I’m both inspired and curious, as someone who’s attempting a mid-career change—how did you go from being a laborer on commercial construction projects to sysadmin?
Partly, I’m old and it was a different world then. But I’ve done a bunch of interviewing and hiring for very large companies, and it still does happen that smart, self-aware people come into software development somewhat indirectly. I started as a laborer in the summer after high school, with a full-time year after dropping out of state college (where I thought I was studying chemistry, but after 2 years realized 1) I didn’t care that much and 2) I was going to need to be in school a LONG time to get anywhere. Oh, and 3) the university asked me not to return, given my poor attendance and grades).
A fair number of labor-intensive jobs are well-suited for part-time or intermittent work, so possible to do while going to school for the basics (community college or some state schools). There are still lots of small businesses who need computers set up and administered, often as a side-gig for some other job you’re doing for them. If you’re good at it, you can ladder that to full-time sysadmin, sometimes with light development or app customization work. I started a PC-assembly company, which still exists (though it’s not particularly successful), and then got hired by a customer. I worked as sales-support for an accounting and small-manufacturing MRP system, and wrote truly horrific add-on bits for labor planning and job tracking, because a customer needed it and it scratched an itch.Those jobs didn’t pay more than laborer, but they were a lot more fun, and indoors, and I could see myself there long-term (either in the computer side, or in the business side—I ALMOST went and got my PMI cert in order to manage shop floors of manufacturing/assembly companies).
I figure it probably cost me 12-15 years post high-school of bouncing around and self-directed education and improvement to get to a medium-sized “real” software developement job, compared to the typical CS degree that costs 4 years but gets a good starter software job and puts you on the right track immediately. However, that extra decade was CRITICAL to my later success (PE at a large company for many years, now Distinguished Engineer at a smaller company). I wasn’t able to take school seriously enough to really learn the important lessons behind the nominal material. Actually working at real jobs both freed my curiosity to learn the details and applications of CS (even when it wasn’t my job), and to let me see the behaviors and decision-criteria that actually matter to business.
I really hesitate to generalize—I don’t want to downplay the amount of luck I’ve had, and I don’t think I’m anywhere near modal in my capabilities or drives. But I think one of the keys to my ability to work hard was doing things that have SOME impact on the real world and real people. It turns out it doesn’t (for me) need to be world-changing or particularly heroic, it just needs to be real.
I’d absolutely NOT recommend my path to anyone. If at all possible, get your head straight and go with a conventional school/work/growth-in-career model. But if you can’t do that, there are an infinite amount of alternatives that still lead to pretty good results. Maybe not even software—I still know a bunch of fairly smart but too-hard-partying and not-particularly-ambitious laborers who went to tech school and are now pretty comfortable senior construction people (electricians, carpenter/project managers, masons, some back to school for (non-software) engineering or architecture.
I’m both inspired and curious, as someone who’s attempting a mid-career change—how did you go from being a laborer on commercial construction projects to sysadmin?
Partly, I’m old and it was a different world then. But I’ve done a bunch of interviewing and hiring for very large companies, and it still does happen that smart, self-aware people come into software development somewhat indirectly. I started as a laborer in the summer after high school, with a full-time year after dropping out of state college (where I thought I was studying chemistry, but after 2 years realized 1) I didn’t care that much and 2) I was going to need to be in school a LONG time to get anywhere. Oh, and 3) the university asked me not to return, given my poor attendance and grades).
A fair number of labor-intensive jobs are well-suited for part-time or intermittent work, so possible to do while going to school for the basics (community college or some state schools). There are still lots of small businesses who need computers set up and administered, often as a side-gig for some other job you’re doing for them. If you’re good at it, you can ladder that to full-time sysadmin, sometimes with light development or app customization work. I started a PC-assembly company, which still exists (though it’s not particularly successful), and then got hired by a customer. I worked as sales-support for an accounting and small-manufacturing MRP system, and wrote truly horrific add-on bits for labor planning and job tracking, because a customer needed it and it scratched an itch.Those jobs didn’t pay more than laborer, but they were a lot more fun, and indoors, and I could see myself there long-term (either in the computer side, or in the business side—I ALMOST went and got my PMI cert in order to manage shop floors of manufacturing/assembly companies).
I figure it probably cost me 12-15 years post high-school of bouncing around and self-directed education and improvement to get to a medium-sized “real” software developement job, compared to the typical CS degree that costs 4 years but gets a good starter software job and puts you on the right track immediately. However, that extra decade was CRITICAL to my later success (PE at a large company for many years, now Distinguished Engineer at a smaller company). I wasn’t able to take school seriously enough to really learn the important lessons behind the nominal material. Actually working at real jobs both freed my curiosity to learn the details and applications of CS (even when it wasn’t my job), and to let me see the behaviors and decision-criteria that actually matter to business.
I really hesitate to generalize—I don’t want to downplay the amount of luck I’ve had, and I don’t think I’m anywhere near modal in my capabilities or drives. But I think one of the keys to my ability to work hard was doing things that have SOME impact on the real world and real people. It turns out it doesn’t (for me) need to be world-changing or particularly heroic, it just needs to be real.
I’d absolutely NOT recommend my path to anyone. If at all possible, get your head straight and go with a conventional school/work/growth-in-career model. But if you can’t do that, there are an infinite amount of alternatives that still lead to pretty good results. Maybe not even software—I still know a bunch of fairly smart but too-hard-partying and not-particularly-ambitious laborers who went to tech school and are now pretty comfortable senior construction people (electricians, carpenter/project managers, masons, some back to school for (non-software) engineering or architecture.