I made the career switch, and it was scary…
Whenever I looked back at my memories, I could say it was a really amazing journey. I often published about the ways to get to into the tech career and I do received quite a number of feedback about how much they enjoyed reading about my journey.
While it seems like everything is smooth-sailing, there were a lot of struggles behind the scenes. First and foremost was to face the fear of moving into an entirely new domain and starting all over again.
My initial subject matter expertise — Accounting
I graduated with a Bachelors of Accountancy so my first job was related to accounting and finance. I spent about 3 years in this career, one role as a book keeper in a start-up, and one role as a financial analyst in the MNC. Being an accountant is quite a technical role as you have to be more meticulous with numbers and understand the concept of financial statements.
My initial goal was to work hard in area of finance so as I can reach the level of being a Chief Financial Officer in the future. However, what I noticed is that it takes way more than just being good in finance. Like every career, there are a lot of work in terms of politics and conduct in the office workplace in order to reach the upper echelons of the career ladder.
I also make some effort to take the exams so that I can become a Chartered Accountant after 3 years of relevant working experience. This is the amount of hard work that I committed to this career path. However, it is still not the subject that I am particularly passionate about.
Found a new interest — Data Analytics
At that point of time, I was a financial analyst in a Tech MNC, just a clue, it is not any of the FAANG companies. However, I was pretty jaded by the financial cycle and monthly closing. There is always a standard closing period, making the work life pretty routine. The sad thing is that I have to be around to close the books of the business units that I am in charge of. This means that when my friends go for holidays especially during Christmas season, I am not able to tag along.
Fortunately, I stumbled upon a Data Analytics workshop that was opened to all employees of the company. I thought it would be interesting and I attended the workshop soon after. This was the moment that opened my eyes to endless possibilities. The subject matter was about Watson Analytics and I was blown away by the power of its artificial intelligence. Not only it has great ability to understand human language, it is able to integrate with software to produce beautiful data visualization as well.
Conviction to make the change
Once I found out that the world of tech is much more interesting than what I was doing, I decided to explore and research on how to get into this field. During that time, the topics of data science and analytics were the hot topics of the century. Initially, I thought I was late into the game to venture into this career.
During that time, based on my research, there were 3 most common routes to make the change to the tech career.
- Take a masters in data science
- Go for coding boot camp
- Self-learn
Each of them has its pros and cons which I may elaborate in another post next time. Among the 3 options that I have evaluated, I came to the conclusion that masters will be fastest way to get into the field of tech. However, it comes at a very high cost and commitment.
The hard decision
As I recently graduated from university, having to fork out around 40 grand again for another course was really a hard decision to make. On top of that, I was also considering the amount of nights and weekends I had to burn in order to graduate from the course. I had to weigh the potential opportunities that would able to give me back my returns on investment.
With the blessings from my family, I took the plunge and signed up for the masters course. It was the decision that I never regretted.
Now….how scary it was
I had no background in coding or software training. In fact, when I used to see my classmates do their coding assignment I got a little scared because I don’t understand any lines that they were writing.
I was pretty worried that if I were to go into the field, it would be super competitive because it is not my domain expertise. I felt that I would have a very hard time catching up to my peers in the industry.
Results
I must say that I am pretty fortunate because the skillsets are in high demand in the industry. As compared to the days when I was in finance, I had more calls or messages from recruiters to present job opportunities to me. I was able to move from company to company and to be able to command a better premium in compensation.
Of course, there were a lot of work to put in behind the scenes. You must also consider the effort to put your resume or brand out there. You have to keep showcasing that you are capable enough to take on the roles. The first step to getting in was always the toughest. However, I do believe that one day everyone will be able to get to where they want to as long you persevere and grind.
So in conclusion, it was a scary jump……but definitely a worthwhile one.
