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Ask HN: What's the fastest way to become employable in tech

25 points by OliverGilan 5y ago

Hello HN, I have quite a few friends who didn't study CS and don't know anything about programming but they hate their fields and want to switch. What's the best book, course, etc. that can take someone from zero knowledge to somewhat employable in tech? Employable is a vague term but when I think about most online college courses I imagine they teach more theory than practical skills used in most tech jobs to me. I'd imagine learning web development is probably the fastest track to becoming employable today but I'm curious what your recommendations are for how to learn that in the fastest way.

mrtrombone 5y ago
The right starting point is probably "what are their skills and interests" and based on that what is the simplest thing to segue into. Obviously this forum is mostly focused on developers but there is a while world of business analysts, technical writers, testers etc out there and these are often pretty convenient to get into if a person comes from a more 'liberal arts' / soft skills type job.
toomuchtodo 5y ago
A bootcamp with a good reputation. Fastest way from zero to entry level SWE.
- atatatat 5y ago
  Name one?
  - weatherlight 5y ago
    app academy
    - atatatat 5y ago
      That's a cool trick — do you do birthdays?
      - weatherlight 5y ago
        im sorry, do you find the quality of the candidates from app academy to be sub par compared to candidates from other boot camps?
- brianwawok 5y ago
  As someone who hires, I have no idea how to tell a good bootcamp from a bad bootcamp. So they are all the same to me. I hope the applicant has projects / something outside of school homework to demo,
yuppie_scum 5y ago
If it was easy, the salaries wouldn’t be so high
- _8j50 5y ago
  In my experience, the easier the work the higher the salary. No one gets paid for working hard, they get paid for demand of their skill and expetience relative to supply.
  - kongolongo 5y ago
    I think there can be truth to both. Consider the fact that it may seem easy to you because it's almost second nature in a sense where you're unaware consciously of how much it would take an average person to learn what you're doing from scratch. >No one gets paid for working hard, they get paid for demand of their skill and expetience relative to supply. I think that's generally true, but that doesn't mean it doesn't take a lot of initial hard work to gain the skills and experience necessary to work "easily" ofcourse there's some people where those skills came easily first anyways but I think those are generally at the tail end of the curve.
    - _8j50 5y ago
      Learning is not work though. Hard work to learn skills is not the same as the job itself being hard for skilled people. Compare that with unskilled work like manual labor where you still might need to work hard to develop skills but the work is also hard and they pay is very low. Too much supply due to low barrier of entry.
      - ineedasername 5y ago
        I think under that definition, wouldn't all work be easy? The hard part is learning, after that it's all easy because you already have the skill. The only hard work that would be left out is work that is literally hard I'm it's physical demands. Even then, the mental portion would be easy. I may be missing a subtlety of what you mean. Can you give an example of a hard job?
sushsjsuauahab 5y ago
If you already have a college degree, just write your own program that does something. That's the best way to learn and gain marketable xp at the same time.
new_guy 5y ago
Why do people insist on trivialising our profession so much? You don't get bootcamps for doctors or airline pilots. But people think they can go on some course, shit out a few lines of javascript/ruby/whatever and go get a job.
- paxys 5y ago
  That's because you literally can do that.
  - rsj_hn 5y ago
    If you are highly talented, sure. There are also piano prodigies, whereas everyone else has to study for many years to reach that level of proficiency and may never reach it. Some can pick it up mind-boggingly quickly because their brains are naturally good at formal thinking, keeping many variables in their head, and being extremely precise and logical in their thoughts without much training. But again, that's such a small share of the population that "be a prodigy" is not really useful life advice.
    - mirker 5y ago
      Being a prodigy is not necessary to set up a webpage (or whatever). I’d argue most jobs are processing low-grade data with legacy frameworks, which is a test of patience and not prodigy IQ.
      - rsj_hn 5y ago
        > Being a prodigy is not necessary to set up a webpage True, but you are not going to get a tech job because you can set up a webpage. Maybe in 1999 San Francisco, but the world has moved on. There are actually not that many jobs open to people who just know how to deal with a web framework.
        mirker 5y ago
        I just looked for Drupal and Wordpress jobs and they exist ($60k/year seems normal). Since the whole point of these frameworks is to abstract out actually writing the bulk of server code, I’d imagine a large part of the job is dealing with legacy quirks, uploading photos, and keeping servers up. There’s clearly a business need but as far as I know, there isn’t a mathematical-type of hardness to managing these types of websites. And on Wallstreet you have trading being performed with VBA Excel scripts…
speedgoose 5y ago
Why the fastest way ? Usually people ask for the best way.
jstx1 5y ago
- When you try to do things as quickly as possible you often end up cutting corners, sometimes too many corners. - There's a lot of people trying to fast-track their learning and get into software and it's not an easy position to be in. It's a saturated market. - It might turn out that software isn't for your friends either - personal preference, interests, aptitude etc. I would point them to some beginner resources and let them explore it for a while in their spare time before jumping in and committing seriously.
noman-land 5y ago
Start in tech support. You'll learn an insane amount and be right near the people you want to become.
- jc_811 5y ago
  This so much. I’ve had friends wanting to make the switch from totally non-technical industries, who only want to be hired as a full stack developer after a taking some online classes. In my opinion, the absolute best way to make the switch is to start in tech support. It’s the same concept of the only true way to learn a 2nd language is immersion by living in the country. The only true way to make the switch to tech is to be immersed in it. Starting in tech support at a small-to-mid-size startup is such a strong and viable path, it’s a shame most people don’t realize that.
- shmde 5y ago
  Tech support is just saying people to switch on off stuff and troubleshoot things which already have pre-made solutions. How can a person switch from this to a full blown career in tech ? My advice would be to start from being a manual test engineer move to automation test engineer work closely with devs in this position and slowly switch to a software dev. I say start with manual test engineer, because the entry barrier is very low and you can work your way up to become a software engineer. Will definitely take time ( years easily ) but its achievable this way I feel.
  - jc_811 5y ago
    Respectfully, I couldn’t disagree more. I’m not referring to the traditional call center “is it plugged in?” Tech support. I mean working as a “support engineer” for a start-up SaaS company whose users can be fairly technical themselves. For example, working on the support team of a B2B SaaS company who makes a tool for IT teams. These types of roles can be filled by just about anyone, and there is so much to learn just by being around the environment. Lots of things we (people already in tech) take for granted is just how much one can learn by being around devs, sales, success, QA, devops, etc teams on a daily basis.
  - toast0 5y ago
brian_spiering 5y ago
Related to starting in tech support, try to get an entry-level job in quality assurance (QA) / quality control (QC). You'll get exposure to software engineering and software engineers, then make more an informed decision about the field.
- kgeist 5y ago
  That's how some of our engineers started.
qualudeheart 5y ago
6 month cyber security study and then go blue team. Don’t bother with penetration testing.
- boppo1 5y ago
  Why not bother with pentesting?
  - qualudeheart 5y ago
    Pentesting is much more saturated than defensive security is. Everyone wants to be a hacker.
    - the_only_law 5y ago
      What does “blue team” stuff typically include. A lot of the security people I’ve worked with in large enterprises just run canned tools, configure appliances or think about compliance stuff and then fill out a shit ton of paperwork. Makes sense why everyone wants to go offensive in that case.
      - rsj_hn 5y ago
        The trick is to find a company that has to take security seriously, and then that company will have some meaningful blue-team work even though there is an ocean of tool running, compliance paperwork. So for example, Microsoft, Google, Amazon, they all have good product security teams that do meaningful stuff, where "meaningful stuff" is defined as: - design and development of security features and defense mechanisms - design reviews, code reviews - innovative tool development (as opposed to just running) - development and improvement of Big data/statistical analysis You just have to find a team actually doing that, and not a team doing compliance stuff. But there are such teams.
sebisebi 5y ago
Bootcamp. Friend of mine did a bootcamp recently, and had three offers two weeks after finishing. It was pretty intense at 6 days a week 10h each. They seemed to cover a lot of ground. There are bootcamp comparison sites that show how the people landed after a few month. The market is pretty hot right now which seems to translate into easier entry for new people, which was usually the hardest part.
- rognjen 5y ago
  The market is also full of less-than-ethical companies exploiting exactly the type of people OP described.
hartator 5y ago
Unpopular view here, but if they want to do code just because they hear it pays well, steer them away. Coding is not easy. And it requires a lot of fiddling with things and a lot alone time trying to figure things out. Transcribe your own solutions in working code and communicate elegantly about them is also an art form by itself and it’s not accessible to many.
- tlackemann 5y ago
  This. Please, we don't need any more wage slaves in this industry. I already work with a bunch of people who don't have any interest in correct solutions but would rather just ship code. Feedback is non-existent or unwelcome. If their code is wrong, it's not, you're wrong. I'm 10-years professional and I have never met such a rude and entitled generation of bootcampers who think they deserve six-figures for figuring how how to return an array, Rant over. Please join tech or engineering because it genuinely excites or interests you. Not because the wages are higher.
  - arvigeus 5y ago
    I have 10 years of experience. I can say with authority that I know very little. The only thing I learned is to recognise faster when my code sucks (I still struggle to write a good code)
    - sovietmudkipz 5y ago
      I identify with this, a bit. I’m getting more serious about writing testing, and it seems to give me some confidence. I recommend a few books. Growing Object Oriented software guided by tests. It lays out a clear plan on starting and how one can approach building tests. Next would be dependency injection: principles and practices. Maybe try the GOOS book first and see if it resonates with you.
- apohn 5y ago
  One thing to remember is that a lot of people who start out coding end up somewhere else in a Tech company. I've worked with a lot of people with Engineering and CS degrees who worked as developers writing code for 2-3 years and didn't enjoy coding full time. Then they moved to other teams where they coded only a little bit (e.g. PreSales) or didn't code at all (Product Management, Project Management, Marketing, Sales, Education, etc). Sometimes learning to code is the easiest entry point into a "Tech" job.
Shadonototra 5y ago
tech? what do you mean exactly?
EdSharkey 5y ago
Are they intelligent and conscientious? Look for DevOps engineering jobs. Great, low risk way to gradually become tech savvy that can lead to more technical, higher paying gigs over time. Fake it till you make it, just like any other career.
- chefkoch 5y ago
  Since when is DevOps a junior position? Who is going to let some one new to the game learn in their infra?
winkelwagen 5y ago
I would invest learning to develop for enterprise tools. Things like episerver, sitecore adobe cms, Shopify or sap stuff. Definitely would say it’s the most interesting way to develop software but companies are willing to shelve out the big bucks after buying some of these obscenely expensive license’s. Pretty well paid cushy jobs
- justaj 5y ago
  > Definitely would say it’s the most interesting way to develop software but companies are willing to shelve out the big bucks after buying some of these obscenely expensive license’s. This does make it sound pretty appealing. What makes developing enterprise software interesting to you?
  - sovietmudkipz 5y ago
    I suspect it’s a typo. Either that or the commenter is really stoked about integrating platforms.
weatherlight 5y ago
First get a job in Customer Operations, Technical Support, Manual QA or Platform Configuration Management. Then try to find a mentor in your work place that will champion you and help you grow into the area of tech that you want to do, whether that product, data, engineering or what ever. Side note: Software engineers never graduate. The moment an engineer at any level decides to stop learning because "they know it all," their career will go into a death spiral. I state this because there's no fast and easy way to do something. Any corners you cut upfront you'll need to figure out later on in order to move your career forward.
sovietmudkipz 5y ago
Hmm… Google “top frameworks for JavaScript,” go get a book that teaches the hottest framework, and then demonstrate that knowledge by building something with it. Host on GitHub pages. See if that framework has a local meetup group. Attend to network. Being associated with a meetup helps. At that point, find a job posting or a recruiter looking for people who know that framework and try to land the gig. In my experience, the barrier of entry of dramatically less for front end roles than other roles. Once you’re in, it’s easier to move away from front end if that’s what you want. Be nice and enthusiastic in the interview to make an impression. I think that’s the fastest way? Warning: programming is challenging work and not everyone is cut out for it. It can be miserable work.
sys_64738 5y ago
Steer non-CS people away from software development. In the python world the number of people who don't know the basics are terrifying.
- brianwawok 5y ago
  I don’t think Python is any worse than say JS, which is what most bootcamps push.
Cyberthal 5y ago
I imagine there are always opportunities around to solve technical problems, and pursuing those opportunities builds momentum towards a tech career. Most businesses interact with databases, personal computers and the Internet, for example. Small org tech support appears to be the best answer. It fits with my suspicions that a willingness to be humble about doing ops or support entry-level work gains one valuable exposure.

25 points by OliverGilan 5y ago

mrtrombone 5y ago

The right starting point is probably "what are their skills and interests" and based on that what is the simplest thing to segue into. Obviously this forum is mostly focused on developers but there is a while world of business analysts, technical writers, testers etc out there and these are often pretty convenient to get into if a person comes from a more 'liberal arts' / soft skills type job.

toomuchtodo 5y ago

A bootcamp with a good reputation. Fastest way from zero to entry level SWE.

atatatat 5y ago
Name one?
- weatherlight 5y ago
  app academy
  - atatatat 5y ago
    That's a cool trick — do you do birthdays?
    - weatherlight 5y ago
      im sorry, do you find the quality of the candidates from app academy to be sub par compared to candidates from other boot camps?
brianwawok 5y ago
As someone who hires, I have no idea how to tell a good bootcamp from a bad bootcamp. So they are all the same to me. I hope the applicant has projects / something outside of school homework to demo,

yuppie_scum 5y ago

If it was easy, the salaries wouldn’t be so high

_8j50 5y ago
In my experience, the easier the work the higher the salary. No one gets paid for working hard, they get paid for demand of their skill and expetience relative to supply.
- kongolongo 5y ago
  I think there can be truth to both. Consider the fact that it may seem easy to you because it's almost second nature in a sense where you're unaware consciously of how much it would take an average person to learn what you're doing from scratch. >No one gets paid for working hard, they get paid for demand of their skill and expetience relative to supply. I think that's generally true, but that doesn't mean it doesn't take a lot of initial hard work to gain the skills and experience necessary to work "easily" ofcourse there's some people where those skills came easily first anyways but I think those are generally at the tail end of the curve.
  - _8j50 5y ago
    Learning is not work though. Hard work to learn skills is not the same as the job itself being hard for skilled people. Compare that with unskilled work like manual labor where you still might need to work hard to develop skills but the work is also hard and they pay is very low. Too much supply due to low barrier of entry.
    - ineedasername 5y ago
      I think under that definition, wouldn't all work be easy? The hard part is learning, after that it's all easy because you already have the skill. The only hard work that would be left out is work that is literally hard I'm it's physical demands. Even then, the mental portion would be easy. I may be missing a subtlety of what you mean. Can you give an example of a hard job?

sushsjsuauahab 5y ago

If you already have a college degree, just write your own program that does something. That's the best way to learn and gain marketable xp at the same time.

new_guy 5y ago

Why do people insist on trivialising our profession so much? You don't get bootcamps for doctors or airline pilots. But people think they can go on some course, shit out a few lines of javascript/ruby/whatever and go get a job.

paxys 5y ago
That's because you literally can do that.
- rsj_hn 5y ago
  If you are highly talented, sure. There are also piano prodigies, whereas everyone else has to study for many years to reach that level of proficiency and may never reach it. Some can pick it up mind-boggingly quickly because their brains are naturally good at formal thinking, keeping many variables in their head, and being extremely precise and logical in their thoughts without much training. But again, that's such a small share of the population that "be a prodigy" is not really useful life advice.
  - mirker 5y ago
    Being a prodigy is not necessary to set up a webpage (or whatever). I’d argue most jobs are processing low-grade data with legacy frameworks, which is a test of patience and not prodigy IQ.
    - rsj_hn 5y ago
      > Being a prodigy is not necessary to set up a webpage True, but you are not going to get a tech job because you can set up a webpage. Maybe in 1999 San Francisco, but the world has moved on. There are actually not that many jobs open to people who just know how to deal with a web framework.
      - mirker 5y ago
        I just looked for Drupal and Wordpress jobs and they exist ($60k/year seems normal). Since the whole point of these frameworks is to abstract out actually writing the bulk of server code, I’d imagine a large part of the job is dealing with legacy quirks, uploading photos, and keeping servers up. There’s clearly a business need but as far as I know, there isn’t a mathematical-type of hardness to managing these types of websites. And on Wallstreet you have trading being performed with VBA Excel scripts…

speedgoose 5y ago

Why the fastest way ? Usually people ask for the best way.

jstx1 5y ago

- When you try to do things as quickly as possible you often end up cutting corners, sometimes too many corners. - There's a lot of people trying to fast-track their learning and get into software and it's not an easy position to be in. It's a saturated market. - It might turn out that software isn't for your friends either - personal preference, interests, aptitude etc. I would point them to some beginner resources and let them explore it for a while in their spare time before jumping in and committing seriously.

noman-land 5y ago

Start in tech support. You'll learn an insane amount and be right near the people you want to become.

jc_811 5y ago
This so much. I’ve had friends wanting to make the switch from totally non-technical industries, who only want to be hired as a full stack developer after a taking some online classes. In my opinion, the absolute best way to make the switch is to start in tech support. It’s the same concept of the only true way to learn a 2nd language is immersion by living in the country. The only true way to make the switch to tech is to be immersed in it. Starting in tech support at a small-to-mid-size startup is such a strong and viable path, it’s a shame most people don’t realize that.
shmde 5y ago
Tech support is just saying people to switch on off stuff and troubleshoot things which already have pre-made solutions. How can a person switch from this to a full blown career in tech ? My advice would be to start from being a manual test engineer move to automation test engineer work closely with devs in this position and slowly switch to a software dev. I say start with manual test engineer, because the entry barrier is very low and you can work your way up to become a software engineer. Will definitely take time ( years easily ) but its achievable this way I feel.
- jc_811 5y ago
  Respectfully, I couldn’t disagree more. I’m not referring to the traditional call center “is it plugged in?” Tech support. I mean working as a “support engineer” for a start-up SaaS company whose users can be fairly technical themselves. For example, working on the support team of a B2B SaaS company who makes a tool for IT teams. These types of roles can be filled by just about anyone, and there is so much to learn just by being around the environment. Lots of things we (people already in tech) take for granted is just how much one can learn by being around devs, sales, success, QA, devops, etc teams on a daily basis.
- toast0 5y ago

brian_spiering 5y ago

Related to starting in tech support, try to get an entry-level job in quality assurance (QA) / quality control (QC). You'll get exposure to software engineering and software engineers, then make more an informed decision about the field.

kgeist 5y ago
That's how some of our engineers started.

qualudeheart 5y ago

6 month cyber security study and then go blue team. Don’t bother with penetration testing.

boppo1 5y ago
Why not bother with pentesting?
- qualudeheart 5y ago
  Pentesting is much more saturated than defensive security is. Everyone wants to be a hacker.
  - the_only_law 5y ago
    What does “blue team” stuff typically include. A lot of the security people I’ve worked with in large enterprises just run canned tools, configure appliances or think about compliance stuff and then fill out a shit ton of paperwork. Makes sense why everyone wants to go offensive in that case.
    - rsj_hn 5y ago
      The trick is to find a company that has to take security seriously, and then that company will have some meaningful blue-team work even though there is an ocean of tool running, compliance paperwork. So for example, Microsoft, Google, Amazon, they all have good product security teams that do meaningful stuff, where "meaningful stuff" is defined as: - design and development of security features and defense mechanisms - design reviews, code reviews - innovative tool development (as opposed to just running) - development and improvement of Big data/statistical analysis You just have to find a team actually doing that, and not a team doing compliance stuff. But there are such teams.

sebisebi 5y ago

Bootcamp. Friend of mine did a bootcamp recently, and had three offers two weeks after finishing. It was pretty intense at 6 days a week 10h each. They seemed to cover a lot of ground. There are bootcamp comparison sites that show how the people landed after a few month. The market is pretty hot right now which seems to translate into easier entry for new people, which was usually the hardest part.

rognjen 5y ago
The market is also full of less-than-ethical companies exploiting exactly the type of people OP described.

hartator 5y ago

Unpopular view here, but if they want to do code just because they hear it pays well, steer them away. Coding is not easy. And it requires a lot of fiddling with things and a lot alone time trying to figure things out. Transcribe your own solutions in working code and communicate elegantly about them is also an art form by itself and it’s not accessible to many.

tlackemann 5y ago
This. Please, we don't need any more wage slaves in this industry. I already work with a bunch of people who don't have any interest in correct solutions but would rather just ship code. Feedback is non-existent or unwelcome. If their code is wrong, it's not, you're wrong. I'm 10-years professional and I have never met such a rude and entitled generation of bootcampers who think they deserve six-figures for figuring how how to return an array, Rant over. Please join tech or engineering because it genuinely excites or interests you. Not because the wages are higher.
- arvigeus 5y ago
  I have 10 years of experience. I can say with authority that I know very little. The only thing I learned is to recognise faster when my code sucks (I still struggle to write a good code)
  - sovietmudkipz 5y ago
    I identify with this, a bit. I’m getting more serious about writing testing, and it seems to give me some confidence. I recommend a few books. Growing Object Oriented software guided by tests. It lays out a clear plan on starting and how one can approach building tests. Next would be dependency injection: principles and practices. Maybe try the GOOS book first and see if it resonates with you.
apohn 5y ago
One thing to remember is that a lot of people who start out coding end up somewhere else in a Tech company. I've worked with a lot of people with Engineering and CS degrees who worked as developers writing code for 2-3 years and didn't enjoy coding full time. Then they moved to other teams where they coded only a little bit (e.g. PreSales) or didn't code at all (Product Management, Project Management, Marketing, Sales, Education, etc). Sometimes learning to code is the easiest entry point into a "Tech" job.

Shadonototra 5y ago

tech? what do you mean exactly?

EdSharkey 5y ago

Are they intelligent and conscientious? Look for DevOps engineering jobs. Great, low risk way to gradually become tech savvy that can lead to more technical, higher paying gigs over time. Fake it till you make it, just like any other career.

chefkoch 5y ago
Since when is DevOps a junior position? Who is going to let some one new to the game learn in their infra?

winkelwagen 5y ago

I would invest learning to develop for enterprise tools. Things like episerver, sitecore adobe cms, Shopify or sap stuff. Definitely would say it’s the most interesting way to develop software but companies are willing to shelve out the big bucks after buying some of these obscenely expensive license’s. Pretty well paid cushy jobs

justaj 5y ago
> Definitely would say it’s the most interesting way to develop software but companies are willing to shelve out the big bucks after buying some of these obscenely expensive license’s. This does make it sound pretty appealing. What makes developing enterprise software interesting to you?
- sovietmudkipz 5y ago
  I suspect it’s a typo. Either that or the commenter is really stoked about integrating platforms.

weatherlight 5y ago

First get a job in Customer Operations, Technical Support, Manual QA or Platform Configuration Management. Then try to find a mentor in your work place that will champion you and help you grow into the area of tech that you want to do, whether that product, data, engineering or what ever. Side note: Software engineers never graduate. The moment an engineer at any level decides to stop learning because "they know it all," their career will go into a death spiral. I state this because there's no fast and easy way to do something. Any corners you cut upfront you'll need to figure out later on in order to move your career forward.

sovietmudkipz 5y ago

Hmm… Google “top frameworks for JavaScript,” go get a book that teaches the hottest framework, and then demonstrate that knowledge by building something with it. Host on GitHub pages. See if that framework has a local meetup group. Attend to network. Being associated with a meetup helps. At that point, find a job posting or a recruiter looking for people who know that framework and try to land the gig. In my experience, the barrier of entry of dramatically less for front end roles than other roles. Once you’re in, it’s easier to move away from front end if that’s what you want. Be nice and enthusiastic in the interview to make an impression. I think that’s the fastest way? Warning: programming is challenging work and not everyone is cut out for it. It can be miserable work.

sys_64738 5y ago

Steer non-CS people away from software development. In the python world the number of people who don't know the basics are terrifying.

brianwawok 5y ago
I don’t think Python is any worse than say JS, which is what most bootcamps push.

Cyberthal 5y ago

I imagine there are always opportunities around to solve technical problems, and pursuing those opportunities builds momentum towards a tech career. Most businesses interact with databases, personal computers and the Internet, for example. Small org tech support appears to be the best answer. It fits with my suspicions that a willingness to be humble about doing ops or support entry-level work gains one valuable exposure.