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Comment by germinalphrase | Hacker News Reader

I currently teach high school English. There is a great deal about the job that feeds my soul, but my engagement with the work has shifted markedly over the last few years and is starting to impact my happiness, my optimism for life, and my ability to be the husband and father I know I am. I believe it’s time to do something else.

Several conversations with tech folks lead me to believe that I would do very well in UX. I feel skeptical of boot camps, but here in Minneapolis the impression seems to be that Prime is a useful ‘box-check’ for obtaining a junior position. Any Twin Cities HN’ers have insight into whether (or to what degree) that’s true?

I feel apprehensive about the “flood of junior candidates, dearth of senior talent” dynamic.

Thoughts/comments/connections would be appreciated.

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I was a math teacher for 5 years and have switched to web dev 5 years ago and have been loving it. I did have a bunch of personal web-dev experience, so it made switching careers pretty easy. But I wanted to share that it seems doable.

Since a lot of tech work is still people work (communicating clearly, managing expectations, etc), I suspect you'd be a better candidate than someone straight out of college.

Some of the best tech people I’ve met were history teachers in a previous life :P

> I feel apprehensive about the “flood of junior candidates, dearth of senior talent” dynamic.

Many people I know (myself included) are looking less at overall skillset and more for a good understanding of the fundamentals + a desire to grow and stick with a role (ethic).

That is, if you can focus on understanding the core principles of UX/design and show that you can apply those (usually by way of portfolio showing the desires, and therefore your comprehensive of the desires + the outcomes), that means a lot more because most teams realize that hiring someone is an investment and they know that it will take you time to understand how they work, their needs, etc.

I don't know that there is anything special about Prime over other reputable bootcamps. It might be easier to get a job in the agency world (since I know Prime has a lot of tie-ins to the industry) - which is fairly infamous for paying below market wages for entry level positions. I've personally never noticed a difference in candidate quality based on whether they did Prime or any other bootcamp.

Thank you for the insight. Any recommendations on how to gauge company reputations on the local level without having many industry connections? Are orgs like UXPA-MN worth a damn?

I don't know much about organizations like UXPA-MN.

I don't know if I have any good advice beyond the obvious things like Glassdoor. I worked a couple agency jobs early on in my career and while it was a good couple years for career experience, it was also my hardest working (as in hours) and least paying years I ever had. Once I switched to product development I found much higher quality jobs in both pay and work/life balance. That can be kind of tough to find in TC compared to other cities, though.

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