There's a plethora of different ways to get into the tech industry and they all have their individual pros and cons but if there is one thing that should ring true is that everyone's path will be highly unique to their individual knowledge and interests.
This requires actually knowing who you are, so if you are unsure of who you are as a person and you're not confident in yourself then you've got a long way to go.
If you do then you have a few different sectors to consider.
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Do you care a whole lot about the human life and the success of those around you?
- Then you probably want to be involved in something with healthcare and security.
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Do you care about the rule of law and fundamentally protecting the internet?
- Security. Team blue. Lookup CTF events.
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Do you care about causing as much chaos as possible on the internet?
- Security. Team red. Lookup CTF events.
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Do you care about building things like websites and helping build traditional applications?
- Programming, but your focus will be Web 2.0 and frontend development.
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Are you really into building system level applications and building products that live on the desktop?
- Software Engineering.
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Are you really into building everything from top to bottom?
- Fullstack Engineering.
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Are you really into next generation financial services and disrupting government institutions?
- Blockchain. Smart Contracts. Security. Fullstack.
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Do you just like managing tech products and hate code?
- Product Manager
There's a ton of different pathways out there but picking the right one
If you do not like programming you need to be very honest with yourself because if you don't like it then there's nothing you can do about it. Not every has the knack to do this sort of thing and it can be a soul sucking experience if you're not fundamentally interested in all things computer.
My perspective on this is a bit different but if there's one tried and true way to get into any career it's by working as hard as possible. I know, I know. It's incredibly stupid to hear this especially in the modern age but you really actually have to put in the time and work to get anywhere.
Let me give you an example of how I came into programming and what got me to the stage that I am at in my life. I started off by making mods for games. This let me tinker and become more familiar with the different files, file systems, and ways that games are made and I found that absolutely fascinating.
I used this as a catalyst to learn anything from making custom models, texturing models, level design, and eventually getting into programming itself. I worked for 7 years waiting tables when I was younger because it paid the bills and let me focus on my main hobby which was game modding at the time.
I would do a 6 hour shift waiting tables at a higher end restaurant, get enough in tips to sustain my lifestyle in a room and eventually a small studio apartment and then I would spend a lot of time alone teaching myself everything and staying up for almost 24+ hours at a time.
Every day was spent pushing myself towards the career path that I wanted and this was all done by working as hard as possible. If you want to be successful in this industry you have to work for it and you've got to work hard to make yourself invaluable.
Don't believe me? Here's a guy who went from doing actual Meth to working at Netflix.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JjHFubUPLV0
There are a plethora of ways to build things, but building things open source and sharing your code whether it's a win or failure gives employers a paper trail to show that you're someone who can learn new technologies and build out new ideas.
Not only that but it's almost a gateway drug into showing off to the world that you are a very capable flesh pilot and you can get some shit done.
Put every piece of code you ever right on to GitHub, and make yourself searchable and easily found. Be very strategic about what username you use because your searchability is everything when you're getting started.
If you're actually serious about your career it is highly important that you make it very clear to yourself that you are going to need to sacrifice a lot of time to become a self-reliant and sufficient person. You are going to spend a lot of time in the dark smacking away at a keyboard just to teach yourself as much as humanly possible.
You may lose friends over it, you may lose family over it. It's not for the faint of heart but there's obviously a healthy way to balance all of this but it will be a the cost of how long it takes you to become proficient in the medium you are pursuing.
While this sounds really terrible it's important to spend a lot of time alone to get familiar with how you think, and how you learn. Knowing how you learn is half the battle and because of this it makes it much easier for you to pickup new technical stacks, languages, and tools because you know how to teach yourself how to do them.
This is where a lot of people flounder and why the traditional College pathway is great for a majority of people. It's because they just need to be taught how to actually learn which is a whole of studying and a whole lot of time waste.
There's also this magical time period where some of us actually reach peak maturity in our early 20s at some point and everything in the world starts making sense. It's almost like an enlightenment period for yourself.
Talk to yourself, question yourself, and question others. People have interesting things to say and understanding what they have to say is highly important.
It is highly important to find someone who is better, smarter, and faster than you. You want someone who is going to teach you the ropes and absolutely string you along. There's a general quote about how if you're the smartest person in the room you have to find another room.
This is very important for getting started in tech. You want to be surrounded by people who can teach you things if you're willing to listen.
A lot of the game development community are filled with highly intelligent people that are legitimately just smurfing through life. You can learn a lot from what these people have to say and asking about their individual games and coding practices.
Just like in the last paragraph talking about how different rooms exist for different people, you should be well aware of what room you are in and how you stand up against the other people in the room. If everything they're talking about doesn't make a lick of sense then you're probably in a great room to start learning.
If you're in a room and you're the one calling the shots and giving the advice. Well, it's unfortunate but it's time to find a new room with people who are going to challenge your own knowledge, beliefs, and everything else imaginable.
There's a different between people who can build open source, and the people who go into privatizing corporations.
What I mean by this is that the people who build open source can understand the mission statement of a given company or program and align themselves to help build that program. This is really difficult to do when you have no formal training on doing it.
Pretty much pickup some of your favorite programs and check out if they have open source projects. If they have a list of issues there's opportunity for you to step in and try and fix some of those issues.
Countless times I've seen people who actively contribute to open source content get offered jobs with their favorite applications because they became proficient with it, and then they became experts in the subject matter.
GitHub is such an important tool for resume building. There are various technologies that recruiters use to look for new people who are building openly and they can easily check what languages you know, what database software you use, and so on.
You can use this as a way to 'hack into the system' and get on their radar.
Just make sure you have a LinkedIn attached to your GitHub profile to get people in your inbox.
If you want to increase your chances of someone noticing your resume then you should following the Engineering Resumes subreddit and format your entire resume around it. There are patterns in human behavior that are important to understand to optimize and effectively trick recruiters into noticing you've got the goods.
Why try harder when it's already laid out right here: https://www.reddit.com/r/EngineeringResumes/wiki/index/
There's even a name for the pattern so you can get their attention quickly: https://www.tealhq.com/post/f-pattern-resume
When you're first getting started it's important to try and get your first title as soon as possible.
Usually software engineers are given the Junior Software Engineer role or some kind of intern role.
It's highly imporant to get that on your resume as soon as possible because that makes you marketable to not only yourself but everyone around you.
Bag those titles and use them to your advantage.
The last and final piece of advice is that the universe does not provide unless you ask it to provide for you. You may not be spiritual or you may be too smart for your own good. However, if there's one thing that is true is that if you can dig deep and talk to your inner self and the threads that align us humans into a unique and malevolent experience that is life. You can sometimes pull the strings just a tiny bit.
- Build game mods and post them on Nexus Mods. If they're good you can get some side income from this.
- Bug Bounty Programs -> Hacker One, BugCrowd, etc.
- Freelance Smart Contract Developer -> Some people just want to launch a new token and you can sell a way to do it
- Build WebSites for Local Companies -> Lookup businesses and offer redoing websites for absurdly low costs. You just want the experience.