Imagine your weekdays without long hours of traffic, working from the comfort of your home that is what a career in tech offers. A career in tech is very diverse and flexible, you can work anywhere in the world from anywhere. Due to the pandemic, a lot of non-remote jobs were affected and people had to move their businesses from offline to online. The big question is:
How do you start a career in tech?
Below, I will give easy steps on how to start a career in tech
1. Do your research:
People think tech careers are mostly coding which is false. The tech industry is very broad and consists of more than ten(10) careers that are well paid and sought after. Examples of tech careers are: Web Development, Mobile Development, Product Management, Technical Writing, Product Design, Data Science, Cloud Engineering and Artificial Intelligence e.t.c. You can search on some of these careers to see if they interest you. Meanwhile, I will drop some links on tests that you can do to give you ideas of where you can start your tech career.
2. Decide which path to take on:
After researching either by googling, taking quizzes or tests, and asking people in the tech industry. The next step is to use the information you have acquired to choose the path you want to build a career in. This step can be a little bit difficult because some friends would have told you to choose a career in web development because of the money or not to go for frontend development because it is difficult. It can be very overwhelming so it is advisable to go connect your current skill or hobbies to the career you want to go for. For example, I am into web development because I love creating/ building stuff for people.
3. Go for passion, but be practical:
While choosing a career, I believe in combining passion and opportunities. They should walk hand in hand. In choosing a career in tech, it is great to choose a career in tech based on the opportunities and resources and your passion.
4. Start learning:
The tech industry is one that you do not need to have a computer science degree for you to work in tech firm this is because there are a lot of resources out there for you to learn from. There are more than a million resources on the web that you can learn anything you need to know about tech, free and paid resources. Examples of some sites you can learn from are: UDEMY , FREECODECAMP , W3 SCHOOLS , MDN , YOUTUBE ,
5. Build while learning:
You do not need to be an expert before you start building. Build, build and build everything you have knowledge about, that is the only way can be better.
6. Stay consistent:
This is the most important step because anybody can start something without finishing it. After picking a path, it is best to put aside time every day to learn. A person that codes once in 6 months will not be better than a person that codes 30-40 minutes every day in a month. In as much as, starting something new can be overwhelming; consistency is what makes us a better developer/programmer.
7. Join a community:
This step is very crucial yet optional. A community consisting of people with like minds has a way of empowering its members to be goal-driven, focused, and consistent. An example of a tech community is SheCodeAfrica which is mainly for ladies in tech, each state has its own branch. Apart from communities, one can also join internships examples are Zuri, HNG e.t.c. These internships run for 3 months at most and consist of activities to make one better at their career. Last year, I joined WEJAPA internship where I met a lot of people and increased my skills due to the activities given. The purpose of a community is to keep you accountable and consistent; you can form a group with people of like minds to keep you accountable and consistent.
SUMMARY:
Starting something new is not always easy and there is never a perfect time to start something new. The steps above are easy and explanatory, if you have any questions, kindly send a dm via twitter .