How to Get a New Career in the Tech Industry

Updated October 6, 2023
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Career in the Tech Industry

If you’re someone who’s found that your current career is lacking and you realize that you should get into the growing tech industry instead, how do you go about it? This is the focus of this article, which aims to provide timely tips on how to approach making a move into working in technology.

So, let’s get started.

What Do You Know Already?

It may be that you’ve played with designing a logo or two for a friend before and so you’re somewhat familiar with Adobe Photoshop.

Or, you might have gone beyond the “Hello World” initial computer program to create something more extensive like a mobile app or a small website?

Whatever you have learned already gives some insight into what you might prefer to do in the tech industry. Understand, there are many different roles within tech. There are also meccas of startup and computer innovation like Silicon Valley and popular places to stay like Los Angeles, which trumps being irrelevant sitting in a small Midwest town with tech-based dreams.

What Are You Likely to be Good At?

Do you have a natural affinity for certain types of technology or activities? Don’t try to fit a square peg into a round hole here. You’ll only be mediocre if you do and there’s enough competition in the tech space that that won’t cut the mustard.

If you feel most happy creating graphics using design software, then studying to be a graphics designer and working in a web studio is going to be a suitable career.

When you’ve already discovered that you have a real affinity for social media and love juggling different personal accounts, then the next step is to be a professional social manager for a brand or on behalf of multiple companies as an independent worker.

Also, if you’re a code maven and love learning new computer languages, then you’ll probably want to learn to code. This might be via a Computer Science degree or one of the online coding camps.

Do You Want to Be Employed, Work Remotely, Freelance or Start a Business?

Consider what type of worker you wish to be.

You could be perfectly happy to be an employee. If you’re working in tech, you’ll need to relocate to California to find a high-paying job or, at least work your way up to one. Trying to do that as an employee anywhere else in the country doesn’t make much sense.

If you wish to work remotely, then you’ll want to determine how many startups and established technology companies employ people who don’t work on their campus. The options here vary between some people who work from home a few days a week and come into the office for important meetings, to those who are entirely remote.

To be more independent, you could be a freelance coder. This usually means working on individual projects over a short or long period of time. Some people prefer to operate this way to have greater flexibility for vacation time, international travel or who dislike being an employee. Whilst it might be easier to find programming or other types of technology-related gigs this way, a considerable amount of knowledge is required to offer differentiated services at a high level. That takes time to acquire. There’s also considerable global competition too.

The other option is to work with a plan to eventually create your own startup. To do this, you will need to work in a variety of roles and be based in California to be exposed to the better startups to learn how they operate. Many of the better venture capital firms are based in this state to take meetings and secure funding more easily too.

Are You Willing to Relocate?

When wishing to be an employee and perhaps start a business one day, it behooves you to eventually move to the west coast. This is where the single largest cluster of technology companies is based.

It’s true that there are some situated in Seattle, but the majority are in Silicon Valley, San Francisco, and other areas within California. Being initially situated in Los Angeles makes it easier to get more familiar before picking a final location, perhaps based on final job offers?

Blueground provides furnished apartment rentals in Los Angeles and other cities too, like San Francisco. Using Los Angeles as a jumping-off point, you can find more information about this on this site. They provide one month and longer rentals which are ideal when you don’t yet know where you’ll end up but want something more settled than a cramped hotel room.

There are different paths to move into the technology field. Not all paths lead to the same place. It’s up to you what you feel you’ll be best at, your natural talents, and where you wish to end up that will determine what your best next move should be.

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