How to Switch Career to Tech
(2 Min Read) Advice from people who have successfully switched careers to tech.
Sometimes people who are not in tech but want to switch careers to tech, ask me for advice on how to do so.
I never had a good answer to this question because I have been an engineer all my life. Instead of saying, “I don’t know,” I decided to find out by asking my colleagues who are now in the tech industry but came to it by doing a career change.
When I started this exploration, one thing that surprised me was that more people have non-engineering backgrounds than I expected.
I now know engineers1 who in their past lives (pre-engineer) were marine scientists, neuroscientists, professional gamblers, military officers, lead guitarists, Swiss-cheese/Wine tasters in Switzerland, investment bankers, and an accountant in the construction industry.
Learning about their past profession makes me even more curious about how one chart a path from a completely different profession to engineering. When asked 9/10 people shared a story about the unconventional path they took.
Everyone acquired basic skills by doing either 100DaysOfCode, Coding BootCamps, side-projects, hackathons, etc., and then figured out their own path to tech.
Some colleagues worked in consulting, transitioned within the company, worked on OpenSource projects, started a tech company, etc. Everyone journey was different, but they all had one thing in common, i.e.:
Everyone had to carve out their path for themselves. There is no runbook or transcript that one can follow to replicate the process.
But, how did they carve out the path?
During my conversations, I have asked these questions numerous times to identify replicable attributes that may apply more generally and make carving paths easy and predictable. The following attributes come up repeatedly (the acronym is GATE):
Set the Goal
Acquire basic skills
Trust the process
Execute the next step and keep moving forward
At first, these attributes don’t seem much, but that’s 100% of what it takes to do a switch career to tech.
Every time I dig further, I get the same answer in different forms. “There is no map that everyone can follow. The best thing to do is identify the next step that brings you closer to the goal and continue to drive towards it. Trust the process and continue to move forward. You will and must carve your path.”
So while I can’t give you an exact roadmap or transcript because one doesn’t exist, I can share the above advice I have accumulated from people who have successfully changed their careers to one in tech.
If you plan to do a career change to tech, realize that everyone2 can do so. No two people will experience the same hurdles or shortcuts. The best way to achieve this career change is to make it a goal, get basic skills, trust the process, execute the next step and keep moving forward. In other words, walk through the GATE 😁 (pun intended).
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The same is true for other tech roles, but we will focus on engineering.
I possibly have some confirmation bias as I have only talked to colleagues who have successfully changed their careers, but the reason I am confident is that so many of their peers have succeeded as well.