what is the quickest path to a good job in IT

November 26, 2023 9:09 AM

I am making a mid-life career change to IT. I come from a sales/management background. What are my best options, given my age and lack of direct IT experience.

After spending the last 20 years working in retail, I am forced to get a new job. I was making quite a bit of money. More than I would working a similar job for other companies. This has led me to exploring other fields. Tech is the future and I like the idea of having skills that will be useful regardless of where I live etc. Especially skills that will consistently be in demand.

I do not have a college degree. I have tons of real world business experience and interview/present very well. The idea of going for an Associate's for years and then more schooling after that doesn't seem appealing. I'm in my 40s and I have a mortgage to pay. I don't want to be entering the job market again at 50 years old, competing with people who are just as qualified but half my age. I was making 100K. While I know that it isn't neccessarily likely that I will walk into that type of payscale, is there a path that doesn't include minimum wage and excessive due paying?

I know that I'm going to have to put in the time and work hard. I expect that and don't have any issue other than wanting to make sure that I am putting the time and work into something that is going to be most beneficial to me in the short term and long term. I certainly don't want to get a degree to hear that no one looks for that anymore.

If there is a way to leverage my sales, managerial and business experience?

Is there a way to make money while learning? I don't want to spend 4 years going to school and living off of a single income.

I graduated from school decades ago and realize that things aren't neccessarily the same as far as getting a degree and looking for a job. What things matter: Certifications? Apprenticeships? Bootcamps? What do today's employers look for?

I realize that it is probably hard to answer this question without me answering a bunch of other questions. Basically, I would like to get a decent job in tech (at least 70k if possible) and have the ability to learn on the job and not have to spend years in a classroom not making any money. If there is a way to work with people, that would be great. I am fine with some WFH, perhaps all WFH, but would much prefer meeting people and having coworkers/human contact.

Thank you so much

posted by IWantAnswers to Technology (10 answers total)

Have you thought about going into sales for a tech company? Without knowing more about your background, that feels like a more natural move for you, and there's a lot of pay upside - I think you could easily blow away your $100k salary. It would be a route in that would leverage your existing skillset while you ramp up on the tech. You could also consider something like a solutions architect, but even there I think there'd be a need for you to have pre-existing skills.

Moving directly into a technical IT role and not starting at the bottom seems far-fetched when a company could easily hire someone with similar managerial experience and who knows what they're doing for the same price. So, unless staying in sales is a route you're open to, you're for sure going to need to build your skills. I've been out of the IT game for a minute so I'll let others address the best ways if doing that. Once you have something you can point to that shows you have some modicum of tech knowledge, it's not infeasible for you to get a job and continue growing your knowledge from there, but starting from 0 in a non-entry-level role is pretty unlikely.
posted by Special Agent Dale Cooper at 9:49 AM on November 26, 2023 [11 favorites]

‘IT’ is very broad. If you want to get into the technical side of things, then you can probably do a low cost online programming course to start with, and see how you get in with that. It’s a good way to get started without spending too much time or money. Because, in my experience, while everyone can probably code a bit, some people are more naturally technically inclined.

My hunch is that, as the poster above mentions, you should probably do sales in an IT or tech company. If you spent 20 years in sales, you will probably find this a much easier transition than starting from scratch as you have the existing skillsets already.
posted by moiraine at 10:20 AM on November 26, 2023 [1 favorite]

In tech, a sales or program manager role sounds like a good fit. I'd advise against aiming for entry-level programmer roles. That job market is really grim right now.
posted by qxntpqbbbqxl at 10:58 AM on November 26, 2023 [1 favorite]

Also where are you located? I think the answer will also depend on where you are. I would say look at technical recruiting. It uses a lot of the same skills as sales. Another thought is help desk but that pay will be variable on location.
posted by Carillon at 11:19 AM on November 26, 2023 [2 favorites]

Not programmer and not IT, as those require quite a bit of technical training. As you've done retail and retail management, I agree with others: technical sales. The really hard questions will be handled by "sales engineers" who's also on the team. You basically do all the "human" questions. :) (probably WAY too simplified)
posted by kschang at 11:50 AM on November 26, 2023

Seconding project management or possibly business analysis. You can find online courses for very cheap at lots of places, such as edX, Coursera, and Pluralsight.
posted by mezzanayne at 11:58 AM on November 26, 2023

salesforce has a really wonderful sense of community and welcomes newcomers with a ton of regional meetup groups, many meet on zoom also. The Austin / phoenix folks are especially helpful and nice, wherever you’re from .. you could attend a few zooms and get some network-y intel before you commit to the path .. plenty of marketing and biz analyst tracks if you want to go that direction but equally easy if you want to go a new route
posted by elgee at 1:59 PM on November 26, 2023

Right now, the concept of a "good" job in IT is "I still have a job". I'm not at all trying to dissuade you from going down this road - I'll get to my thoughts on that in a sec - but as I'm sure you're aware, the bloodletting in the IT sector has been going strong for over a year or so now, and while hiring will pick up again one of these days probably, the "good old days" of mid-2010's IT employment are probably gone for quite a while.

Anyway - to your question!

Thirding business analysis. I've been a business analyst for about 25 years now (I'm in my early 50's), and it's been a great career for me - I don't have to know how to code (and I don't! I know a little VBA from my days as an Excel person, but that's about it), I just have to know how to a) talk to people who can code so they can understand and build things how non-tech people want things to function or, increasingly, b) know how to work with customers to configure highly complex, no- or low-code software like, in my case, Workday (but Salesforce is also like this, arguably moreso).

This also involves knowing how to test things - you get requirements from your customers, you configure, you see if it works, you tweak if it doesn't, you try again, repeat until success! - and while every company's test methodology is a bit different, that's the basic arc. Testing's actually the fun part, for me. I get to see if what I built works! It's a very satisfying process.

I don't have a degree either, and honestly that has never held me back. If you're good at communicating (and coming from sales, you probably are), you can learn the "systems" part of "business systems analyst".

For option B above, there are helpful user communities and for-pay classes in most of the major platforms businesses use - I would honestly recommend looking into Salesforce, as their path to entry isn't as industry-focused as Workday (which is primarily HR/Finance focused) and is thus easier to get into as an "outsider".

Mostly: don't make the mistake of thinking "IT" automatically means "sit at a computer with big headphones on my head and write lines of code, staring at a screen till your eyes bleed". Those jobs exist, and they're important, but IT is so much broader than that at this point that someone at your stage of life and career shouldn't really need to engage with that path, unless you have a very strong desire to work at an insane pace for insane hours for as long as you can handle it.
posted by pdb at 7:34 PM on November 26, 2023 [1 favorite]

Incredible time to “get in” as the entire industry and world is going to go through a paradigm shift this year… this year. I’d start w learning about AI, llms, and practical applications of them tomorrow.
posted by specialk420 at 9:19 PM on November 26, 2023

Seconding sales. You'll have to sell yourself to get your foot in the door, local meetups may be an option. Recruiting is also sales and those people seem to have a goog gig.

Disagree that AI should be your focus. This is doctorate level stuff and thats where those jobs will go.

Note that this is a long road and the market is very very tough right now. So be prepared.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 6:30 AM on November 27, 2023