Ask HN: I have a CS degree but taught for 5 years– how can I get back into tech?
I’m 28 (m) and have a Computer Science degree under my belt. A few years after graduating, I pursued a teaching degree because it came with a great tax-free incentive. Now I’ve realised I want to use my original degree and get back into tech.
After my degree I didn't want to pursue it as I fell out of love with it, possibly due to stress and letting uni life get the better of me. It became stressful environment but through recent experiences and talking with close friends who are in the field of CS, overtime I've realised and processed that I still have a massive interest and constant want to learn more within it or somewhat be involved in it. The years of teaching it has definitely played a part in showing students my passion for the subject, reminding myself how much I love it too.
I've started picking up on python again and taking online courses to refresh myself but I want to make myself employable after these years. I have previous experience in java, php and C+ also. I've never worked in a professional coding environment either, hence why I am coming on here to seek advice on what would be best.
Any recommendations/advice would really help. What stacks I should be looking at? Advice: Just pick one thing and do it. (I promise I'm not being snarky.) The stack doesn't matter. The problem itself doesn't really matter. The "sexiness" of the result doesn't matter. Just do it. Something... Anything! Working through the problem is the goal. The result: You will learn things that you didn't know that you didn't know, and you will be able to transfer that to your next project. Rinse and repeat. Then, all of the sudden you will have stories to tell and mistakes that you know you should avoid. Your first project will be bad, and I mean UGLY! You will make all sorts of bad decisions. Don't use an AI agent to help you write it... you won't learn anything. Don't waste your "best" idea on your first project, either. You will forever be disappointed because you didn't do a good job on it. If you want to bounce any ideas off us, then go ahead and post them. We could proffer ideas to you, but it really needs to be something that captures your attention. So what are you interested in? Low-level, web, graphics, games, tools, mobile, industry-specific, entertainment, edutainment... the possibilities are wide open! Good luck and have fun! Fantastic advice, all taken on board and I appreciate the generosity offered. I think it's time to get the feet wet and stuck in. I may come back here and let you know how I get on once projects are started. Thank you man. Question: what did you teach? Can you teach tech? Best answer I have, find some volunteer work that supports what you want to do. Do it for 6 months, add to resume. Possibly find an open source project to add to. Be sure to professionally document your changes. I teach Computer Science at GCSE/A-Level so if that's what you mean by teaching tech I guess so! Top advice though thank you. it would be handy to pick atleast a type of role you want to focus on, at first, this might not need to be where you want to end up eventually (can learn from the road). also for people who might want to recommend jobs it could help to give a lower limit for compensation. what do you need atleast. and work hours. i think coming from teaching there's a lot of work in research that might be an easy match up but that might not be the type of role you want. for programming there are also different kinds of programming roles. automations, applications, mobile, desktop/server, embedded etc. what makes you tick when you think of work or what keeps happy when ur doing it, regarding what you think you wanna do? Yeah that's a solid point you've broken it down well. I think it just seems overwhelming on where to even start with those different roles. Suppose research is my best friend and should see what I should be focusing on first. I'm definitely one that enjoys the creative/technical mix of coding and design. I assume that I should be learning new tools too as in 5 years, a lot can change in the programming world. I know I'll have to enter at entry/junior level too which is fine as long as there was growth potential. I've thought about the research side of things but definitely want to be more hands on. There's an old saying - those who know, do. Those who don't, teach. In essence, you might have the knowledge, but you have no practice. That makes you mostly unemployable in tech. But good news is that many companies want to fill some quotas and they require degrees, so you'll likely find some place in a larger company where what you can do means less than the letters that go before or after your name. A situation from a personal experience - some years go, in a company where I worked at(advertising agency, i handled the websites), we were looking to hire someone. I do not rememebr what position it was. We were small company, 15-ish people. We got a ton of CVs. I rememebr one specific CV - there was a guy who had THREE university diplomas and was in his 30s, but had no work experience. This guy had 0 chance of being picked and his CV went straight to the trash bin. In tech, this is 10x more prominent as this sector is about what you can actually do and what you did in the past. Not what you know in theory and whatnot. It is what it is. Good luck with your search. Definitely pick some popular language though, to broaden up your pool of opportunities. Don't be looking for Rust jobs or any of that nonsense. And don't expect large salary either. You have to earn it. Thank you for your advice and I agree experience is superior to just knowing everything in a textbook. But out of interest, if the person with the diploma had a great portfolio and had amazing skillset, would you have possibly considered a little more then? I'll be happy to get a junior level entry job to build that experience first. Right now I will focus on expanding my 'freelance' work. That would completely change the situation, so yes. The thing is that diplomas matter only in very few sectors. Like medicine, law, physics and such. But in tech, realistically, the value of a diploma is 0. Again, focus on a popular language, do some projects with it(so you have something to showcase) and after you get hired you can start specialising on specific things. Like web services, 3D engines, database and whatever else you'd want or need. In short, you have to be smart about transitioning from academia into the "real world". As you have a diploma and you have been teaching, it means you are likely in your 30s, which is great, because id you would be Gen-Z or Gen-A, you'd have much harder time getting hired. So you are not position all too bad. I turn 29 tomorrow, the worlds my oyster ;) although it's nice hearing that 30s is a suitable age for jobs. Teaching students, I am often reminded that anything above 20 is very old. I think focusing on python + flask will be my first aim and start a few projects, go from there. It's not because you teach that you don't do. There are tons of tech companies, with very different ways of recruiting. Some companies do care about academic backgrounds, or niche programming languages, or ability to solve questions like leetcode. Leetcode is something I've only discovered recently on my search for advice on getting back into programming. Seems like a plausible addition i would forget the online courses. pick something to build and ship it. if you're familiar with python you could start with a flask app + sqlite. Yeah fair play I don't think that's a bad idea. This might sound stupid, when building the project, focus it on something interesting to me or should I aim to make it more accessible to show off skills if that makes sense? For a first attempt it may help to keep the focus on what you find interesting. I just built a very simple web app that connects to strava api and emails me if "i'm slacking" based on my weekly time / mileage. The UI kinda sucks right now, but it works completely off a raspberry pi and I can access it from the web. If I'm looking to hire and you have a hosted, working example to point to then I would think you're fairly capable as a developer. You can add on to it and make it nicer to show off other skills. start a company Any experience? When you were teaching what did you learn? Did you enjoy it? Maybe you can do something based on that, I don’t want to speak for you but education site or app. Or maybe you found some admin things really horrible that could be automated.