Jumping into tech: Why tech is a great career-change destination
A short blog series written for those looking to career-change into Tech, written by an ex-teacher, career-changer and software engineer.
I’ve had a lot of messages come into my inbox recently from friends across all walks of life, looking for advice as to how to plant their first foot in the recently-very-trendy world of tech. This is probably because they know that I too recently transitioned from Classroom Teacher to Software Engineer. More interestingly, I did this via the world of technical recruitment, which let me peek behind the curtain of what companies want, how they hire, and how to get a foot in their respective doors. Now, I’m hoping that some of the lessons I’ve learnt along the way can help you to make your own jump into Tech, and even stick the landing!
This first part is all about the tech industry from a high-level, aimed squarely at those currently outside of it who are considering jumping in. More specifically it’s about just some of the main reasons why, for a certain kind of person, it could be a great idea.
The Rubik’s Cube
If tech is about anything, it’s about solving problems. It’s what first attracted me, making Counter Strike maps in my teens: ‘how do I get the door to open when a player approaches it?’; ‘why can players run through that wall?’; ‘who on earth would actually want to play this terrible thing I’ve made!?’ Even though the end result was often underwhelming and more than a bit broken, the enjoyment actually came, for me, from the process of encountering a problem, figuring out some kind of solution, and hopefully learning something along the way that might help me to do it better next time.
This iterative process of problem solving is at the heart of most technology roles, albeit in many different forms. For a Data Analyst, this might be the question of how to slice up datasets in order to present meaningful findings; for an Architect it could be how different systems will communicate effectively with each other, and for a Frontend Developer why information isn’t being passed as expected between various web pages and components. Stripping away all the meetings, documentation-writing and tea-breaks, this is essentially what the vast majority of technical roles will boil down to. If you’re the kind of person who loves to feel the thrill of ticking that box and solving that puzzle, technical roles can provide this in spades. And if you somehow managed to solve all of the problems your role could throw at you? Guess what — there are billions of completely new, different problems to be solved in one of thousands of other roles in different companies, sectors and technologies, most of which will again teach you something new. Hooray!
An Autodidact’s Paradise
The primary side-effect of all this problem-solving is constant learning, and in fact the two go hand-in-hand; learn about a technology or process in order to solve a problem, or pick apart the elements of a solution and figure out why it worked. But even outside of this constant loop, there is always learning to be done, even for those technologies which you’re not actually using. In fact, keeping up-to-date with new technologies and working on personal projects outside of the scope of your actual job is highly encouraged and — some argue — essential to staying relevant in the technology market. Put another way, it’s extremely unlikely that the job you do at the beginning of your career will closely resemble the job you are doing by the end, and that’s a good thing; it shows growth and progression in your tech knowledge, and keeps things fresh! As such, many corners of the technology industry are jam-packed with autodidacts — people who are adept at independently scraping together information from all kinds of different sources: Youtube, StackOverflow, conferences, books, articles, and assembling them into something resembling learning.
From a career-changer’s perspective, this makes the tech industry very attractive in a few ways. Firstly, your ability to piece together the information needed to skill up in this new industry is something that is not only valuable when yo make the move, but something that technical employers actually highly prize (being a near-necessity for strong engineers). So, by putting in this legwork you are not only bolstering your CV and/or GitHub page, but also implicitly highlighting a crucial key skill that hiring managers and recruiters in the tech industry will be hunting for (see: ‘self-starter’, ‘curious’). Additionally, this autodidact-rich culture means that learning resources are very easy to find; techy people love to talk about tech, and with such a steady stream of both newbie and experienced tech-people looking for tutorials and demonstrations in almost every technology there is, it’s not hard to find excellent websites, videos and articles online to help you to quickly get up to speed.
A Growing Sector
For many people including myself, Covid has been, amongst many other things, a lesson in the importance of job security and industry resilience. When the pandemic first hit I was still a recruiter, and I found that the nature of my job, primarily due to the requirement to work from home, changed drastically almost overnight. There was, understandably, a temporary plummet in company hiring, and there were sadly a great many recruiters, and recruitment companies who either suffered a massive drop in placements and income, or were forced out of the industry. Whilst I was lucky enough to make it through the worst of it relatively unscathed, it was a wake-up call nonetheless that a similar event in the future might invite further unpredictability into my life, and that of my family. Of course, this wasn’t just recruitment, either — there were many other industries which suffered just as badly or even worse such as hospitality, travel, and the Arts (to name but a few).
In contrast to this, the tech market proved, throughout Covid, to be surprisingly resilient — in fact some reports suggest that 2021 was actually the UK tech sector’s *Best Year Ever*! It has been for a long time a fast-growing sector, with the exponential growth of web-based start-ups, for which London is a significant hub, as well as the near-ubiquity of technology in all of our modern-day lives driving an aggressive growth in almost all technical domains. Chief among these are areas such as Data Science, Information Security and Artificial Intelligence, which are seeing unprecedented growth across multiple sectors. As a result, job security, growth opportunities and salaries in the tech sector are currently very good, and within a relatively stable industry, largely unaffected by geographic or political constraints. In an increasingly unpredictable and reactive world, and especially as an initially more junior (i.e. expendable) member of an industry, that security is a real comfort when making such a big move.
Take the Highway
When I first started research how to effectively change careers, one mantra that I came across really stuck with me: ‘wherever you think you’re headed, you should take the highway rather than the train’. If you take the train, you’re going wherever you’re going, come hell or highwater. The train may be, in many cases, faster, more comfortable, and less prone to delays (although…you know). However, there is, of course, one key problem with taking the train; that even if, ten minutes after boarding, you realise that you don’t think you want to go there anymore, well that’s too bad. You’ve committed, you’re on the train now, and we don’t stop until we reach Darlington.
The highway however, whilst often more congested, is the more flexible option. It is replete with slip-roads and service stations, giving you options as to which route you want to take, which can be adapted on the fly in light of developments in traffic or the weather. Even better, if you suddenly decide you don’t like where you’re headed, you can just hop off at the next exit and see where you end up — Darlington can wait.
Just in case you haven’t already picked apart this carefully-constructed metaphor, the Tech sector is quite certainly the latter — a Matrix Reloaded-worthy highway which offers not only jobs which are varied, but also surprisingly intertwined, allowing for huge career flexibility.
Don’t like that job you landed in Data Analytics? Well, you can leverage much of what you’ve learnt to become a Web Analyst instead, in a different company and sector. Chances are that job will be almost unrecognisable when compared to the first, and may offer you something that you much prefer.
Can’t stomach building another Frontend application? Why not convert that product and coding knowledge into becoming a tech-savvy Business Analyst, who can act as a liaison to development teams in a more business-facing role?
Due to the huge variety of different roles, job titles, technologies and companies, you’re never really putting all of your eggs in one basket, which makes for greater career mobility and ultimately a wider runway for you to land upon as a career-changer(and yes I know I’m mixing my metaphors now!). In any event, whilst I, thankfully, am happy where I’ve ended up, I’m glad to still be on that highway and know that, going forwards, I’ll have those options to change direction, try out different disciplines, and ultimately go to Darlington when I’m damn-well ready.
Are looking to make the leap into tech? What do you think are the best things about the tech industry? What are your concerns? What do you want to do? I’d *love* to hear from you in the comments.
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