How to Teach Yourself into the Tech Industry

Backstory

Entering the tech industry is a popular career goal. It’s where innovative thinking lives, where work is being reimagined, and where the money is. The road to a tech career has many crossroads. Each one with a different price tag and time commitment. Bootcamps can help you get in the door quickly, degrees at a university are effective, and there is an army of course creators with in-depth programs guaranteeing you will get a job upon completion. The paid options can be successful, don’t get me wrong, but there are other ways.

The issue is that these options can be wildly expensive. Bootcamps can run $16k for three months of training or $25k+ with an income share agreement. Individual programs vary from hundreds to thousands of dollars and may not have the credibility they promise. Degrees at universities are, well, degrees at universities. You know your situation better than anyone else so it is up to you to cut your own path toward tech, but unlike many mature professions you can also teach yourself into the tech industry. Teaching yourself doesn’t mean that you have to figure out how everything works on your own. It simply means that you are choosing your own courses, finding timely tutorials, meeting your own mentors, and setting up your own projects. Most of what you pay for at educational institutions falls into these categories. You usually pay someone else to set the curriculum of what you need to know and place people who know more in the same room. Teaching yourself simply means you take on that work as well. Luckily this is all possible from anywhere with a simple laptop.

My path to tech started when my wife and I returned from a two-year stint of traveling only to have Covid wipe out most of the economy. These were hard times and I resorted to cleaning floors, bottling mead, and doing usability studies to pay the rent. It was an interesting situation because I had plenty of time with everything shut down but near-zero financial resources. I had to get creative but I also had the time to be creative. I had the space to teach myself into my next career and naturally turned to tech. I started my first set of online courses in May 2020, landed my first job in May 2021, and joined my first tech team in August 2022.

You know your situation better than anyone else. Every individual has a different set of life constraints making each of the paths to tech more favorable than the other. This article simply outlines yet another one of those paths. It’s the lean path and this article will get you past that first initial blank page of learning resources so you can get on your way.

Getting Started

Getting started is the hardest because you need to know what you don’t know but finding solid resources or relevant information is difficult. The first order of business is to think about what you want to do in the industry. It is easy to say that you want to work in the tech industry but where in the tech industry? Do you want to work the nuts and bolts as an engineer? Set the direction as a product manager? Answer tough questions as a researcher? Make experiences as a designer? There are a lot of categories of work and also lots of subcategories of work in the tech industry so I recommend starting with some goal in mind. This goal will certainly change as you progress but will help with deciding which resources to tackle first.

Your trajectory, in the beginning, can stay broad but keep your goal in mind when answering the next question: will you start in design or development? These seem to be the easiest entry points into the tech industry. They have the largest volume of junior positions and opportunities as a whole. It is from these positions that people enter other positions such as product management, business analyst, delivery lead, UX Research, or Creative Technologist but employers want these positions to have knowledge of the design and build process. Learning how to design and/or code is essential and in the beginning, I would recommend learning the basics of both. Of course, keep your goal in mind but it will only help if you can speak to both skills. Plus you will be able to build full projects without outside help.

Resources

The right resources are critical to learning with speed. You need to build your fundamentals as quickly as possible. Here are some of the better learning resources I’ve found that helped me do just that.

Design

Design is constantly evolving but that doesn’t mean there are no fundamentals. Learning about Human Computer Interaction is a perfect starting point. The concepts help build a basis for why different UI patterns work or don’t work. Another anchor for your design learning is Accessibility. Accessibility is a crucial part of design that is built around official requirements. Getting, at the very least, a crash course in accessibility will be helpful (this is a possible specialty as well).

As you sort through resources, look for courses and tutorials that build something. It is okay to take some pure theory courses that give you a certificate but why stall building your body of work? Always learn towards courses that build projects while you learn.

Interaction Design Foundation
The best resource I’ve found that has the two skills listed above plus much more is the Interaction Design Foundation. The price tag for membership is low, at $144 per year, and their courses are self-paced and well-rounded. They practice what they preach and provide an engaging learning environment with many paid add-ons such as CV and portfolio development, personal coaching, UX/UI tool discounts, and more. It is a great place to start for the price of three brunches and you can cancel at any time.

Udemy
The one flaw in IDS’s curriculum is they focus on theory and lacks classes around skills and tools. That is where Udemy comes in. Udemy has endless courses on design applications such as Figma, Sketch, and the Adobe creative suite. These can be as surface-level or in-depth as you need but, of course, the stronger your foundation in the tools the better. My recommendation is to learn Figma, including how to build and utilize components, as a starting point.

Books
There are mountains of books are your disposal and it is important to consistently read. Books are better for more targeted topics such as specific methods of user research or how to handle team dynamics as a designer. A great book to start with is Don’t Make Me Think by Steve Krug. It’s a great intro in a short format including how to run usability studies (most of my knowledge about research has come from books).

Don’t forget about psychology either. Books are a great way to gain knowledge about psychology. Getting a fundamental grasp of how the human brain functions and reacts to stimuli is exceedingly helpful in the design world. You could focus purely on human-computer interaction or start broad with a book such as Thinking Fast and Slow. No matter where you start, start now and keep the pages turning.

Development

Learning how to code effectively is a heavy time investment but luckily can be done outside the walls of a university classroom. The important thing is to keep coding and stick to the technologies you’ve targeted. It is easy to get distracted and start to learn new frameworks and languages but diving deeper into a single language will help you learn many advanced principles and patterns more quickly. Coding principles are ubiquitous so learn a language thoroughly and then build your tech stack.

Free Code Camp Free Code Camp is a nonprofit organization helping spread the skill of programming around the globe and they are very successful at it. This is the place to start if you are on a tight budget or want to test if a career as a developer is right for you before investing further. I will warn you, their courses can be a bit of a struggle as they tend to go through advanced topics quickly and the course projects tend to be much more complicated than the learning portion. These courses will require you to think critically and conduct outside research. That’s not necessarily bad though.

The more impressive part of the organization is its very active YouTube account. They post a large amount of content covering a vast number of technologies with industry leaders and many of their videos have you build a project along with the tutor. These are extremely useful, especially if you need to learn about a specific tech quickly or need a quick portfolio piece.

Udemy
Udemy is where I’ve done the bulk of my learning. There are some intensive courses that would rival any college program in any modern language you would find in the workplace. I started learning code with the Frontend technologies HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and React so I can only speak to courses covering those topics but the course author Jonas Schmedtmann is fantastic. The courses are deep dives into not only the technologies themselves but the patterns and processes of modern development and Jonas updates his courses frequently with new content. If I had to start over again, I would start with Jonas’s courses. They were the best foundation-setting resources I have found to date.

More Books
It can be difficult to learn foundational knowledge from coding books. The courses stated above make it easier to learn the basics. That doesn’t mean books don’t have their place. I use coding books to target a specific topic or dive deeper into certain technologies. The Pragmatic Programer is a great book for general coding principles and patterns, but I would hold off until you have some experience with a scripting language to dive into it.

Don’t be afraid to ever pause a book that you don’t understand yet. Don’t get stalled out. Do more research around the context or tech you don’t understand or take another course on the concepts you don’t know. Then pick up the book where you left off. Remember that this career change is a journey and it will take time to learn, use, and solidify this immense amount of knowledge.

Environment

Don’t waste too much time figuring out how to host your projects. Navigating a C-Panel can be useful but our main goal is to showcase relevant work and not get marred down by DNS details. The quickest path to production that I’ve found is using VS Code as your code editor, GitHub to manage your repositories, and Vercel to host those repositories on a live server. Get to know these three technologies well because they will help you get your work live fast.

Most Important

The most important resource of all is a learning schedule. There are millions of resources available at your disposal, many of them for free, but you have to put in the time and it needs to be a habit you protect. I started by getting up two hours earlier and chunking out courses and projects in the morning. It could be any number of different time slots but you have to dedicate a LOT of time to learning and building so set aside your learning time and get after it!

The Portfolio...

Do NOT overthink this. My first portfolio was built on WordPress using the Divi block builder theme. You do NOT need to custom code your portfolio yourself or have it push the edges of the design industry. You could use WordPress, Squarespace, Wix, WebFlow, or any other site builder you want. In fact, the more built-in functionality the better. That means there is less you have to build yourself and less blocking you from your first job. Even now, my portfolio uses a Tailwind React template. Remember, your portfolio’s only job is to showcase your other projects and get you a job. Most recruiters spend 3 minutes or less looking at a portfolio so spend your time figuring out how present your best work quickly.

Input vs Output

The hardest transition is when you move from courses to your own projects. It’s a classic trap to be stuck learning endlessly without putting your new knowledge to use. The major problem with always learning is that tech opportunities require a showcase of your skills. This is especially true if you do not have a degree in computer science, but even if you do, product teams will want to know what you can do beyond the applications you build in courses. You have to build your own applications. This leads us to a general rule:

When you finish a course, use what you learned on your own project.

It can be anything from a small game to an elaborate e-commerce application. You do not need to complete the project either. Maybe the skill you just learned is a small piece of the application you are building. That’s fine! The important part is to use what you’ve learned in theory and bring it to life while also running into all the little obstacles your course did not cover. That is where the magic is and how you build your portfolio.

Get That First Position

Everyone wants a job in big tech, but remember that this journey is a marathon and not a sprint. You will inevitably run into stories of how a self-taught developer was hired at Google in less than six months. Don’t put that kind of pressure on yourself. Good for them but it was mostly luck of being in the right spot at the right time with the right mindset. For the rest of us, we will have to get our hands dirty and do our time.

The goal here is to find any type of position linked to the tech industry. Having someone pay you, consistently, to fill a role in the tech industry is monumental and helps you build credibility and momentum toward the more coveted designer and developer positions.

Look for jobs that require knowledge of HTML. This is an indicator that it is an entry position or a smaller project plus it will give you on-the-job experience for a foundational technology. HTML should be one of the first stops on your coding or design learning path so these positions should be relatively easy to land.

Many of these HTML-based job descriptions are part of multi-media marketing companies specializing in online marketing for other businesses. That means that they create a ton of online assets on a daily basis which means lots of practice for you. Don’t shy away from these positions. A position like this will help you gain experience in the industry and also test what you do and do not like since this will primarily be front-end work.

Non-profit projects are another great source of work and networking but they are volunteer positions. You will have to fit these projects into your personal time which can compete with your learning path and other projects. This is a good route if you can’t take a substantial pay cut to move careers or are just testing the waters. There are many great code volunteering sites that can be found with a quick google search.

Get Noticed

Now that you’ve grabbed a position in tech or volunteered with a nonprofit, it’s time to start moving forward. This portion of your journey is attuned to rock climbing. You can’t simply climb straight up but rather have to transverse side-to-side and find creative ways to move up the wall. It’s difficult to simply climb straight up the corporate ladder into the position you want so you will need to constantly assess your situation and gather the right connections and resources to move forward.

Start by assessing your company’s or non-profit’s business structure. What are the different departments? What are they all working on? What are the different groups within departments? Who is in charge of hiring decisions within the most desired groups? Get a lay of the land and who the major players are so you can streamline your efforts for the most impact.

Now it’s time to get to work. First and foremost, you need to be a high performer in your current position. Be someone that others can rely on. It is this foundation of work that allows all other opportunities to be possible. Any internal opportunities will check with your current team for reference. You want that reference to be outstanding. This will pay endless dividends in the future so do not blow off or take your current position lightly.

Then it’s time to stand out. As you crush your daily duties, it is time to find and fill gaps. Training resources are always an opportunity because they are hard to maintain and no one wants to update training docs. Take notes while you are being trained and create training resources that would be helpful for you and others. Never ask permission to create resources. Make them, use them yourself, and then show them to your group. This is by far the most effective tactic I’ve used for standing out because you make an impact as a first impression. A couple of things to keep in mind though:

1. Never attach to any one idea or resource. If a resource works for you and not the rest of the group, stash it and move on to the next gap you see. Do NOT force your ideas down the throats of an established team.
2. Give your ideas away. Don’t hound for credit or try to put your stamp on the resources. Build to genuinely help others and make your superiors look good. No credit will ever surpass the value of the relationships you build this way.
3. Resources can be anything! They can be training notes to coded prototypes on CodePen. No need for polish either. It is better to start showing off your work at early stages where you can possibly win more time for building out these resources.

You are a designer and/or developer so create! Test those creations with your team to make their lives better and you will have endless possibilities.

Expand Your Network

Once you have a handle on the current position you can begin to branch out. You will have the admiration of your team and your superiors will have a handful of positive talking points. A great place to start expanding your network is to look at technical teams that are building and maintaining tools for your current team. Ask these engineers and designers if they wouldn’t mind talking about their projects. Join any research studies they are conducting. Join their innovation days, sprint reviews, and lunch ‘n learns. The key here is to be interested. Ask questions out of pure curiosity and get to know who you personally connect with. People like to work with people they like so be present, ask great questions, and get to know as many co-workers as you can.

This is a crucial step in our ultimate goal of gaining a mentor. All of your prior work with your current position and expanding your network greatly influence one’s decision to mentor you. Mentors are your connection to the groups that you want to join and the positions in tech that you want to land. They will have a personal understanding of your skillset and be able to give the stamp of approval for a position on a product team. Your working relationship can take any shape it needs to from showing your mentor projects that you are working on to having more structured meetings and collaboration sessions. The important piece is that you have regular contact with your mentor and they get to see your drive and excitement for the work.

The Promotion Trifecta

Your team likes you, you have a portfolio, and you have a mentor to vouch for you. These are the three keys that will propel you to your target team and job title. I like to call if the promotion trifecta. Having a track record of success in the company and a thumbs up from a tech professional can power you through any gatekeeper and your portfolio will be the final check that you can do the work. Companies are constantly looking for talent and one of the beautiful things about the tech industry is that if you show you are capable, you will be given a chance. Once you have the promotion trifecta, it’s time to start inquiring about open positions around the company. Talk with your mentor and other members of your network to see what is available and be confident in telling them that you would like to be considered for open positions. Officially apply through the company website and let all of your contacts around the position know that you have applied. No need to make a show of it, but if they don’t know you applied they won’t be able to help you. Let all of the previous hard work carry you to the treasured title of designer or developer!

Stay or Go?

You will learn a lot about your company through this process. There are instances where you run into an impassable obstacle. The strategy above can bypass a substantial amount of hurdles but sometimes an entrenched mindset or company policy will be too much to overcome. That is when it is time to think about moving to another company. Remember that breaking into the industry is like rock climbing and sometimes jumping to another organization is the only way to move forward. That’s okay and it is actually quite common in this industry. The key is not to jump out of impatience. You are building connections, resources, and reputation at your current company which will not carry the same weight at another organization.

Give your current organization two years. This is a solid chunk of industry experience and will give you plenty of time to explore all possible avenues for growth at your current organization. Once you begin feeling stuck despite achieving at a high level, start exploring other options. The good news is that just the act of searching can give you more negotiating power for opportunities in your current organization so stay vigilant even as you explore outside your current situation.

Conclusion

I wish that every aspiring tech leader could take an online course and land a six-figure job in less than two years, but that is just not the reality. Breaking into the tech industry is equal parts hard work and luck. Hard work is a requirement to even be considered but you also need to be in the right place with the right people and the right opportunities. Start with learning the skills and building your portfolio of work and then search for every possible avenue of opportunity to join a tech team. It is about showing that you have the skillset and then rolling the dice for enough opportunities. This sounds daunting but remember that you only need one yes. The first job is the hardest. Then you have that title on your resume forever.

People are hired into their first tech position every day. With enough dedication and focus, you will earn your dream opportunity too.