How did you into tech and would you recommend?

[MrsCremuel]

I'm drawn to working in tech but very limited experience. I work in HR and have history degree and really enjoy the systems work I do in my current role. My strengths are logical thinking and problem solving, which I think would work well in tech.

Please share your stories of how you started, if you enjoy it and he different careers paths there are. I would be so grateful!

Bumping

What systems work is it you do currently that you enjoy? By tech do you mean IT? There are various career paths, from analyst roles to development, testing, IT support, security, etc. Unfortunately competition is fierce in the current climate for roles. You might be able to study via a year IT conversion course (postgrad)?

In my company there is a team of HR Tech Analysts, they develop and maintain the HR systems... I reakon you could walk into a role like that!

I work in IT security and got into it via doing Computer Science degree and then starting on IT Helpdesk (which can be poorly paid but is a starting point to get foot in door of IT). Not everyone I work with has a computer science degree though, they come from a variety of backgrounds. For instance, once was a sales person who got into web development and is now developing the secuirty system that the security alerts come into. Another was in a compliance role. The other from a server support role.

If your interested in software testing systems, you could self study for a cert like BSC foundation in software testing and likely land a job that way. From there, you could go onto become a product manager of a system or if you wanted to get deeper into technical stuff, learn programming and become an automation engineer or a software developer and actually build the systems.

I do enjoy my job most of the time, but unfortunately I find that men always seem to think they are more competent than women in technical stuff and will mansplain alot... the more technical the role, the worst I find it. It's that old phrase that in tech "men are assumed competent until they provide otherwise, women are assumed incompetent until they prove otherwise". I don't have a thick skin though, so maybe its not as bad as that for other women. But just being honest that working in a male dominated role has and still does sometimes wear me down. I certainly wouldn't let that put you off though, all environments are different, and I think tech is constantly changing to be more inclusive.

'Tech' is a nebulous term that covers a huge variety of things.
'Non-technical' (I hate the term but can't think of a better one) roles primarily deal with the business management of software and systems. Examples:When this is being developed someone needs to gather requirements etc (business analysts). Once it has been developed someone needs to manage the business impact of changes, communication to right people if things go wrong (service managers). Managing what features should be prioritised, whether software delivers meets business needs (product manager).
'Technical' people are the ones who work on or support the actual software. You have developers who write code, infrastructure experts who work on systems, solution architects who design software. Within these domains itself there is lots of scope for specialisation.
You also have people in between who have just enough technical knowledge to perform specific functions (e.g. support analyst) but are not 'fully technical'.
Because of this diversity it is impossible to give a blanket recommendation without knowing your skills and personality.
I started with a 'tech' graduate programme for non-technical roles. I have a humanities degree. Was in a project management team, moved to tech support, and finally am a software developer. My boss took a chance on me. My team are all male and have never dismissed any of my points despite my being female and the least experienced (they all have computer science degrees). I love it :) Although it's been challenging there's nothing else I'd rather do.
I have lots more to say but don't want to extend this essay - feel free to reply or DM me if you want to know more

I came up through an internal selection process from the business side, before the days of computing degrees. External candidates had to be ‘degree standard’, we trained in-house. I can do most of the roles mentioned above but my coding skills are very behind the times.

It was the right choice for me, in that pay and conditions were much better than if I’d stayed where I was. Over the last 30 years it became a steadily nastier and more misogynistic environment and the strain of that was intense. I wouldn’t recommend it, but if you are in
HR you are well placed to know whether this applies to your company or not.

When an issue needs to be resolved, the engineers should seek out the help of others who can help them make sense of the situation and make decisions that are in the best interests of everyone concerned. Their main concerns should be ensuring that projects they are involved with go as smoothly as possible and that clients are happy with the outcome. That is what I learned from sphereit.uk specialists. They helped me solve all my problems and answered all my questions. The service is not expensive at all.

I work as a agile coach I was previously a team leader in various industries nothing to do with tech though.

Love my job now and the pay is incredible alongside the flexibility of working from home & choosing my own hours.