Software engineers come from all professional backgrounds, interests, and industries. For many, a career in software engineering is a second career – one that’s loosely connected (if at all) to a previous job, career, or area of study.
Hack Reactor graduates are certainly no different. They came to our programs from careers in education, healthcare, food service, and beyond. Many have never worked in a technical job. But that’s not a problem at all. In fact, the experience they’ve gained from other industries directly and positively impacts their new careers in software engineering.
In this post, hear from some Hack Reactor graduates as they reflect on the value of their non-tech backgrounds.
Professional software engineers discuss the value of their non-tech backgrounds
When Hack Reactor grad Chris Zambito was growing up in Buffalo, New York, he assumed he would take over the family business, one of the largest dry-cleaning operations in the city. And for a while, he did. By all measures, it was a success.
But he wasn’t fulfilled; he wasn’t passionate about the ins and outs of the daily work. After talking with his sister, a professional software engineer, he decided to try it, enrolling in our Beginner Coding Bootcamp. He’s now working as a Lead Front-End Developer with Comptus Technologies.
He can look back and see how much his experience leading a company helps him as a software engineer. His experience influences how he approaches networking and the mindset he goes to work with every day.
“The most important thing I learned from running the company is that making connections is so important. You never know who you’re talking to, so you should treat everyone like they’re going to be your next coworker, boss, or investor,” said Chris.
He also talked about how the ups and downs of running a family business taught him how to approach work with a level-headed mindset, which he finds valuable in software engineering.
“I learned that you have to control your emotions so they’re not like a roller coaster,” he said. “You’re going to have amazing days and you’re going to have hard days, and that’s totally normal. You can’t let your emotions get too high or too low. On good days, remind yourself that this is awesome, and this is exactly what should be going on. But keep focusing. Enjoy it, but keep focusing, because tomorrow might be the worst day…and you can’t let your emotions drop to the floor.”
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Kye Lindholm went from food service and fine dining to working as a Site Reliability Engineer for Checkr, a background-check service for employers.
In terms of how his food service experience helps him in software engineering, he says:
“There’s actually a ton of overlap. The technicalities of the industries are different, obviously…But both industries are super problem-solving and decision-making oriented. Both industries place a high level of importance on efficiency and not wasting things, like time or resources. I was super pleased to find out that there’s a ton of overlap between these two industries.”
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Adjoa Reeves went from working in finance for a major big-box retailer to becoming a software engineer at Blend, a tech company focused on mortgages and consumer banking. Here’s what she learned from her previous experience:
“From my experience, I know how to communicate ideas and get people on the same page about something, especially since within a business, numbers are important, but it’s also about how you tell the story and how you connect the data. This helps a lot in software engineering because if I’m building something, I can communicate what I’m building as concisely as possible. And I can help people make important connections about what I’m building and how it’ll impact the project or business.”
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Jessica Dyer went from being a research scientist at the University of Washington to a software engineer at LevelTen Energy. She noted that having any career prior to software engineering is helpful.
“I think overall, just having a career prior has helped me a lot…I have a decade of work experience. I know how to work with other people. I know how to work on a team. I know how to facilitate meetings and pick up on the subtleties of a team…this is such a big part of being a career changer. It’s all of the experience you have coming in that makes you a strong candidate. All of that experience is so beneficial.”
And there are many more Hack Reactor alumni stories like these. You can check them out here.
Ready to change careers?
If you’re ready to leverage your prior experience and learn the hard and soft skills it takes to launch a career in software engineering, you can get started by learning about our coding bootcamps. We can’t wait to see your application come through!