Lessons on making a career switch to coding
Those who took up coding courses in a bid to make career switches often experience "massive emotional freak-outs".
Awesome is how Anthony Rondinone felt the day after he finished a three-month coding course at the App Academy in New York.
The day after that? An “unemployed loser”.
The scale of the task ahead of him was daunting.
The next step was to find a job as a junior software engineer with no coding work experience, after a varied career as a buyer for department stores, a musician and recruiter.
Making multiple job applications had been one condition of his boot-camp course, which takes a percentage of its graduates’ first year salary rather than charging fees.
“It’s all just numbers,” he says. “If you apply to 100 jobs and you get five calls, you might get three interviews and, hopefully, one of them you’ll get.”
Mr Rondinone is one of five career changers the Financial Times has followed since September last year as they make the switch in their 30s, 40s and 50s.
In making the leap, financed by drawing on savings, Mr Rondinone hoped the return on his study break would be a higher salary and creative, challenging work.
In the weeks after the end of his course, which focused largely on Ruby and JavaScript, he was frustrated by his lack of progress, a problem he attributed to a lack of relevant programming work experience.
He decided to seek out recruiters for informal chats over coffee, so that he could pitch in person.
This helped secure interviews, which were intense and very different from those he had had for other jobs — for example, he was asked to code in front of interviewers and justify his decisions.
But after weeks of applications (more than 500) and rejections, he was offered a job just before Christmas as a software engineer at Persado, which produces AI-generated marketing and advertising content.
“It was just incredible” to receive a job offer, he says.
Mr Rondinone says that in his new career he is “constantly being challenged . . . constantly learning”.
That is immensely satisfying. So too is the salary, more than US$20,000 (SG$27,300) higher than his previous one.
He puts his new earnings at between US$90,000 and US$110,000.
The path Mr Rondinone has taken has become increasingly common in recent years.
The number of private colleges offering coding courses for professionals who hope to switch career has ballooned, which has resulted in sector consolidation.
Gen Dev, one of the pioneers in the field, closed last year. General Assembly was acquired in April by Adecco Group for US$412m, and will increasingly work with employers on staff professional development.
Jake Schwartz, chief executive of General Assembly, says the target market for its coding camps has tended to be those in their mid-20s to mid-30s, though a few 70-year-olds have taken immersive programmes.
Students on the intense courses often have “massive emotional freak-outs” in weeks four or five, Mr Schwartz says.
“When an adult learns something new and hard there’s vulnerability. It’s very personal and emotional when you hit a wall and think you can’t do it.”
As a result, GA has increased the mentorship and support for students at crunch points.
This rings true for Ryan Woods, a former fork-lift driver. During the web development course at RED Academy he experienced “great frustration. It’s 20 times harder than you imagine.”
At week five, he almost had a “breaking point . . . Everyone I spoke to had similar struggles.”
On the sixth week, he says things “started to click”.
Hannah Cross studied art history at University College London and spent her 20s working in arts organisations, such as Tate and the ICA in fundraising roles.
At 30, she decided she no longer wanted to be “on the sidelines helping other people to make things” but rather wanted to do it herself.
After a three-month web development immersive course at GA she became a full stack developer at the start-up JamieAi.
She experienced “imposter syndrome” while on the course and during the interview process. Unable to fix a glitch in her code, for example, she became very stressed.
“The next day I would wake up and see the solution,” she says.
“The first few times this happened I struggled with confidence.”
Job hunting was “challenging” and the experience taught her to “grab feedback when I could and try not to dwell on the vague responses”.
She also learnt to make an asset of her previous work experience and additional skills, rather than focus on her short history in tech.
The level of collaboration and support among junior developers and coding students surprised Martha Chambers, a former teacher who is working as a junior JavaScript software engineer at ITV, the UK broadcaster.
“You have the perception of the job that it’s a weirdo sitting in the basement. I loved the collaboration [on the course]. Same in the world of work — if it wasn’t for it being social and collaborative I don’t think I’d have carried on.”
Some experts are sceptical of how the jobs market will withstand the “boom and bust” cycle of the science and engineering fields.
“These fields are very dynamic, they change rapidly, and they are subject to disruptions from international and domestic political and economic forces,” says Michael Teitelbaum, a senior research associate at Harvard Law School’s Labor and Work Life Program.
“[People] shouldn’t assume that since things are really good now that must mean that there’s strong demand in the labour market.”
Mr Teitelbaum recommends would-be career changers acquire skills that suit a range of occupations and industries.
“If things go south in one area they might be able to find a more attractive career path in another area for which their expertise would be useful.”
For Mr Rondinone, the months of intense learning, living without a salary, and worries about finding a job have had a positive result.
As well as a financial lift, he has a sense of purpose.
“I’m building something. I have ownership over this thing, and I’m always learning now and always being challenged.”
For any aspiring coders, Mr Rondinone suggests starting at home, viewing YouTube tutorials.
“That’s how I learnt a lot of stuff. If you’re really interested in something just learn about it. It’s not that difficult any more.” THE FINANCIAL TIMES
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Emma Jacobs and Aimee Keane are respectively feature writer and multimedia produce with The Financial Times.
