I’m 30 and a career changer. I rage-quit (but politely) my corporate job a few months ago because I had had enough of appending TPS reports to SPT briefs. I’ve learned bits of code here and there since college, but never really stuck with it because continuing my career was the path of least resistance. But after spending 8-10 hours per day learning to code these past 3 months, I’m convinced that I would A) enjoy this as a career, and B) not suck at my job.
But I don’t see myself being able to land a Junior Web Dev role in this market cycle since my degree is in Economics (next to useless) and I don’t have many personal contacts I could leverage for the job-hunt.
So I started thinking about adjacent roles that might help get my “foot in the door”. I saw a couple folks mention IT roles like Help Desk, Systems Admin, Scripting / QA as experiences that can be a path to dev jobs. But I’ve also heard people describe them as sinkholes. This latter group would say anything other than a Junior Web Dev as your first tech job would harm your career prospects.
So I’m really not sure what advice to act on.
My Trilemma is between:
A) Getting a Google IT Support certificate and applying to Junior Systems Admin or Scripting / QA roles;
B) Getting an IBM Data Analyst certificate and going for a Junior Data Analyst role;
C) Complete coding modules as soon as possible, then start pimping myself out as a freelancer, all the while building up my porfolio and contributing to open-source projects.
The first two are mostly known quantities - I know roughly how much time, work, and rejections it’ll take to land a job in one of those roles. The last one, I have zero clue.
What does this entail, exactly? What languages are you studying/have studied? What is your goal? Front end or back end?
It helps if you have a portfolio site or a bunch of GH repos that show what you’ve learned. Any potential employer is going to want to see what you know. Also, freelancing is difficult b/c one has to establish themselves with a portfolio of projects.
Thinking adjacently is useful. Do you know anything about QA? IT support roles might get you into a company you want and after awhile in that role, something might open up in engineering.
Thanks so much for responding! Those are great questions.
I started The Odin Project about 2 months ago and just finished the Foundations module, which covers basic HTML/CSS/JavaScript. Now I’m moving on to the JavaScript track (instead of Ruby on Rails) which also covers React and Node.js.
60/40 split between doing readings on Odin and then exercises on Codecademy and Freecodecamp, which there’s a lot more of and presented in a better way.
I would like to be a full stack engineer, but I’m not sure that’s realistic for my first role. I do have a college buddy (non-CS) who graduated without a job, then did a bootcamp, and landed at Microsoft for his first role. But I think that’s an exception.
In a perfect world, I could pull off something like this too. But from what I’ve read, the more doable path might be Freelance → Front End Web Dev → Full Stack Engineer.
That’s good to know! Honestly YouTube sometimes makes it seem like everyone is a successful freelancer. Will definitely have to plan around that, and start making note of projects I could do.
Yes! I actually thought about getting a job in Scripting / QA. I think that of all the IT roles, these involve the most programming. I’ve also heard of those stories - internal hires from IT Support to Engineering. But I’ve heard that happens quite rarely, no?
Also, do you think that QA would be better than Data Analyst for getting dev job in the future?
You can have all the certificates & degrees, but what potential employers want to see what you can do. ie: you need to show, not tell. Which is why a portfolio of projects helps. It also helps if you can talk about the projects excitedly.
You can try applying for contractor jobs–that last a few months. That might be a way into a company that you’re interested in too and one that could lead to full time employment. I wouldn’t recommend data analytics unless you’re really interested in it. There’s not that much programming in that.
Ugh! The portfolio… So far I’ve made a rock-paper-scissors game with .js, as have 400k+ other people.
Joking aside, thanks for the solid advice. It’s definitely easier to follow lessons and do some codepen, so I’ve been avoiding scoping out an independent project. Will definitely keep that in mind though as I plan my time.
When you say “contractor”, do you mean for Web Dev roles or for QA roles?
QA. But I’d also suggest researching interview questions for the roles that you’re interested in too, so you can be prepared. And, if possible find someone in a job that you want and do an informal informational interview with them (look on LinkedIn for people to connect with who are in roles that you’d like). It may sound odd, but perhaps they can shed some more light on the job and field you’re wanting to get into.
Have you joined the CC discord server? There are other learners there that you can chat with and possibly start a group project with too. (The invite link is under “chat” at the top of the page).
I didn’t realize there was a Discord! Looks like it’s pretty active - I think the “Coding Buddies” would be pretty helpful for accountability, and for potentially finding a project group.
Hmm, okay. Will definitely have to look into the informational interviews.