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About this talk
In the early 2010s I was working in tech support, struggling to support a family, and watching the developers in my same company have a lot more fun and get paid a lot more. In this talk, I share a bit about my path from support to software development in the hopes that it will help someone else exploring this path. I also explain how I ended up shifting away from being a full-time developer to my current marketing role of Developer Relations.
Takeaways
- Focus on a single language, framework, and use case when you're starting out
- Define your goals clearly, and try not to default to taking any job that pays more money than your current one
- Realize that the advice you get may be outdated, since the industry has shifted a lot in the last 5 years
- If, after getting a development job, you realize that it wasn't right for you: there are lots of roles that can still use those skills!
Slides
>> Click here to download slides
🌈 Comment below and ask me questions — I might just answer them during my live speaker discussion!
About Nočnica Fee
Nočnica Fee is a developer advocate, specializing in cloud applications, serverless computing, and containerization. She writes regularly for The New Stack and has been published in Information Age and Forbes. She blogs on dev.to, streams on Twitch at twitch.tv/serverlessmom, and spends her weekends caring for her dozens of houseplants. Get in touch on Twitter @serverless_mom
This on-demand talk is part of CodeLand 2021 — a virtual conference brought to you by CodeNewbie & DEV on September 23 & 24, 2021.
Top comments (20)
Heyo! If you have any questions for Noćnica (@serverlessmom ) please drop them here! 🙏
We're gathering up these questions for the live speaker discussion coming up later on. 📣
I am curious on strategies for how to figure out what you are good at. When focused intently on one goal (becoming a developer), it seems hard to try out different hats. Would you recommend getting into a career space before exploring different avenues within it?
Really my recommendation there was to think about combining development with something you were good at before you started learning to code. Even if it's not something you got paid for, just think about the work, or work-like activities, that you really enjoyed.
If you enjoyed schmoozing while tending bar, developer Advocacy might be for you.
If you were always the one who planned your family vacation itinerary, complete with timetables and meal plans, you might want to think about project management.
Or if you liked selling, making deals, and growing your paycheck with hard work and high performance, maybe Solutions Architect is the right role.
This plus what you said during the discussion are such helpful and insightful things to hear. Really helps clarify how to think about directions to take, many thanks for your response and talk
Hello hello! I'd love to hear a bit on the live discussion about why you were drawn to write about and work in the serverless space! And also a quick explanation of serverless for those who might not be familiar. Thanks!
Nocnica, great point on the point in time matters when listening to advice on getting work!
Mental health issues can make things harder for us to manage our career trajectories, even though we're all high functioning in living with our own struggles. <3
Go to therapy++. I love this advice! It doesn't change you except to make you care better for yourself, maybe become more of yourself. It doesn't have to stop your goals. It will help you achieve them.
Thank you!
Nočnica I'm a non-binary aspiring dev who's worked as IT support for the past 8 years and not particularly enjoyed it. I'm not out at work due to an explicitly queerphobic boss but I don't have a strong educational background so I feel stuck in the job because the money is decent (but not developer money) and I need health insurance for my own mental health reasons. Thanks for this talk, all the advice was solid and it felt good to see that it's a career transition that's feasible. I'd love to connect more if you wouldn't mind! I followed you on Twitter, I'm @whatnotery !
How do newbies in the software development field determine their monetary value?
Here's a couple places I found:
Stack Overflow's Calculate Your Salary stackoverflow.com/jobs/salary
Indeed's Find Salaries indeed.com/career/salaries
Thanks @stevenyholm ! :D
Oh nice! Thanks for the links Steve!
I would also like to know this
I'm on that road right now trying to get my first job in tech. I'm just coming out of Bootcamp with Flation. One of the biggest thing I'm trying to work on right now is start to grow my connections
"I missed connecting with people"
Yes! This is what lead me to Developer Advocacy as well. Coding is fine but I like the "people side" of code more.
Woah! Feels like I am getting some real knowledge out here :D
Thanks Nočnica for the talk.
Thanks so much for sharing your story. It's actually so hard for me to choose and concentrate on only few things and not to be overwhelmed by different frameworks and languages. But I guess one just needs to set priorities to actually be good at smth. Especially when you are quite a beginner in the field you are diving in.