There's probably a lot of posts on this already but I need to know how to maneuver this career transition. So quick facts: -Im in my mid 30s -Over 7 years of jewelry retail operations experience -currently working full time -Mortgage -No savings -A bit of debt -Single no family -Just graduated from an online bootcamp with Full Stack Web Development skills -Dont know anything about Algorithms nor done leetcode yet but done some code war challenges -Tech Stack: Ruby on Rails, Javascript, React/Redux, HTML, CSS -created 4 apps that... are not mindblowing but they showcase how well I know the language -located in NYC I got into coding because I realized I ended up reorganizing company's data voluntarily in every job I've worked- voluntarily. And am just naturally interested in creating programs for data collection. I am trained full stack but I do enjoy backend more. So my career coach is telling me my best bet is to go after a hybrid role (customer service/dev role) because I have many years of retail operations experience and my people skills. But I feel those roles might pigeon hole me into a non-tech role and it will be hard for me to get out of it. Been going to Tech job fairs... has anyone gotten job from those??? Also, I cant afford internship because I have a mortgage... but if it's a stable company, I will take the risks. I just wanna know how many of you leveraged this risk of losing your current income for a lower income for a chance? I found a lot of scam jobs on the internet as well... Would love for you to share your experience or if you have some words of guidance for me that would be great. A job seeking website or what to look out for, good or bad. Please let me know if my salary expectation for my first tech job in NYC as a junior developer for 75 to 80k is realistic for my experience. Thank you so much!!
Get a new career coach. Get away from retail it’s a shitty dying industry. You just graduated boot camp? You’re a new grad. Brand yourself as such. If you stay in retail/CS as a dev, you’ll keep yourself there longer.
This career coach was assigned to me by the school. I see recruiters looking at my LinkedIn page but no one is biting. I linked my projects on github onto my linkedin though
The “career coach” cares about you getting a dev job close after graduation because the school likely publishes those numbers. They don’t care about lifetime TC or job satisfaction or what the long term implications of the job you get right out of school is, they have their own incentives set for them by the school. Be aware of others motives.
Omg. Ok I'll def start looking into startups! I dont really know any but I'll start somewhere and not just apply at well known companies.
Unless your looking at Solutions or Sales Engineering, don't settle. Dig you heels in, even though it might take a little.
A junior dev likely makes more than 80k in NY, but the problem is getting hired. You have better chances looking for startup jobs than bigger companies and you might have to hustle your way in. Your Ops experience is valuable to companies that have a lot of support requests (user facing things). Your retail experience might be valuable for the right B2B companies that target retail (fintechs doing b2b loans, advertising and ecommerce startups, etc) What I'd do in your shoes: 1-go to angellist jobs, filter by NY and the tech stack you're most used to 2-read the job descriptions and select the ones you think you can handle 3-send a message to each with links to the stuff you have built and your background, mention you're willing to wear as many hats as needed, specially in the beginning. Tailor each message as best as you can to sell your strong points. 4-if push comes to shove, offer a try before you buy deal, like you work there for two weeks and they can decide if they want to continue. Take PTO in your current job if someone says yes.
Thanks so much for your advice though an offer for 2 week tryout is... pretty tough to pull off with my work. But I get what you are saying. My end goal is to work in the west coast >.<. Thank you!
Sure, but much easier to move to SF after 1y or 2 of startup dev experience. If you get a yes to a 2 week tryout, you can decide if you jump or not. Good luck!