A few months ago, I accepted my first software development position with my company. It was a really cool moment, and it was a culmination of around four years of work, practice, courses, and being swayed back and forth on different languages and techniques. Several people in my life now have learned that "I work in I.T." and ask about how I made the career switch, and when you get the same question several times you know what comes next - a blog post!
Below will be a brief recap of my career, what I did and my motivations for doing it, and a few lessons I've learned along the way that I would give to anyone else looking to get into I.T. or software development more specifically.
Where I started
I went to school for Sports Management. I wanted to work in the front office of a major sports team. That was the line I repeatedly told anyone who asked. I did not have a specific role in the front office defined in my goals but usually would default to something like "probably sports marketing." That's a role that has a sexy title but keeps you away from being in sports sales. Funny enough, sports sales has the highest number of job positions available and seemingly the lowest amount of people interested.
I graduated from school (both a bachelors and masters degree in Sports Management), and found positions with the Washington Nationals first (Inside Sales) then D.C. United (Account Executive) where I spent roughly the next four years of my life. I loved it at D.C. United despite the atrocious stadium we had to work in (that could be another blog post, but we were young and could work through anything). But I spent almost four years in the same job and knew that sales just wasn't my thing. And with life changes occurring in my late 20s, I needed to find something new that would fit the life I wanted. I guess that's a vague way of saying I wanted to be paid more and work a normal amount of hours in a week (sports can have you work way over 40 hours per week and the salaries can be heavily diminished due to "demand" of people wanting to get into the field).
The interest in I.T. begins
In 2018, I made a bold jump to take my first job out of the sports management career. It was scary, since I felt I was starting over at 28 and even though, yes, I was still young, I didn't feel young. But I found a position at a real estate tech startup (Compass) as a Customer Success Manager for the real estate agents. I loved it there. While at Compass, I started editing the HTML for our Agent's profile pages. I was just following a script made my someone else, so I didn't know exactly what I was doing. But my interest in learning about HTML started there. In the summer of 2019, I enrolled in my first HTML course at Codecademy and built the brown bear website. I think that course, as of this writing, is still there today - good times! I found freeCodeCamp shortly after and did their HTML/CSS course, and I did a short Python for Data Science course to close out 2019. I was hooked - I wanted to be a software developer.
But how could I do it? Bootcamps are quick but were expensive and I'd have to leave my job, plus take the extra time after the bootcamp to find a job. That's a lot of money to spend/lose and the opportunity cost could be very high. Learning on my own is mostly free, but it can take much longer to make that transition. And as much as I would have loved to go and get my Computer Science degree, that's another 2+ year commitment that would cost a lot of money that I didn't have. For the time being, I would learn on my own.
The strategy
In 2020, I left Compass due to moving out of the area, and in early 2021 I joined Cybrary as a member of their customer experience team. It was a good role that gave me access to a lot of online training for I.T. and Cybersecurity. On one of Cybrary's podcasts, they invited Meg West onto the show. She described how she was able to get her first Cybersecurity role by laterally moving within her company from her non-I.T. position to a cyber role. The hardest part is getting that first job, and sometimes the best opportunity to land that first role can come at the place you're already working. That was a lesson which sticks with me to this day.
One of my good friends in I.T. recommended that while at Cybrary I should get my Security+ certification. It's a great entry-level certification, and it's a door-opener for I.T. roles of all types. It took about four months of hard studying, but I passed the test! Almost immediately a service desk position opened up at my friend's company that required the Security+, and I applied and got it. With Meg's story in mind, I got to know our software development team within the first few months and started studying the tools they used to maintain our applications.
While at the service desk, I worked as hard as I could to learn the job, build a reputation of consistency and excellence in the office, and be open about my career goals with my manager. My manager told me he expected that his service desk technicians would want to move elsewhere in tech and he envisioned the service desk as a training ground for better things. I told him early on I wanted to be a software developer, and if there was ever a fit I would want to check out opportunities within the company.
The Offer
Over the summer of 2023, I worked to earn two required certifications for our software development team. I didn't know if anything would materialize, but I wanted to put myself in the best position in case an opening came up. The manager on our development team included me on some of the team's meetings, and I was given a small application assignment to work on while having down time at the service desk.
In the fall, I was informed that a position would be opening shortly that would be using Pegasystems for development (it's a low-code Platform as a Service (PaaS) for creating business-process apps). The position required a certification for Pega that I did not have (Pega Certified System Architect), but I started studying while going through the application process. The exam was hard, and I failed the first time by one question. The second time, I passed and was offered the role on our software team - I had made it! My first day was December 1, 2023.
The lessons I learned a long the way
It's been a few months since I started my position on the development team at work. I have loved it, but it's been the hardest job I've had. There is a lot still to learn, but my team is really great and has helped me when I have questions or get stuck something. I tried to be as brief as possible while providing as much context as I could, but there were a lot of things I left out in the essence of time. But below are several lessons I want to pass on in hopes that it can help someone else who transitions careers like I did.
Look at where you currently are: if you are already working at a company, see what types of software development opportunities already exist. Find the manager of the Dev team and let them know about your interest. Ask to shadow someone for a few hours, or if there are any volunteer projects you can hack on. Also, ask if you can join their meetings every once in awhile. Also, look at the job board on your company to see what job requirements are provided for the role you want. After you gather this type of information, start studying those languages and tools.
Don't be afraid of the service desk: the service desk is a great place to get your foot in the door. There are many in the I.T. field who will absolutely refuse the service desk ("I just don't want to work with customers"), but don't be that person. The service desk is a straight-up skill-builder and will only help you get better.
You don't need a Computer Science degree or to be some sort of math genius to code: you may already know this, but a CS degree and exceptional math skills are not required. They certainly help for sure, and being good at math is needed if you want to be on the cutting edge of AI and machine learning. But a software developer does not need to have a CS degree. Math-wise, know what PEMDAS is and some basic logic, and you'll be good. Those who require a CS degree are, frankly, way behind the times.
Consistency is the king of learning: having discipline and consistency in learning, especially if you're self-taught, is crucial. Make a goal of spending X minutes a day coding based on your schedule, and really try to hold yourself to it. In 6-8 months of being consistent with learning, you'll be thrilled at the process you have made. (Check out Atomic Habits by James Clear by the way- fantastic book).
Build your portfolio of work: This is a mistake I made and will not make again. When I applied for the developer role at work, I didn't have a portfolio saved to show them what I had done. That almost cost me the job. If you haven't started one yet, start saving your projects to Github. Proof of learning and building side projects is very helpful.
Build your reputation wherever you are: my last piece of advice is almost one of the most important - build your reputation at work. Be professional. Be on time. Find the metrics that you are judged at for work and exceed them. Be friendly with everyone and also be present and visible in the company. This can greatly help you later on. And this is possible even being 100% remote! I was 100% remote at Cybrary and in a vastly different time zone, yet I was active on the company Slack and I went to as many company meetings as possible.
So that's it! That's my story up to this point. I was as brief as I could be, and I left out other things that I may write about in the future (tutorial hell, being distracted by the next shiny object, imposter syndrome). All of these topics happened to me along the way as well. Thanks for reading, and I'll see you at my next post!
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