It’s Never Too Late to Get into Tech
One night, I was browsing Twitter like any internet attached individual would and I came across an interesting conversation in which people were talking about how you need to develop skills early in life so you can have a good career for the rest of your life.
The idea of this bugged me, being someone who taught a group of people well into their 30’s and 40’s, coming from various backgrounds and careers, how to program. Their Linked In profiles suggest that a good majority of them have become successful developers shortly after and this fills me with an overwhelming sense of joy that I had changed people’s lives.
With all that being said, if you are still feeling discouraged from breaking into the tech industry or feel lost on where to start, here are some tips on where to start so you can begin the process of starting a career in tech, no matter how far into your life you are.
Note: A lot of these can be done without leaving your current career, with just a small dedication of an hour of learning every day (and honestly, when you are learning and find something that really piques your interest, the hour of learning can easily turn into an accidental all-nighter).
1. Self-Taught Programming
Understandably so, this can be a very intimidating thing to do, but being able to teach yourself something new is ultimately an important skill in the tech field because developers need to teach their selves new things all the time, whether it’s a new tool to add to their code base or an entirely new programming language.
Getting started just involves deciding what programming to start and going to sites like Udemy or Codecademy. If those two sites aren’t quite your flavor then looking for crash courses on Youtube (link takes you to crash courses for Python but you could insert and language there and get tons of results) is also a great option.
Now, while it’s important to learn what each of the key words and phrases such as:
Console.WriteLine("Insert Text Here");What is more important when you’re first beginning to program is learning the concepts. Things like classes, functions, parameters, etc. are going to be showing up over and over between tons of languages so make sure you really focus on those. Once you have the basics of one language, I’d recommend learning a second language to really double down on important topics with different syntax. Sometimes it is very helpful to see the same concepts in another context for things to really click.
2. Community Outreach
If you go to Meetup.com and look around your area, there might be a few groups dedicated to technology, programming, and helping people with their transition into the industry. There are a lot of benefits to going with this approach, but naturally it is a little more involved.
One of those benefits is that you have a community of people to help you get started. Admittedly, starting from zero experience, self teaching from that point is not for everybody. Some people truly need a small helping hand and that’s not a bad thing. Humans are social creatures after all. Having a community to help you get set your machine up, teach you the basics, and tell you what you need to focus on in real time is incredibly helpful to learning quickly.
Another benefit to this option is that recruiters will often come to technology meetups and announce things like job openings. This is a great way to introduce yourself and get your foot in the door.
Finally, going to tech meetups is a great way to learn what is out there. The world of technology can often evolve very quick as you learn one thing and another thing has now popped up and become in demand. Meetups are a great place to catch up and discuss these.
3. Boot Camps And Other Similar Programs
There are plenty of boot camps and programs in the US that make bold promises to teach you everything you know to be successful in the technology industry. Having come from a boot camp to start my career and even going on to helping teach in another boot camp, I find this to be the best way to break into the technology industry.
While it is certainly possible for someone to get into the industry by just teaching their selves how to code (and don’t get me wrong, many people do), the approach doesn’t work for some people. After all, you don’t know what you don’t know and it can be hard to find a pretty good starting point.
Boot camps fix this issue by having courses designed around zero experience students to help them ease into everything they need to know. There are also all sorts of boot camps out there, ranging from ones you can do after your day job, to ones that require in person attendance (though in the time of writing this in the year 2020, that is unlikely).
The only thing I could really say about boot camps is to be careful about which one you choose. Really read into the reviews for each one and see if it is right for you.
