[ad_1]
It’s often said that if you go into tech, you’ll be fine, there are plenty of jobs. You don’t even need a four-year degree to get a well-paying position in this industry.
But what’s talked about less often is people’s journeys to landing their first role. It’s not always as simple as applying, interviewing and starting.
The founders of Black Tech Philly, an organization focused on tech education and helping new technologists get their foot in the professional door, started the group following their own struggles and experiences getting into tech. Here are their stories and how their experiences influenced the founding of Black Tech Philly.
Three career journeys: Ian Kimble
Ian Kimble told Technical.ly he’s always had an interest in learning how things work. He went to Penn State for political science, but ended up working as an insurance salesperson. In his time off, he learned about web development through articles, blog posts and YouTube videos. His genuine curiosity drove him to start teaching himself about it.
Kimble said he was motivated to actually pursue web development because of the prospect of more money, but also because he wanted a more rewarding career — “feeling a certain degree of satisfaction in the work that you’re doing, being in a position or in a career where you’re always learning and building on what you’re learning, and even revisiting and maybe reassessing the things that you know,” he said. “Web development and engineering is something that changes constantly. So, it’s very dynamic in that way.”
Ian Kimble. (Courtesy photo)
Eventually Kimble saved up enough money to enroll in the University of Pennsylvania LPS Coding Bootcamp. During this time, he was working for an insurance company during the day and attending web development bootcamp at night.
He completed the bootcamp in 2018, but had a hard time finding a job.
“It was challenging because there’s that catch-22 of trying to get a job without…
..
[ad_2]
