It’s Never Too Late to Pursue a Career in Tech

Changing career paths has been a thing of the brave-hearted for a long time in our professional history, as it requires a lot of unlearning, change of perspectives, and most importantly — putting yourself in the beginner’s shoes again. Fortunately, with the rise of digital learning, encouragement of self-improvement and new work opportunities emerging, career shifts are not that much of a taboo anymore.

Moreover, living up through the pandemic has led many people to reconsider their career choices and shift towards more satisfying ones. In fact, in the United States alone people are quitting their jobs at record rates. From the compensation to the impact you can have through your work, the professional aspect plays an important role in our lives.

With this in mind, why not start a career in tech? The demand for specialists in the technology sector is always on the rise, as our lives become more digitalized and we’re heading into a technology-rich future.

How to shift your career to tech

We pride ourselves on autonomous and self-learning individuals in our team. Sometimes we can’t even wrap our heads around how resourceful they have been during their lives as they have successfully embraced very different career paths.

Let’s take Iulian’s case for example. Former cook and many others, Iulian Peța is now our QA Automation Developer. How has he succeeded in such a transformation? Well, let’s find out.

1. Where did you work before/ what is your other professional background?

My background is actually all over the place.

I worked as a cook, as a physical education teacher, as an archivist, as a librarian, as a personal trainer and the list goes on.

2. What was your first step in transitioning to tech? And what triggered the idea of a career in this industry?

Well, it all started when I was a kid, but without me being aware of what I actually wanted. I was fascinated with the idea of becoming an inventor at the age of 7, but this was mainly because I wasn’t very familiar with what an engineer or IT specialist meant at the time.

And because of my school background and not owning my own PC until I was 20, it was very difficult for me to exploit this field.

The first time I truly got a grasp of this industry was in 2018 when I started working for an IT company as a Business Consultant in the Sales Department. I wanted to discover the true atmosphere at an IT company, before beginning to work in this field.

3. They say the best skills are transferable skills, especially when transitioning from a department to another, or moreover a career to another. Which are the prevailing transferable skills that stood by your career transition?

Being a continuous learner, loving to solve problems and teamwork.

4. There are a lot of programming languages out there and many different job paths to pursue. How did you choose yours?

The first time I started "coding", I was 16 and it stuck to my mind that I used Flash. I didn't know about version control or storing on an external hard drive, so I lost my project when I rebooted my computer.

Later, at the age of 20 when I bought my first laptop, a good friend of mine, who was a programmer installed Java. I fell in love with it at first sight. Only later did I really start to understand how OOP works.

5. Name a skill that is 100% needed in a tech career 🐱‍💻

To be able to sit for a long time in front of a PC.

6. If it were to make a mini step-by-step guide for somebody experiencing the same needs as you did (when you took the decision to go into a different career), what would this look like?

→ Dedicate 2 to 3 hours a day learning about coding and what it means.

→ Start with looking up on YouTube what a Software Developer does.

→ Afterwards, try to create simple projects applying core concepts about coding.

For example, I created small games using Scratch, Python and of course Java.

7. Does the current career path better align with your values and goals?

Yes, but it has much to do with my curiosity and innate passion for IT.

Iulian’s piece of advice: It is never too late to start working in the IT field, you only need the will to start and continue.

Did Iulian’s story inspire you? It seems that coming back to your first passion actually makes sense.

Now it’s your turn! Check out the hottest jobs in tech this year and start to build your own career. Who knows, maybe you’ll be our next #sensidev.