Career choice advice

As I’ve already mentioned, it’s important to spend time learning about the different career options that are available. You want to make an informed decision on where you’ll be focusing your attention so you can avoid spending months (or even years) of your life headed in the wrong direction.

There are a couple of additional points to keep in mind.

You don’t have to be technical

If you read the news you’d be forgiven for thinking that tech consists solely of software developers and data scientists – people working in technical roles. They are responsible for building the software products and creating the algorithms that we use every day, and their positions are generally very well-paid, so they get a lot of attention.

But if you’re considering moving to a career in tech then it’s important you realize there are other options available, because technical roles are not for everyone.

You want to enjoy your new career, so you need to make sure you are temperamentally suited to the work. I can use myself as an example here – I can write some code and enjoy programming when I’m choosing to do it , but I would struggle to stay motivated if I had to do it all day, every day.

I wouldn’t have the intrinsic motivation I’d need to keep learning and leveling up my skills, especially when you compare me to someone who has a real love of the programming craft.

Many technical roles come with stringent educational requirements which makes it harder and more expensive to break into the industry. It’s possible to find positions in marketing or tech sales without specialized education in those fields, but it will be much harder in software development.

You’d need to consider attending a coding boot camp or some other kind of specialized education provider to prove you have the knowledge needed for the job. For roles like data scientist you’ll probably need to go even further, combining role-specific education with a high-level degree in a subject like mathematics or statistics.

I’m not saying any of this to try and convince you not to go after a technical role if that’s what you genuinely want. The world needs more programmers and data scientists! You just need to make sure that the role you chose is the role you really want to do.

Make use of your hard-earned experience

I’ve spoken with many professionals from fields like consulting, law, or finance, and asked them why they are looking to achieve by changing careers to tech.

I get a range of responses, but they generally group around themes like wanting more fulfillment from their work, feeling like they’re working on something important, a desire to get away from client work and so on.

Thankfully, you can achieve these goals without restarting your career from scratch and becoming a Javascript programmer.

The alternative is to make a horizontal move across industries. Make use of your hard-earned career capital – your transferable skills, experience and education, to get into a role that is interesting, pays well , is intellectually stimulating, and fulfills your needs across the other important areas of life, like work/life balance and social status. In many cases these roles will be quite closely related to your current work.

An example – say you’re a consultant at McKinsey and keen to make the jump to tech. You’ll have a far smoother transition (and make more money) if you’re able to turn your strategy and data analysis skills into a role in the corporate strategy team, rather than attempting to become a UX designer.

Now, if you want to transition to becoming a UX designer then of course, that’s fine. But the path will be longer and you’ll have to adjust your expectations when it comes to the transition timeline, your initial earning potential and so on.

But I hate my current role…

That’s a tough position to be in, but also understandable. One of the main motivating factors for many professionals looking to change to tech is a desire to get far away from their current line of work.

If you want to move away from your current role then you have a couple of options:

• Start down the path to a completely new career. Accept that you’ll likely have to make some sacrifices to your income and your place on the career ladder. Example: leaving corporate law to become a front-end developer
• Find a tech career that’s similar to your current role. Build industry experience, start networking and move to a new role a little further down the line. Example: going from corporate law to in-house counsel at a tech company, then shifting to product management in 18 months time

Some people may be unable to take a lower salary as they need to pay for mortgages, private school fees etc. And some of you may be unwilling to keep working in a role you hate.

Ultimately, it’s a personal choice you need to make.