How Teacher-Turned-Developer Jess Secured a Tech Job Even Before Learning to Code
🎙 About the episode
Meet Jess Gilbert 🇬🇧! Jess recently made a career change from being a primary school teacher to becoming a developer. In this episode, we delve into her journey and explore how she successfully transitioned in less than a year!
What was it like being a teacher? Are there any similarities between teaching and coding? How did Jess manage to secure a job offer before diving into her coding education? Jess and Alex also discuss Code First: Girls and why it's worth exploring if you belong to an underrepresented group in the tech industry.
Jess shares why Instagram is her social network of choice, which may surprise you since it's not commonly associated with developers. Plus, find out how she learned to code while working as a full-time school teacher and whether the tech industry lived up to her expectations.
🔗 Connect with Jess
⏰ Timestamps
- Jess had never considered a career in tech and became a teacher (01:48)
- What made Jess learn to code, and how she found Code First: Girls (03:01)
- Why learning to code at her own pace was challenging for Jess, and why in the end, she shouldn't have been as worried (05:42)
- Why teachers are sometimes reluctant to work on their personal development (09:03)
- Community break! Your Tweets and LinkedIn posts, with Jan The Producer (10:20)
- How does Code First: Girls work? (12:57)
- How Jess landed a job offer even before learning to code? (14:43)
- Why do companies invest in programs like Code First: Girls? (17:51)
- What was it like to learn to code while having a full-time job? (20:10)
- Why the support of a cohort was important to Jess? (21:17)
- Was there variation in the ability level of the people in Jess's cohort, and why do soft skills matter? (22:58)
- How do Jess's skills as a teacher transfer to coding? (24:17)
- Is there a better work-life balance in coding? (25:55)
- Quick-fire questions! Do teachers listen to lo-fi bears? (28:56)
- How Jess found a community on Instagram as a developer (31:27)
- Why are so many people transitioning from teaching? (33:38)
- Learning to code is hard, but there are great resources out there, and you can pick the style of learning that works for you specifically (37:59)
- How long did it take for Jess to switch careers? (40:12)
- What was her first week on the new job like? (41:18)
- Why the size of the codebase is a BIG difference between learning to code and working at a company (42:23)
🧰 Resources Mentioned
- Programming with Mosh on YouTube
- Web Dev Simplified on YouTube
- Katherine Gilligan on Instagram
- Learn React for free!
- Podcast: What a good developer resume looks like and how to write one, with Gergely Orosz
- Podcast: The Power of Domain Knowledge: How Katrina Skipped Junior Roles and Immediately Landed a Senior Developer Job
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