Writing a Blog

"Working in Tech is difficult"

Strangely, I don't hear this very often.

Even though, I've met hundreds of people who work in tech or are actively looking to change careers into tech.

Let's break it down

I would say there are 3 main types of individuals that you meet in tech networking events or just day to day events.

CTOs and Tech Leads tend to have a view that it all works out in the end, especially if they've been in the industry for 10+ years.

Senior and mid-level developers tend to have an easy going view. That it's easy, until you press them for more information.
For example, I was at a codebar networking event at Google. I was speaking to two engineers who had volunteered to help out with the event. I ,immediately, asked them what did you do to get into Google. The first person replied " You just go on the website and apply." He was so blase about it that if I didn't know about the difficult process of getting hired at Google. I'd probably think "Oh, is that it? I'll just go and do that." But, after joking around with him about his blase attitude he followed it up with "Well, obviously, I messaged hundreds of people who worked for Google on linkedIn and asked them to mentor me and do mock interviews with me."
That initial struggle is behind them and there is no need to bring it back.

Beginners/Jobhunters tend to think that tech is going to change their life for the better. They're the optimist at networking events and if you see them more than once at different tech events you'll notice the reality sink in. That tech really is difficult. But not for the reasons that they initially thought.

What is difficult about the tech industry?

Although learning how to code can is difficult. I would say most people can learn to code pretty easily. The real hard part is showing others that you can code. You want to have easily accesible projects that you can show to employers. You want to demonstrate your ability to coordinate your efforts with people. And, most of all you want to show that you can use currently relevant frameworks or tools to do all of this.

What language have you learn?
What Framework do you use?
What database do you use?
Have you got a protofolio?
etc

It's a never ending list and it can really be demoralising.

Beginner/Jobhunter

who am I?

I started dabbling in code close to 2 years ago now. I've done a coding bootcamp. And frequently mentor beginners from that bootcamp or from the charity Codebar that I mentioned earlier. Even though I've met lots of people and two years seems like a lot of time I would say I'm still in the early stages of learning to code.

My biggest blockers

For me, I struggle with organising my time and thoughts. As I commited more to software engineering and quit my job Thai boxing coaching. I thought it would be easier to transition. But... It has not been. I've learnt several coding languages, solved loads of problems and helped lots of people get into coding. I still struggled to:
Structure my projects and display my ability. What that means is I didn't publish small projects that I'd done in the past because I thought they weren't good enough and this perfectionist attitude has stopped me from publishing and sharing my projects. Who knows maybe its fear.

So what am I doing to level up?

Since the blockers were mainly, organisation and not commiting fully to projects. I've decided to start projects as though they were company projects. So document everything, use Github well and efficiently, when facing a challenge break it down and document the results. This should help me stay accountable and produce a project that can demonstrate my ability to code.
Realistically, If i have no good work on show then to your uninformed observer I am just an unqualified developper.

On this platform, Ill share my journey step by step talking about the struggles I personally go through and the solutions I will to go through them.