Ask HN: What steps would you take to get a tech job with no experience? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: What steps would you take to get a tech job with no experience?

6 pointsprofile5312 comments

Hello HN!

I've worked in medicine the last 4 or 5 years but with COVID and more importantly its second/third order effects on healthcare, I've been considering making a change.

That being said, I have no professional experience in tech. I'm fairly well self taught, know a few different programming languages, git, how to use linux, etc. But, I have no "professional" qualifications.

So, my question is two fold:

- For anyone who is a hiring manager, what would make you consider a candidate with no experience and a degree that is not tech related?

- For anyone who has made this sort of switch, what did you do to become a better candidate & get a job?

(US based, for the curious)

View on HN

I worked in sales after a some-what useless liberal arts degree, transitioned into software-engineering/programming after 3-4 years of making cold calls :)

I would consider someone with no "professional" experience/no degree. You say no "professional experience", a transitioning developer can still build projects to display technical skills/knowledge/make stuff to be used by someone, contribute to open source projects, and volunteer time for non-profits/build stuff to display skills. I've had employers say they looked at my github, saw some really simple open source commits I made and that made them bring me in (this happened at a big bank and a big insurance company - led to job offers).

I was interviewing a dev this week for a job with an undergrad and a MS from good universities, she didnt have any github/projects/code to share with me, and struggled through easy algorithm questions.

So... I get that they went to great schools... I see that she has great professional experience... But i would rather interview with a dev that can share some of their code projects with me, and as long as you have basic algorithm skills id rather hire you than the person i interviewed yesterday.

I would add getting the first professional job, the challenge is getting through the recruiter, as many recruiters have to bat candidates away from open job positions after they are given strict "must have requirements" from engineering managers/directors.

So you should expect some frustrating conversations with recruiters, but most of the actual engineering people dont really care about what you did before you walked in the door as long as you satisfy their knowledge/skills requirements.

Those are really great tips, thanks! GitHub acts sort of like a portfolio I suppose.

As a former hiring manager, I would always look for some prior project experience: problem, design, standards, build, test, demonstrate. Kids coming out of school have project experience. Pick a problem to solve, then work it to completion. You will have plenty to talk about after that.

I always give this advice to grads. Create experience. It doesn't matter if it's some insignificant side project where you get 10 user visits a month, the fact you got stuck in and have something to talk about puts you miles ahead of many grads. You can discuss why you did something. It doesn't need to be a huge success, only show you have initiative, good logic and a work suitable brain vs 'Im enthusuastic'.

After graduation, I spent 3 months job searching then joined a small agency run by my father's friend.

To note, I had an engineering degree from one of the best universities on this side of the world. So it's probably more an issue with the job market and hiring processes, rather than your qualifications.

Even with years of experience under my belt, it takes months to switch jobs. I've built more apps than entire agencies have. My side projects have more users than the people who hire me. I don't believe having an extra project or certification helps.

I think it's all people skills. I've had literally only one job that I "cold" applied to from a job site. All of the others were from people I know and people who worked with me.

Seems like if you can create some rudimentary projects and then grind leetcode until you can knock off mediums/hards like a piece of cake, you can take a stab at even some FAANGs and other top tier tech companies. You may need to do some networking or otherwise attract the attentions of a recruiter or employee.

But I've seen quite a few LinkedIn articles about Joes and Janes who come from a non-tech background and managed to land top tier jobs at FAANGs, etc. by doing just that.

True story.

This algo-madness is a vulnerability in the system, break into it like a real hacker :)

Find non techy people who need techy people lol

And yea working in sales helped too, that led me into being good at selling myself to people, and of course sales means you're forced to be a performer NOT a cog in the machine

I'd focus your search on tech jobs in medicine, so you can bring subject matter expertise to the work. The knowledge you bring then can make it worth it for an organization to help you through the learning curve on the tech side.

I have hired people with non-tech backgrounds before. Usually they come in as an analyst first. This gives them the chance to learn the business side. While they are learning the business, they get a few chances to automate something or create a report using Python or some other language. If they demonstrate they can do the work, we transition them to a junior developer position after a year or two.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com