By employed I mean get a job in the industry either offline or online. Ideally something that would highly likely remain in-demand in the near future.
A few years ago, I’d say web dev. I’d hire a junior web dev fresh out of a boot camp with only 6 months of experience at 60-80k.
Today, my company won’t allow it, and I’m fighting to get new devs. We won’t even take a junior without a bunch of core competencies, things that will take at least a year to pick up. But even if we did, there’s a huge pool of applicants who want in.
To add to all the other good advice in this thread. I just wanted to point out that the hardest part is going to be getting that first job. So pay attention to any advice about any positions that are currently actively hiring with little to no experience. An alternative is some networking/nepotism and leverage some connections to get you in your first job.
After getting some reasonable level of experience things get a lot easier. You still need to know what you’re doing and be able to prove it, but you’ll face less of an initial barrier and be more likely to get an interview.
Related, if you see a listing for an “entry level” job that requires 5+ years of experience or whatever, apply for it anyway. Odds are no one with experience is going to want to take the salary they’re offering, so you might get an interview.
Like many others already said. Being self taught is ok, but employers need at least some kind of confirmation about your skills. So getting some kind of officisl certificate will make your job search a lot easier.
Microsoft offers a bunch of .NET certificates if you do their C# courses for example. You can also become a certified Linux professional.
Find something that interests you and then start learning by doing some tutorials. The most important thing is that you have fun and won’t burn yourself out working in a field you don’t enjoy.
Where I’m from there’s demand for Web Devs, Java devs, .NET devs, It Support, Network Engineers, Embedded systems, whatever.
I started programming about a year and half ago with the Odin Project, about 9 months in, I got employed by a agency, focused mostly on Wordpress and shopware. Everything I did, I uploaded to GitHub and used this to show my knowledge.
Iam by far not the fastest learner, nor am I the most intelligent. I feel overwhelmed most of the time and in comparison to the people that studied something related to IT I had to catch up to a lot of the basic stuff, especially the first few months. At the beginning, even thought I got employees as a junior, I wouldn’t have called myself that, felt more like a apprenticeship.
What I want to say is: in my opinion it’s definitely possible to get a job, even if your self taught. But it needs commitment and you have to get used to a lot of rejected applications. In my area (Germany) most of the companies are looking for well educated people with a degree or work expierience 4 years+. The self learning wasn’t easy and I did it full time, including the weekends for about half a year.
If you want it, do it, commit yourself and I think you will be fine, but don’t expect it to be easy or companies fighting for you. For me the hardest thing was following that goal, even when friends, family and some posts told me I wouldn’t make it.
Have fun, and good luck!
Additional context: Iam 32 with no IT background at all.
Operations.
I think everyone believe that their job is easy though. Because they’ve done it for so long. So take everyone’s advice with s grain of salt
Entry level networking technician. You can get a bunch of useful Cisco certifications for free on their website. Try to get yourself an old switch from ebay to practice setting up a small network, vlans etc., and you’ve got a solid start.
Try to get yourself an old switch from ebay to practice setting up a small network, vlans etc., and you’ve got a solid start.
This is what (older) millenials had to do when they wanted to play video games with their friends, no broadband internet, we moved the computer, set up a lan. Good old time. But this is how 20-25 years latter, I have basic knowledge of network, and look at puzzled Gen Z kids when I tell them to set their IP adress and ping the hardware
Your comment made me really nostalgic for the days of setting up pan parties, configuring hamachi servers, etc. Good old days
Sure as hell wouldn’t know what port forwarding is if it wasn’t for playing lan games online
I work in cybersecurity now, though I spent about 15 years in Systems Administration. I credit my career to my father buying a computer and letting me tinker with it. There were two factors that taught me a ton about computers:
- Creating boot disks for games (this was back in the heyday of MS-DOS).
- Realizing “oh shit, I had better fix this before dad gets home.”
Nothing teaches how to work on computers quite like working on a computer. And much of that “working” is actually figuring out how to un-fuck the computer you just fucked up.
My entire devops career started with writing stupid E2 programs in GMOD and hosting a private Minecraft server (IIRC it was Bukkit or something similar). This is the real pride and accomplishment.
Aw yeaaah Java bukkit waddap
I see this as also a very future proof career. Even if businesses move the vast majority of their infrastructure to the cloud they’ll still have an on premises network presence.
Appreciate the response! Any specific video/reading course to start with?
I think mobile development is best for this. Very technical, but still a lot of products and companies and not quite so spammed with bootcamps.
Honestly? Pretty much anything. Not a senior level position unless you’re willing to really fudge your resume but entry or mid level - sure. If you put your nose to the grindstone you can learn to do pretty much anything in a year… that’s a long fucking time.
What kind of IT were you looking at? System administration? IT Support/Help Desk? Development? Networking? Ops?
What do you think of cloud computing in general? Cloud dev, cloud admin, or cloud architect? Good idea to invest all my free time into?
Yea, I don’t think it’s going anywhere anytime soon.
Thanks for responding! Honestly, I’m looking for a profession that is most likely to remain in-demand for the foreseeable future. Secondly, well, the income potential, of course. What would you recommend?
You really can’t go wrong landing an IT help desk position at a moderate sized non-tech company. You’ll be an essential employee and get a lot of recognition for your work.
Hmmmm…
Nothing wrong here.
I’m self-taught as well, and I’d say look through the current job market and offerings, but don’t worry all that much - teaching yourself IT usually nets you a considerable amount of transferable skills that you build upon if things don’t work out in one field; you also learn to learn and get much more comfortable with switching branches.
The less volatile your branch is, the less likely it is to turn out to be a fad that you’ll have to drop several years down the line at best. Crypto and blockchain, for example, were probably often recommended when the thing was on the rise, but that’s nowhere near as popular and safe now; I believe the current AI hype to follow the same fate. Basically, look at the news and trends and be careful with whatever big and stupid corporations push for, praise, or massively invest in: that’s usually nothing but good marketing successfully baiting the suits.
Web develoment is probably going to stay simultaneously volatile and relevant for decades more, so that’s a good option. Embedded development shouldn’t be going anywhere either, although that’s more low-level and intimidating, but it can be fun and stable and pay relatively well. I hate the smartphones industry and can’t really say much about Android or iOS development, but I doubt it’s doomed or anything.
So far, it seems like not following whatever Elon Musk or other billionaires tell you is the future is a good bet.
I went in with a 4 year degree, the other grad next to me went in with a 6 month kinda masters. You can pull it off if you try hard enough and know your shit, wish I’d known that before I wasted so long at uni.
6 month kinda masters
What’s that, diploma mill?
I assumed they misunderstood how a 4 1/2 year master’s program works, since the masters part is technically only half a year on paper. But I don’t think that necessarily makes sense in context…
Sr level would easily get weeded out during the interview process.
You’d think so. You’d definitely think so.
Pretty much anything if you’re willing to crush out some certs. 365 is in-demand and you can learn everything on Microsoft’s training modules. Alternatively, programming pays well if you’re willing to learn the languages.
Once you get your foot in the door, focus on upward mobility by job hopping. Always take a better job title over higher pay if you want the big bucks later on.
Also bear in mind that most IT jobs favor personality over skill set, even if they deny it on paper.
It’s a really bad time to get into it as a noob, especially self taught. There are jobs, but there’s also alot of downsizing and layoffs in an already fairly saturated industry. Even lower end stuff right now you’ll probably be up against people with certs, degrees, job experience.
If you’re legitimately interested in IT and want to learn more on your own, you should! Find what interests you the most, and there will be a million resources available free and cheap. I don’t think it’s a good time to put all your career eggs in that basket though like it sounds you’re thinking.
Honestly, if you’re trying for zero to money, AFAIK trades are still hurting. Maybe look into trade programs at your local community College. It’s not a cushy lazy white collar job but you’d potentially make similar or better money because everyone for 20 years has been clamoring for cushy lazy white collar jobs.
Theres also serious though niche demand for people with trades knowledge and IT skills too. Plus knowing how to automate all your reports is always helpful.
Things to consider if you have that IT kinda mind and don’t mind playing in the mud. Instrumentation and Controls Technician, always need someone who can mess with comms and networking bullshit. And im some places can get into automation programming, called mechatronics sometimes? HVAC/building automation technician. Industrial electrician focussing on trying to get into commissioning and PLC programming/automation.
So I went to university on a general computer science course, so this might already discount this answer. However, during my final year, a friend who was already in the industry convinced me to push towards a cloud engineering role (systems engineering specifically with cloud services like Amazon and Azure). This was not something my course covered at all, so we went through containers, AWS, Terraform, Kubernetes etc. during our free time before he got me an interview for a junior role when I graduated. I was very lucky with my circumstances but I don’t think I would’ve gotten the role without that extra study.
These roles are in demand and will be for the foreseeable future. If you have general Linux knowledge then you should be able to pick it up fairly quickly.
Thanks! Any specific course recommendations?
Mate IT is not lucrative anymore. Get into plumbing that’s where the real money is. $200 for 30mins and then $40/15mins.
Thanks for the advice. But then how can I immigrate to Europe from a 3rd-world country using this skill? I plan to study for a Bachelor’s in IT to get the initial study visa to then proceed into employment and hopefully permanent residency. And I’m also much more into computers than pipes, been my whole life.
Plus, the IT skills might allow me to work online for any company in the world, regardless of where I’ll end up being.
Can’t commen t on immigration but not all IT jobs gets you work from home option. IT is really broad- IT operations which include service desk, desktop support, sys admins and other engineers like wintel, storage, devops etc then there is software where you can be either tester , product owner, developer etc and I guarantee you not everyone gets remote work.
What do you think you can recommend for a future digital nomad to study now? What to really dive into to become successful in the near future?
AI
Another criterion might be to be self employed. I have little experience with that and it probably has it’s pro’s and con’s but depending on what corporate culture you’ll face as an employee. But it might be worth keep it in mind when choosing your profession.
Vue.js, it’s the simplest of the popular frontend frameworks
You can learn a hellton about sysadmin and DevOps by running a home lab and aiding that with some courses and maybe one cert or two but I wouldn’t splurge on certs that readily.
Golang, Express.js, Nest, Flask, SQL (a must), maybe Spark if you dare. Any popular and expressive framework/language for full stack/backend, except for Rails and PHP, those are dying technologies despite their still relatively high popularity in some countries.
Maybe Flutter, Swift or React Native if you want to get into mobile dev.
Just go to a job board, then to learnxinyminutes.com, pick something and start with building small, then medium sized, then maybe more complex projects or contributing to FLOSS written using your tech of interest (but please, PLEASE don’'t treat OSS contributions primarily as a way to get a job. Pick something you use instead. Try to figure out how you would implement something, do that and don’t let the impostor syndrome win if it uses a tech you’re familiar with whenever you want to open an issue on a git forge.
I studied hard for a few months, got my A+ and network+ certs from CompTIA.
Got my first helpdesk job making about 47K. 3 years later I was making 85K as a sysadmin. Stay in Helpdesk for 12-24 months, keep studying, start to learn a major infrastructure brand, Azure, AWS, Red Hat Linux, Xen Server, Cisco, etc.
Stay aggro on salary, don’t be afraid to jump from job to job as long as you’re there for at least a year and you leave on decent terms.
And for the love of Tux, don’t settle for piss pay. I can’t tell you how many IT folks I’ve met already in the industry who are Sys admins/engineers/network admins, making 20%,30%,40% under the average pay in their area. Money isn’t everything, but it sure as hell ain’t nothing either.
And never forget: The company doesn’t care about you.
All great advice, but I’m curious why you say you should leave on decent terms? As long as you don’t get fired, what’s wrong with being candid in an exit interview and potentially ruffling feathers by saying what you couldn’t before?
So this is definitely something that varies depending on your situation.
Depending on what country/state you live in, you may or may not have good employment laws protecting you.
On top of that, if you leave on solid terms, your former employer might put in an extra good word for you to your next one. I’ve even had one who offered to write a personal recommendation letter for my next employer.
It depends a lot on how much you are willing/able to play the game, and what the laws are in your region, and the nature of your employment type.
Leave on such good terms that you can use them as references and don’t have to fear them bad mouthing your skills.
The company doesn’t care about you.
I wish more people would understand this.
Also, HR is there to protect the company, not you.
Absolutely accurate.
I’m always a bit irritated by that definite statement that companies don’t care.
The company I work for is small, ~30 people, and my boss/employer as a person cares about me. A lot as a worker/employee, maybe less so but also as a person/individual.
Yes, the company as a theoretical construct does not care for or about me. It’s a construct. But that ignores the people in it, and the variance between companies (even if it’s only a minority where leadership personally cares).
Without even a little bit of sarcasm, I am genuinely happy for you. Hold on to this job for as long as you can, because people like that are incredibly rare.
In my 30+ year career in IT I’ve only managed to work for a place like that once. It was 20 years ago, and I was the sixth employee to be hired, and at our peak we were at about 30 people. The owner was a super nice guy who cared about every single one of his employees. I learned a lot from him and consider him to be a friend and a mentor. We weathered the 2008 financial downturn better than most, but eventually business started to dry up and the company was sold to a large competitor. The boss was relegated to a consultancy role, and eventually got pushed out altogether. I lasted another 3 years at that place, but it was never the same after the buyout. Everyone became just another cog in the machine. Every place I worked at before that or since was your typical corporate position where my manager’s supervisor’s boss doesn’t even know I exist, much less care about me.
I consider the first 6 years in that company a highlight of my career, and keep in touch with that boss and others who worked there. So yes, treasure your time at a good workplace, and don’t take for granted the personal connections you make there.
And never forget: The company doesn’t care about you.
This right here. Every time I bring this up, some Lemmy person starts licking the corporate boot.
You’re here to provide a service and get paid. Jumping jobs is the fastest way to increasing your salary. Your first job is to gain experience. The next jobs is supposed to get you paid.
But even after you get a entry level job, I see a lot of jr techs stop learning. Yes, helping someone with their mouse isn’t glamorous. Yes, resetting email passwords isn’t what you took the test for. And no, chances are your job will not let you climb the ladder because you’re doing so well fixing basic end-user BS.
Don’t ever stop learning on your free time and be prepared to jump to hit the higher levels of salary.
Totally right.
Thanks. So is your advice to, basically, study networking?
Not only networking unless you just wanna be a network admin. But networking is one of the most important components, you need the basics to be a good sys admin regardless.
Understand IP addressing, subnets, DHCP, DNS, OSI model, basics of packet anatomy, basics of routing and switching.
Have a solid understanding of those things plus a few other networking subjects, you’ll be able to troubleshoot really well. Don’t be the sys admin who barely understands IP addressing, I’ve known that person…not good.
