Changing Careers: Getting into Tech - Tips from Self Taught Programmers

are you thinking about making the transition into the tech industry if you are I'm sure you have a ton of questions about the process about what you should learn and about where do you even start so I've interviewed three brilliant self-taught programmers on the topic all of these women have had a different career path in mind but then they fell in love with programming and decided to make a transition into tech you will hear from Eden from Kellan and Alex and their paths into tech their career paths have been fascinating and they have so much goodness to share so let's get into the interview I'm a software engineer at an insurer tech startup called lemonade I do back-end engineering another customer-facing product so if you're a policyholder customer of ours you've touched things that I've helped build so that's pretty cool I am working to start off I'm going to tell you a little bit about my journey through lamda which was on my bootcamp and I currently am still working for them as a section lead so as a section lead on over students and I just make sure that they understand the core curriculum and that they're on the right track that they're turning in their module assignments I do plenty of one-on-ones to make sure that they're learning and absorbing everything that they need to know about iOS I used to be a teacher but about five years ago I left the classrooms and I start working in tech companies since then I have been fascinated with India accusing hundreds of breath problems and I found out that programming includes all my passions like creativity organizational logical thinking and these endless puzzle that I loved herself it is to that I still believe in the power of programming to change improve life of people around the world so last year I decided to focus in build my career as a software developer before getting into tech I was really in an entrepreneurial spirit type place I started a small company called ratchet fitness app because I was a personal trainer at the time and this app was pretty much designed to bridge the gap between clients and trainers on an online platform so that there was no requirement to go to the gym for custom fitness that's what really got me into iOS development so as I wanted to produce this app I just fell in over the process of design development execution and that's what led me to land the school before I got into tech I was actually very premed I studied neuroscience at the University of Michigan and a biomedical research for four years the whole thing long story short I took the MCAT and was applying to med schools and eventually in the application they asked you know why do you want to be a doctor and I was like that's a great question let me think about that and the more I thought about it the more I was like wait I don't think this is what I want and so before I abandoned my lifelong dream I took a year off and went to a new country I ended up in Israel and that was five years ago and I've been here ever since but taking that you're off allowed me to explore things that was curious about that I had never looked into before or had the time and one of those was programming my brother is a computer engineer and I saw him doing all these things and he would show me you know his projects and I was really impressed but it was so beyond me I I didn't understand it but because I didn't understand it at all I was really curious to know more and so during this year I took the time when I wasn't working to teach myself programming and the more I got into it the more I was like wait this is you know something I kind of have a feel for and I want to explore more so I did a coding bootcamp for five months and it was a full-stack program I didn't know what that meant before I started my brother tried to explain it to me I still didn't get it but by the end I ended up getting a job at the company I'm at now lemonade as a front-end engineer and I didn't even when I started working I didn't even really know what it meant to work every day so software engineer so I kind of just Dovan headfirst and that's how I got where I am today my biggest challenge to your land of school was believing in myself there was a huge gap between what I thought I was capable of versus what my actual capabilities are once I was able to develop some self-confidence and really set goals and orient myself to believe that I could do it it became a little easier of course there are always challenges in development but that was definitely the biggest one I faced through school didn't get challenged to get out of my comfort zone I always I was always more involved with Human Sciences and with it was difficult for me understand some concepts of programming so I gave up sometimes at the beginning and if I could go back in time in do and do something different differently I would have pushed myself hard harder I would not have given up there have been a lot of challenges um one started at the beginning of my journey when we first learned for loops and or the whole concept of loops and I couldn't get it I didn't understand it I was starting to doubt myself doubt if you know coding was right for me if you know this would ever work out and eventually I push through and I got it and now I can't even understand how I didn't get it before so I guess what I'm trying to say is don't let it freak you out when you first start learning to code because it's a completely different way of thinking and don't compare yourself to others because I came in with that pre-med sort of competitive mentality and I think it just made me really down on myself and her myself when I didn't need to be and everyone gets things at their own pace and just keep pushing and um another big challenge was that when I first started at my job I was the only female on the entire engineering team um and not only that I was the youngest by far everyone seemed to be you know very senior hand-picked from other companies so I was definitely the only junior there um among a lot of other differences and it was really tough yeah I'm not gonna lie but yeah it made me a lot stronger and another big challenge that came along with that was a lot of imposter syndrome felt that a lot still feel that even today but would I change anything I think maybe I would change I wouldn't change my degree I love studying neuroscience um I think I would change how hard I was on myself and how for so long for the first few years at my job I was always trying to prove myself and I think that put a lot of unnecessary pressure on myself um it wasn't good and I think if I was easier on myself I think it would have helped me gain that confidence faster um but honestly would I change anything about my experience not really because as cheesy as it sounds like it got me to where I am today and I'm really happy and proud of that I believe that anyone can get into that I am in love that I needed it they survive I had no experience and I've learned a thing but of course you need a lot of maintenance yes or no I think everyone should definitely try tech try some kind of technical career explore programming a hundred and ten percent like please try it if I hadn't tried it I wouldn't be here now I wouldn't be doing what I'm doing now so you really never know um but is it for everyone no just like being a doctor or a lawyer or teacher isn't for everyone um so everyone should definitely explore it but is it for everyone no and that's okay I 1000% believe that anyone can go into tech if you have the drive and you don't want to there's literally no holding you back it's an amazing career choice and I would have done anything differently for anyone who's thinking of transitioning into tech like I did um I have lots of advice but I guess one thing would be to not compare yourself to others it's not a race really isn't and it doesn't matter how quickly or slowly you're catching on to some concepts all that matters at the end of the day is that you can keep pushing forward you're challenging yourself and always learning new things so don't be hard on yourself and also don't get discouraged because programming is a completely different way of thinking and I think people underestimate that and so when you're first starting out things are gonna be things are gonna be hard and it's not because you can't do them or you know it's too hard it's just that it's hard and you'll learn and you'll get through it and and you'll be challenged and and learn from those experiences um but don't let it scare you away from continuing on learning programming it's just heart and and that's what you signed up for you wanted a challenge and so you're in the right place the other thing I would say is don't be afraid to Google things like please Google everything whether you have ten years of experience or ten minutes of experience it doesn't matter it's not cheating if you google things everyone does it it's part of the job I would even say like I joke with my friends that I'm a professional Googler but I it's not really a joke I am um so it's a matter of you know figuring things out knowing that you're gonna get a problem that you've never seen before you don't know how to deal with it but that's fine you'll think about it based on past experiences or you'll google it and that's how it works so when I first started I was taking cs50 like Harvard's cs50 course online and the first assignment they gave us this Python exercise and I promised myself I would give myself two weeks to like go at it full force not Google anything and that was such a waste of time because in the end after two weeks of still not getting it I googled the answer and I was like wait they didn't teach us that in class or I didn't know we could use that mess the whole point like they can't teach you everything all the different tools you can use so that's why you have Google so they teach you the basics and you know you have to sort of take that and go for it there's nothing that's out of bounds or oh we haven't gotten to that unit yet I can't use this like no you can use everything in anything that's out there um be creative have fun and be resourceful so use everything that you can to help yourself and there that is not cheating my advice for this learning a lot make a transition to thank ace be consistent I started to improve when I did engage with the game without everyday for me this happen with identity wonder base of course challenge and increase commitment and I started sharing my girls with the community every day energies gave me a lot of motivation you don't want to if you don't want you you don't need any challenges but at least keeping a consistent take him like 15 minutes and they every day - really and with time you see a great progress and did you give a lot of motivation to keep moving forward for anyone thinking about making the transition to tech I cannot say enough about the community that is behind you and the support that you have before I was in tech I've never had the kind of support and love and passion behind me that I do now I can get on any social media and find a million people that are saying amazing things about other developers and I think that that is what truly makes the tech community amazing so if you are thinking about transitioning and you love people that are supportive encouraging and loving then make the lead and we'll be right here waiting thank you so much Eden Kellen and Alex for sharing your experiences and your advice make sure that you follow these wonderful ladies on social media because they are sharing so much value on a regular basis I hope this was helpful for your decision making process let me know in the comments below what industry you're trying to transition out of and watch out for next week's video where I will interview another three badass self-taught programmers on their learning process subscribe to my channel not to miss that video like this video if you've enjoyed it and share it with a friend who is also thinking about making the transition into the tech industry and we can also be friends on other social media you can find me as coding blonde have a wonderful time today you're currently experiencing bye

Channel: Stereotype Breakers

Views: 20,754

Keywords: coding blonde, women in tech, career in tech, career, how to get into tech without a degree, self-taught programmer, career in technology, how to get into tech, self taught programmer, programming job without degree, career change into coding, transition into tech, career change to tech

Id: 0dgyNMsSDjw

Length: 16min 1sec (961 seconds)

Published: Sat May 16 2020