tech roles are more creative than others. Web development, UI/UX design, and front-end are only a few.

Adaptability. The world of tech is constantly changing. You’ll have to work on new projects, meet new people, and learn new technology all the time. How fast you can adapt to new conditions will affect your work and mental health. As a teacher, I had to work with people all the time. Every student had different needs and requirements, and it was my job to adjust the curriculum to meet those needs. Although this example might seem not so obvious to you, there are plenty of life and work situations where flexibility and adaptability save the day.

To sum up, whatever you did before deciding to teach yourself to code, your background will be helpful in one way or another. Our brain is incredibly complex, as much as human beings are. Women often quit or don’t even try coding because of low self-confidence, fear, and lack of support and encouragement. They may not realise what brilliant skills they already have and how much they can contribute to the field. Millions of people worldwide already work in tech, with this trend only increasing in the future. You are a capable and talented woman who can be one of them!