Career change - IT and coding???

[hellothegrrreeeen]

Looking for a change in career (28, work in marketing.) I am thinking retraining myself and getting into coding and IT jobs. I have heard the money and flexibility are good and as it is such an important sector these days = job stability.

Male dominated, does that mean it will be easier for a woman to secure a job?

Where to start with basic IT and coding skills? I am intelligent and logical and a quick learner.

Anyone else made a career move into IT, experiences? Thank you in advance.

Would not bother, the job is changing.

AI is going to be doing the coding, people are going to be putting the requests to AI in a way they can understand them. Coders are already moving to do the analyst job.

Yea AI is coming. Look for something else.

As somebody who is actually a software engineer, and who actively uses ai on a daily basis to generate code, I would say the “AI will do all the coding” premise is hopelessly optimistic (much like the fizzled “automated cars will put all drivers out of work”).

it is definitely true, however, that LLMs are making us much more productive with every new release. That may mean that demand for new tech goes up as it becomes easier, or it may mean that companies lay off a lot of junior staff. The seniors are pretty safe for now because LLMs are good at generating small bits of code, but can’t make sweeping changes to large code bases.

Regardless, the process of writing software is changing, and the economics of staffing will change too. How they’ll change is anybody’s guess.

Regarding a career change, if you can do a CS degree then yes, do it. If you’re hoping to do a 6-week Ruby bootcamp and then wing it from there, I’m afraid those days are gone and probably won’t return.

Yes, the money is good, and there can be flexibility regarding working at home, etc. There doesn't tend to be many site visits in most developer roles either, so not much travel. It can also be quite friendly towards neurodiverse people, but that would depend on the company, and if you are simply shy, there is still an expectation of good communication skills.

It is male dominated, but being a woman won't give you an advantage. It will be purely skills-based. It's no better than any other industry regarding sexism or discrimination. You might have to work long hours when releases are due, so there may be periods of it not being at all family-friendly.

If you enjoy the dea of lifelong learning and regularly learning new skills, you'll get on well. It will be affected by AI, but we're not quite there yet. There is still a good market for programming skills.

Regarding where to start, sorry I didn't answer that. Do you do anything technical in your existing job? Update files using a content management system? Calculate formulas in Excel? Have your own website or blog? There's probably some scope to do 'a bit more' in any of that kind of thing and work out your aptitude and enjoyment of the work, then go from there into more formal study.

There were until this year at least government scholarships to do conversion MSc degrees in data science and AI for people who are underrepresented in tech (inc women). I’m doing a funded data science one at the moment, having never coded before in my life! And I’m a lot older than you. Worth looking into, although both are quite/very maths-based so you need strong numeracy or at least to not be scared of getting into the probability / stats. There are also computer science conversion degrees, but not sure what the funding situation is.

I’m not sure about the job situ. I’m mostly doing my MSc to pivot my existing non-tech career rather than going into a straight data science job, but from looking at job listings it seems like there are jobs out there.

This is the info - looks like the scholarships have ended, but you could look into a degree apprenticeship?
www.officeforstudents.org.uk/for-students/planning-to-study/

If you have a degree it might be worth trying to apply to a company as a grad trainee in IT. You can try either a tech company or a company with an IT department.

In the meantime, I would try and do some courses in coding to see if you like it. Data analytics would also be another area to investigate. AI is an important factor but it is not at the stage of replacing coders just yet. However, learning how to use AI in conjunction with coding or data analytics is beneficial.

Another area to try is business analysis. I think your marketing skills would compliment it assuming that you have strong communication skills.

You could also try a friendly employment agency to get their advice too. They will have a good handle on the market and can guide you on saleable skills.

Good luck!

I've done four kickstarter courses plus the 'degree' (intensive sixteen-week evening course) with Code First Girls.

If you'd like a taster of coding, I'd recommend them. The teaching isn't perfect since the tutors are tech practitioners rather than professional educators; however, the community spirit, homework and projects make the courses an enjoyable experience.

From comments the tutors made, it sounds as if you can still get into an entry-level tech job with the big companies, but you do need to have very solid coding skills to pass the tests. They strongly recommend doing lots of practice on sites like LeetCode.

I feel like too much of an old dog now for that sort of thing; perhaps if I were still in my teens or twenties it would be different. However, I still found learning coding and learning about coding worthwhile in various ways. (Get better at adapting to different technologies; understand more about the tech used in my field and feel more able to participate in discussions involving it; use SQL to move data around, etc.)

If you have good social skills, you might be interested in product manager type roles?