Getting Into IT: A Guide on (re)Starting Tech Careers
Introduction
Over the past 30 years, I have witnessed Technology increasingly underpinning our everyday lives, playing a crucial role, and becoming ingrained in almost every industry.
Even sectors initially limited in scope, such as Manufacturing and Banking, now see Technology embraced by:
· Industrial Agriculture, with the widespread adoption of Internet of Things (IoT) devices to optimise and control production environments.
· Entertainment, with its massive libraries of on-demand streaming content offerings.
· Retail, with its Machine Learning (ML) algorithms targeting product offerings, and Just in Time (JiT) lean inventory holdings.
Tech is behind every organisation, but behind the Tech are the IT professionals, keeping everything working and constantly pushing at the current bounds.
Whether you’re starting or restarting your career journey, a career in Tech with its many different roles offers an extremely varied career path and many different progression routes. Everybody has different reasons for jumping into a Tech career, but the timing couldn’t be better!
Assessing where you are Now()
The ever-changing landscape of the Tech sector means roles are always evolving; there’s always something new to learn, and no individual is ever “done” with personal Learning and Development (L&D).
Deciding your next steps can be daunting as there are various routes you can undertake to (re)start a career in Tech, including academic study, on-the-job training, or self-directed study.
Head in the Clouds: Degrees and College Courses
Attaining a degree, or some tertiary-level academic qualification, is a popular option amongst school leavers; Academic fields of study include:
· Computing
· Computer Engineering and Electronics
· Computer Science
However, this has become an increasingly expensive option, not just in terms of your finances as many students graduate with mountains of student debt; but the time commitment — or to borrow a term from Economics: “Opportunity Cost” — attached to travelling this route. Many Batchelor-level degrees take at least three years of full-time study to complete.
You may find that modules offered by academic institutions won’t necessarily align with your future career plans. As often teaching offerings are very much in accord with the research interests of the faculty, and in the absence of any “extra-curricular” activities (see below), you may find yourself just as in-experienced as a school-leaver.
Boots on the Ground: Apprenticeships and Bootcamps
As an alternative to any formal academic education, these programmes offer on-the-job training, often whilst working towards industry-recognised certifications. You get to earn whilst you learn and have a network of industry-experienced technical trainers/mentors surround you, all while gaining direct industry experience and valuable skills.
The time commitment is often less than required of the formal academic route and can be used to springboard yourself into a permanent role, either in your host organisation providing the programme or another.
Many established quality Tech employers offer graduate recruitment schemes and/or apprenticeship programmes to build their own pipelines of talent.
There’s Always a 3rd Way: Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs)
Your personal circumstances may make any long-term commitment to either Academia or an Apprenticeship challenging. You may already be in employment or occupied with Caring responsibilities.
There exist various online offerings to cater for your L&D, such as the platforms offered through MOOC.org. MOOCs are free online courses available for anyone to enrol, learn new skills, and advance their career.
Whilst requiring more self-discipline to complete, MOOCs offer more flexibility in both the subject matter studied and the time to complete. It’s possible to attain a prestigious degree from MiT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) travelling this MOOC route, via their OpenCourseWare offering.
Targeted Up-skilling for Your Next Tech Role
Online Job Site postings can help you identify which Tech roles interest you and which skillsets are required and currently in demand by employers.
Identifying any gaps in your skillset is a useful starting point as the output of this exercise will inform where you should direct your attention with respect to any further L&D you undertake.
Re-examine and Apply Prior Work Experience
It may seem like you have none of the skills listed on job postings, but so-called “soft” skills can be surprisingly important, and many skills are transferable into Tech roles; consider any past roles you have held through the lens of your target role.
Earn Industry Certifications
Getting certified may offer a fast break into a Tech role, they can be studied for and attained within weeks, not years.
Assets, not Liabilities
Your degree in another field may be an asset, not a liability. Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) degrees may be, at first glance, a better fit for your chosen Tech career than the Philosophy or Literature degree you graduated with, however, focus on the ways that your degree can be applied moving forward; a creative approach to problem-solving, superior writing and communication skills and a robust appreciation of logic all contribute to recasting your degree as an asset.
Become Comfortable Starting at the Bottom
The experiences gained from entry-level positions are invaluable; be prepared to start at the bottom, work your way up, and constantly up-skill yourself. Take for example today’s cutting-edge tool for application deployment: the Serverless Framework, the first stable release of which occurred in 2021; yesterday it was Containers, and the day before that, Virtual Machines (VMs). Tech roles and the Tech Industry sector, in general, are never static, we’re all constantly evolving, learning new Tools and Technologies as they are developed, released, and widely adopted.
Many Tech employers are addressing their skills shortage head-on by embracing the idea of BYO (Build-your-Own) talent pipelines; offering bootcamp-style Apprentice-level recruitment initiatives, sometimes called Academies. These offer an accelerated path to an entry-level position, coupled with a paved road through relevant industry certifications, and are worth seeking out.
Learn Relevant Tech Skills and Gain Experience
“Extra-curricular” activities, perhaps developing personal projects and maintaining your own GitHub to teach yourself a programming language, or other skill, or contributing to an Open-Source project, can help you make it through the paper-sift stage of recruitment campaigns if your employment experience lacks current relevance.
In my own meandering experience, personal projects can serve as an excellent driver behind learning a new Tech skill, or programming language, and can act as a portfolio to demonstrate a keen interest, showcase your ability to self-direct your learning and give you something Tech-y to talk about with interviewers. What you do in your “whitespace” time may influence an employer to take a more holistic view of your career journey. Understanding the basics of programming will definitely give you the upper hand when looking to land your (next) Tech role. Avail yourself of the many self-directed, self-paced L&D opportunities that are both free and delivered online.
If you’re interested specifically in a Cloud computing Tech career, an excellent Cloud-agnostic primer and overall introduction to Cloud computing are provided at CloudResumeChallenge.dev and https://learntocloud.guide.
How AWS Are Meeting the Tech Skills Shortage
AWS (Amazon Web Services) has risen to the challenge of addressing the current digital skills shortage head-on.
The AWS SkillBuilder resource is a learning centre to help you build in-demand Cloud skills, offering free digital training across the gamut of AWS Cloud service offerings together with more fundamental concepts such as the AWS Well-Architected framework, and the AWS Shared Responsibility Model.
Signing yourself up for your own AWS Free Tier account will allow you to follow along with any hands-on tutorials which will offer a much richer experience than just reading to learn in theory. Being able to provision real infrastructure onto the real AWS Cloud will help crystallize your learning.
In addition to the SkillBuilder offering, AWS has launched several initiatives aimed at re-skilling human resources, or even influencing the direction of the careers of young people.
AWS Educate
AWS Educate is open to any individual, regardless of where they are in their education, experience, or, career journey. Offering free, self-paced online training resources and labs, designed for learning, practice, and, evaluation of your Cloud skills.
AWS Academy
AWS Academy empowers higher education institutions to prepare their students for industry-recognised certifications and careers in Cloud computing. Providing free, ready-to-teach Cloud computing curricula to help educators stay at the forefront of Cloud innovation so that they can equip students with the in-demand skills they need to get hired in one of the fastest-growing industries.
AWS re/Start
AWS re/Start offers full-time classroom-based skills development that prepares individuals for Cloud careers and connects them to potential employers. Focused on unemployed or under-employed individuals, a Tech background is not required to apply. Learners gain technical and soft skills through scenario-based learning, hands-on labs, and, coursework. Re/Start also provides resume and interview coaching to prepare learners for interviews.
AWS GetIT
AWS GetIT is an initiative designed to inspire the next generation of Tech talent by encouraging girls aged 12–13 to consider a career in Tech. Running throughout one academic year, it invites schools to enter a team into an inter-school App building competition. Participants learn practical digital skills, experience team-working, and, gain self-confidence from presenting ideas to a wider audience; finalists pitch their idea at the annual AWS Summit! Throughout the programme, participants are inspired and supported by female ambassadors from both AWS and the wider IT industry.
In Conclusion
The time has never been better to get into IT. With the widespread adoption of home Broadband, coupled with a plethora of online training, labs, and, workshops, you really can self-direct your learning path, and gain valuable skills and experience no matter your starting position, or current commitments. There really are options for everyone.
About the Author:
Sharon Mitchell is an AWS DevOps Engineer here at Version 1.
