Ask HN: What is the quickest path to a new career in tech?
7 comments
I have a Ph.D. In English and got involved in a startup while doing a postdoc. Initial gig was just copywriting but as the only non engineer, my role quickly grew into product mgmt, business strategy, marketing, partnerships etc. Small teams benefit a lot from someone with her broad range of skills and experience. Tell her to find a product she loves and try to join the team that's building it in whatever role possible.
Gotto be more specific here. There are many different roles in tech, from engineering to product management to sales etc. What does she want to do? What CAN she do? (I have no idea what a PHD in poli-sci will help in tech businesses)
The broadness is purposeful, specifically she is interested in what is the shortest path. She is interested in Computer Security, but I suspect there are shorter paths to landing a tech job.
Given my experience as a developer, getting a job as a developer is not the quickest path (experience and/or success are required to overcome a lack of a 4-year CS degree).
Given my experience as a developer, getting a job as a developer is not the quickest path (experience and/or success are required to overcome a lack of a 4-year CS degree).
I think there needs to be some narrowing down at least though, does she want to be a generic software developer? A web developer? An App developer? A UI designer? Does she want to leverage her degree?
The question as it stands is like asking "What's the shortest path to being a scientist?".
Certainly the quickest way is to actually do something, build a website or an app, learn Python and solve some problems. Pick a small personal problem and tackle it.
There are some software dev companies that will hire without any coding experience because they would rather teach you themselves. I'm not sure how I feel about that, but maybe it's for some people.
Would she consider a programming boot camp? Those are often targeted at getting new developers jobs post-completion.
The question as it stands is like asking "What's the shortest path to being a scientist?".
Certainly the quickest way is to actually do something, build a website or an app, learn Python and solve some problems. Pick a small personal problem and tackle it.
There are some software dev companies that will hire without any coding experience because they would rather teach you themselves. I'm not sure how I feel about that, but maybe it's for some people.
Would she consider a programming boot camp? Those are often targeted at getting new developers jobs post-completion.
Having come from a nontechnical background (a degree in hotel management) and made my way into the industry, the fastest way to me is to just start learning. I assume she has no idea what she really wants to do in the field anyways, so she should start exploring.
I recommend web development. It exposes you to many concepts along the way and can help give your friend a feel of what she would enjoy. That's what I did and now I find myself really loving backend work and fraud detection. She can take a focus on security during her learning and at least start to absorb general security practices, get into the right mindset to be good at it, and probably network within the security community easily enough.
I recommend web development. It exposes you to many concepts along the way and can help give your friend a feel of what she would enjoy. That's what I did and now I find myself really loving backend work and fraud detection. She can take a focus on security during her learning and at least start to absorb general security practices, get into the right mindset to be good at it, and probably network within the security community easily enough.
It depends a lot more on her strengths and background than anything else.
If she's the right kind of thinker, parlaying a polisci background into infosec isn't that hard -- there's a LOT of activity around the infosec policy specialties right now. I'm a hacker by trade, but one of the two coworkers I work most closely with is an attourney. Having the "dynamic duo" of technologically-literate lawyer and legally-literate technologist on hand can be extremely useful.
OTOH, if she actually wants to go into technology rather than policy-around-technology, the fast track is to build things, work with experienced teams, and read a lot. I don't have or particularly feel I need a degree. The only place that not having one has ever caused me problems is academia, and even there it is just a political problem.
I've spent my life building, learning, and working with bright people. Some strategy highlights:
* Don't confine yourself to teams of fellow newbies. It may feel safer for your ego, but you won't learn as fast.
* Be willing to do scut work -- i.e. boring, repetitive tasks -- to endear yourself to projects you want to learn on. Showing you will do work is the best way to demonstrate to others that it's worth it to them to teach you. Show up and start cleaning up documentation. Give support on IRC. Do issue queue triage. Fix small bugs, then work your way up.
* Read. Constantly. Ask hackers you respect what they are reading.
* Try many things and figure out what your strengths are, then build on those strengths, rather than just trying for what others say is easy.
* If you are serious about programming, don't just learn one programming language. There's a skill ceiling that (as far as I can tell) cannot be broken until one has worked in several programming languages built on different paradigms.
* If you are serious about infosec, don't just spend your time around people who've learned to go through checklists or use tools by rote. Find people building and analyzing from first principles, and get in with them.
* Find a project that needs a volunteer to do the things you want to ultimately do for pay, then volunteer. Do an amazing job. You'll learn a lot (often scrambling to learn on the job), and you'll end up with some work to show up and some good references.
* Spend time networking (the social kind) and use it. Nobody knows everything. But, if you know enough people, you probably know how to find out just about anything. Be helpful to others and you'll always have people ready to help you when you need it.
* If your urge to get into the industry really outweighs other concerns, consider low-barrier jobs like NOC Monkey (sit at a datacenter during off-hours, stare at screens, call admins if there's an emergency) or Hell Desk (aka Help Desk or Tech Support) just to get into companies and see how they work, then work your way up or job hop. These jobs don't usually pay much, but they do give a lot of insight and usually aren't demanding enough that you can't also work the other strategies while you have them.
If she's the right kind of thinker, parlaying a polisci background into infosec isn't that hard -- there's a LOT of activity around the infosec policy specialties right now. I'm a hacker by trade, but one of the two coworkers I work most closely with is an attourney. Having the "dynamic duo" of technologically-literate lawyer and legally-literate technologist on hand can be extremely useful.
OTOH, if she actually wants to go into technology rather than policy-around-technology, the fast track is to build things, work with experienced teams, and read a lot. I don't have or particularly feel I need a degree. The only place that not having one has ever caused me problems is academia, and even there it is just a political problem.
I've spent my life building, learning, and working with bright people. Some strategy highlights:
* Don't confine yourself to teams of fellow newbies. It may feel safer for your ego, but you won't learn as fast.
* Be willing to do scut work -- i.e. boring, repetitive tasks -- to endear yourself to projects you want to learn on. Showing you will do work is the best way to demonstrate to others that it's worth it to them to teach you. Show up and start cleaning up documentation. Give support on IRC. Do issue queue triage. Fix small bugs, then work your way up.
* Read. Constantly. Ask hackers you respect what they are reading.
* Try many things and figure out what your strengths are, then build on those strengths, rather than just trying for what others say is easy.
* If you are serious about programming, don't just learn one programming language. There's a skill ceiling that (as far as I can tell) cannot be broken until one has worked in several programming languages built on different paradigms.
* If you are serious about infosec, don't just spend your time around people who've learned to go through checklists or use tools by rote. Find people building and analyzing from first principles, and get in with them.
* Find a project that needs a volunteer to do the things you want to ultimately do for pay, then volunteer. Do an amazing job. You'll learn a lot (often scrambling to learn on the job), and you'll end up with some work to show up and some good references.
* Spend time networking (the social kind) and use it. Nobody knows everything. But, if you know enough people, you probably know how to find out just about anything. Be helpful to others and you'll always have people ready to help you when you need it.
* If your urge to get into the industry really outweighs other concerns, consider low-barrier jobs like NOC Monkey (sit at a datacenter during off-hours, stare at screens, call admins if there's an emergency) or Hell Desk (aka Help Desk or Tech Support) just to get into companies and see how they work, then work your way up or job hop. These jobs don't usually pay much, but they do give a lot of insight and usually aren't demanding enough that you can't also work the other strategies while you have them.
I see plenty of jobs in QA, a lot of those remote as well. This is good for someone that is organized, thoughtful and sometimes ideally not a programmer. Writing test cases, automation, documentation of bugs, etc. This would be a pretty quick way I believe, not to minimize the role of a good QA person in anyway.
If she happened to take a quantitative methods focus for her PhD in Poli-Sci she could possibly head for the data science segment. Even better if she already knows R.
You don't need a degree, most programmers are self taught.
Take a basic idea and figure out how to go make it. Hands on experience and YouTube or Google is all you need.
Take a basic idea and figure out how to go make it. Hands on experience and YouTube or Google is all you need.
As she's a she, check out Hackbright Academy. Disclaimer: I used to teach there.
Have a portfolio.
In 2016 how does a person switch careers to a career in tech?