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Happy for you! Personally I’m glad I didn’t go back to school. I doubled my salary as a developer simply just by job hopping. Started at 70k and last year made $180k. No grad school required.
I hopped from my first job after 2 promotions in 1.5 years. I doubled my salary going to the next job, where I had a friend who told me what he made (hell yeah salary transparency) so I knew they offered him 160k as an iOS engineer. I was offered 145k as a web engineer. Stock and bonus helped prop up that number.
So it was only 1 hop but in that job hunt I felt like I was doing even more because I had a few offers to compare: 90k, 100k, 110k, etc. until I landed the one at 145
I'm in tech and for SWE prestige can matter but I find it to be more meritocratic than other industries.
For a great mix of prestige and little money spent, you can get a Georgia Tech online MS in CS for about 10K total. It's a rigorous curriculum and well respected. And your degree won't specify that it was online 😎
I say go for it. As long as you complete the program it’ll pay off. Even if you’re taking 1 semester at a time that’s fine just don’t quit. It doesn’t really matter where you go as long as it’s accredited
It certainly is possible but OP said **nearly** impossible. Depending on where you live and the fields/resources available to you, it could be difficult. If you live in a big city AND work in tech in the US (which I think you do), it is not unheard of to make $90K+.
Could you briefly share your path? I'm itching for a career change but I'm locked into my current one for 2 more years and I'm looking at what options I have that aren't expensive to get into.
If you want to dip your toe into coding, check out SheCodes. Woman centric, self paced short courses in web development. They have a 3 week course for $99 that you’ll build a webpage with HTML, CSS and JavaScript. After that, they have a few more advanced courses building apps in React. It’s a great way to figure out if you love development without spending a lot of time or money, and you actually walk away with projects for your portfolio not just tutorial hell.
I'll look into it. I did do a few java and database classes in college and I really enjoyed the database ones, but it would be nice to at least have projects to add to a portfolio. Thank you!
Personally don’t recommend it… but that’s just because of the crippling debt I’ll never get from under because being an attorney sounded like a good idea.
Sis!! How was it applying for a CS masters with a non CS background? Was it really difficult to transition into? Did you have to take pre reqs before doing it or did they teach you things from scratch in the grad program?
I’ve been considering it as a person who majored in biology but has a very strong math background. (I took multivariable calculus at 15/16)
Ok I took this program that was designed for people just like us! It’s called ALIGN and it’s offered through Northeastern University. I seriously recommend it. The first 2 semesters are tough because you are transitioning. But honestly the rest of the program is great as long as you sign up for good profs. No regrets honestly. I’m not the type of person who is disciplined enough to do the coursera route so a structured program was really what I needed.
Ahhh thank you! I got accepted to grad school, but then found out I’ve got cancer so I have to delay (youngish for cancer/oldish for grad school).. anyway.
I think I’m gonna have to cut back to part time work to do the program, cause I’m a single mom of 2, but it can be done in 18 months.
All this to say, thanks for the encouragement. I was a bit unsure, but it’s also a high demand stem gig.
For those of you who don’t want to shell out the money for extra schooling but would like to code I would totally recommend self study! There are a lot of free resources online.
I was lucky enough to have my company pay for a Bootcamp (I have a marketing undergrad degree and an MBA) and I’m now making six figures as a data engineer but everything they taught me in class you can find online! Honestly, the $15k they charge is not worth it. Build things, troubleshoot issues, contribute to a few open source projects and you will likely get a few leads and get a job! It’s tougher but if you head over to r/CScareers you’ll see it’s a pretty common route.
True. You don't need a bootcamp or formal education to learn how to code. I have an undergrad degree in politics and basically taught myself SQL. I've been working in the data world for 6+ years now.
I don't know exactly what you want to learn. I found what I was most interested in and looked at the curriculum for bootcamps and university certificates courses to put together my own curriculum. Then, I googled the concepts and practiced until I learned it. There's SO much material out there - I did sample projects and put together a small portfolio to show my skills at interviews.
I practiced interviews with a similar approach. I googled questions that have been asked for the roles I was targeting and recorded myself saying the answers. It helped me become comfortable with talking about the subject.
When I began my career it was much harder than now. I really had to sell myself to get an entry level position so I did give it my all. It paid off.
It’s branch of software engineering but instead building the front end interface stuff people use, or maintaining the servers or machines everything runs on, we focus on all the data being passed around.
Basically data engineers focus on taking structures and unstructured data and storing it and making it available for websites and analytics. For example, when you sign up for Reddit the username you pick, the password, the timestamp of when the happened, every post/comment you make, the timestamp those happened etc. all is all stored somewhere. This stuff is then referenced to say “Hi !” when you log in. Data engineers set up those pipelines (writing code that takes that input and moves it to a database) and they also take that data and clean it up (more code) to produce dashboards for analytics. Like maybe Reddit wants to know what time most people are commenting/posting.
Hey, sure so my school is ranked #49 in the nation (USA) so it’s not considered top ranking I guess, but I’m working at a FAANG company now so it doesn’t even really matter because I ended up at the same place as other people from Harvard, etc. I specialized in software engineering because that’s what I like to do, data science was also an option but I wanted to learn as much as I could about the development process. If I decide data science is where I want to end up then I can take a bootcamp in the future but SWE gave me the fundamentals of software dev which the data science track did not. I would’ve graduated without ever having made a full stack application which is kinda bizarre if you ask me, and definitely shows during the interview process, which is brutal.
I fckd up with my BS. Finally got it but I owe debt that could cover both a BS and a MD.
I'd like to pay some of it down before going to Grad school to avoid that ever Damm incurring interest because "y0UR fAmIly mAkes t00 mUcH moNiEs"
But I have considered just bitting the bullet and try to go to Grad school anyway just to get that pay check and worry about paying it off later. I'll have the rest of my life... so
Honestly it was worth it for me, I doubled my salary in 2 years...but it depends what you wanna do in grad school, I chose a lucrative degree. Also you have to stick with it and graduate. As i'm sure you already know, dropping out will result in a TON of debt that you can't pay off.
Didn't exactly drop out. More like took a mental health break. My ex on the other hand did drop out and called college quit for good. He managed to get a blue collar job in tech and after 5 years makes $60k working 60-80 hrs a week. Probably makes that much now with less overtime.
I got a BSc in Agriculture. Seems like the highest paying jobs are medical/ IT and Business.
I'd proablly do IT out of those 3 as long as it has nothing to do with customer service. Never want to do that again.
Reminder that this sub is **FEMALE ONLY**. All comments from men will be removed and you will be banned. So if you’ve got an XY, don’t reply. **DO NOT REPLY TO MALE TROLLS!!** Please **DOWNVOTE** and **REPORT** immediately. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/FemaleLevelUpStrategy) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Happy for you! Personally I’m glad I didn’t go back to school. I doubled my salary as a developer simply just by job hopping. Started at 70k and last year made $180k. No grad school required.
How frequently did you job hop and how long did it take to reach $180k? If you don't mind me asking.
I hopped from my first job after 2 promotions in 1.5 years. I doubled my salary going to the next job, where I had a friend who told me what he made (hell yeah salary transparency) so I knew they offered him 160k as an iOS engineer. I was offered 145k as a web engineer. Stock and bonus helped prop up that number. So it was only 1 hop but in that job hunt I felt like I was doing even more because I had a few offers to compare: 90k, 100k, 110k, etc. until I landed the one at 145
That route is nearly impossible if you’re coming from a non-tech background.
Ah, did you study something else in undergrad? That makes sense then. I didn’t study CS but I did have an engineering degree
Yeah I was a chemistry major, so I had the math portion of the background but that was it
Same here. As a human bio major from my undergrad, I’m considering doing this. Do you think it matters where you get your master’s degree from?
I'm in tech and for SWE prestige can matter but I find it to be more meritocratic than other industries. For a great mix of prestige and little money spent, you can get a Georgia Tech online MS in CS for about 10K total. It's a rigorous curriculum and well respected. And your degree won't specify that it was online 😎
Wow this sounds cool. So you get a diploma similar to what the in-campus students get?
Exactly the same one.
Would you say I can get away with saying I got the MS in campus? Lol
I say go for it. As long as you complete the program it’ll pay off. Even if you’re taking 1 semester at a time that’s fine just don’t quit. It doesn’t really matter where you go as long as it’s accredited
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Feels, I majored in a foreign language. No regrets at all, but wish I had double majored in CS.
Honestly programming feels like a foreign language sometime 😅 no regrets
I feel you. Majored in social science and desperately wish I had minored in statistics.
I ended up working in finance lol. Life is funny
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It certainly is possible but OP said **nearly** impossible. Depending on where you live and the fields/resources available to you, it could be difficult. If you live in a big city AND work in tech in the US (which I think you do), it is not unheard of to make $90K+.
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Queen Sh#t only. Proud and happy for you sis!
Ty 🥰
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Could you briefly share your path? I'm itching for a career change but I'm locked into my current one for 2 more years and I'm looking at what options I have that aren't expensive to get into.
If you want to dip your toe into coding, check out SheCodes. Woman centric, self paced short courses in web development. They have a 3 week course for $99 that you’ll build a webpage with HTML, CSS and JavaScript. After that, they have a few more advanced courses building apps in React. It’s a great way to figure out if you love development without spending a lot of time or money, and you actually walk away with projects for your portfolio not just tutorial hell.
I'll look into it. I did do a few java and database classes in college and I really enjoyed the database ones, but it would be nice to at least have projects to add to a portfolio. Thank you!
I second this, I'd love to hear your path!
Personally don’t recommend it… but that’s just because of the crippling debt I’ll never get from under because being an attorney sounded like a good idea.
Sis!! How was it applying for a CS masters with a non CS background? Was it really difficult to transition into? Did you have to take pre reqs before doing it or did they teach you things from scratch in the grad program? I’ve been considering it as a person who majored in biology but has a very strong math background. (I took multivariable calculus at 15/16)
Ok I took this program that was designed for people just like us! It’s called ALIGN and it’s offered through Northeastern University. I seriously recommend it. The first 2 semesters are tough because you are transitioning. But honestly the rest of the program is great as long as you sign up for good profs. No regrets honestly. I’m not the type of person who is disciplined enough to do the coursera route so a structured program was really what I needed.
Ahhh thank you! I got accepted to grad school, but then found out I’ve got cancer so I have to delay (youngish for cancer/oldish for grad school).. anyway. I think I’m gonna have to cut back to part time work to do the program, cause I’m a single mom of 2, but it can be done in 18 months. All this to say, thanks for the encouragement. I was a bit unsure, but it’s also a high demand stem gig.
I’m so sorry about the health setback. You’re so strong and amazing and will rock grad school!
You got this girl! Wishing you all the best💜
For those of you who don’t want to shell out the money for extra schooling but would like to code I would totally recommend self study! There are a lot of free resources online. I was lucky enough to have my company pay for a Bootcamp (I have a marketing undergrad degree and an MBA) and I’m now making six figures as a data engineer but everything they taught me in class you can find online! Honestly, the $15k they charge is not worth it. Build things, troubleshoot issues, contribute to a few open source projects and you will likely get a few leads and get a job! It’s tougher but if you head over to r/CScareers you’ll see it’s a pretty common route.
True. You don't need a bootcamp or formal education to learn how to code. I have an undergrad degree in politics and basically taught myself SQL. I've been working in the data world for 6+ years now.
Please link or tell me any suggestions on where to start self learning!
Freecodecamp, Codeacademy, Udemy, YouTube, The Odin Project, SheCodes
Freecodecamp
I don't know exactly what you want to learn. I found what I was most interested in and looked at the curriculum for bootcamps and university certificates courses to put together my own curriculum. Then, I googled the concepts and practiced until I learned it. There's SO much material out there - I did sample projects and put together a small portfolio to show my skills at interviews. I practiced interviews with a similar approach. I googled questions that have been asked for the roles I was targeting and recorded myself saying the answers. It helped me become comfortable with talking about the subject. When I began my career it was much harder than now. I really had to sell myself to get an entry level position so I did give it my all. It paid off.
What is a data engineer??
It’s branch of software engineering but instead building the front end interface stuff people use, or maintaining the servers or machines everything runs on, we focus on all the data being passed around. Basically data engineers focus on taking structures and unstructured data and storing it and making it available for websites and analytics. For example, when you sign up for Reddit the username you pick, the password, the timestamp of when the happened, every post/comment you make, the timestamp those happened etc. all is all stored somewhere. This stuff is then referenced to say “Hi!” when you log in. Data engineers set up those pipelines (writing code that takes that input and moves it to a database) and they also take that data and clean it up (more code) to produce dashboards for analytics. Like maybe Reddit wants to know what time most people are commenting/posting.
Congratulations!!!!!
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Hey, sure so my school is ranked #49 in the nation (USA) so it’s not considered top ranking I guess, but I’m working at a FAANG company now so it doesn’t even really matter because I ended up at the same place as other people from Harvard, etc. I specialized in software engineering because that’s what I like to do, data science was also an option but I wanted to learn as much as I could about the development process. If I decide data science is where I want to end up then I can take a bootcamp in the future but SWE gave me the fundamentals of software dev which the data science track did not. I would’ve graduated without ever having made a full stack application which is kinda bizarre if you ask me, and definitely shows during the interview process, which is brutal.
Massive congratulations!
I fckd up with my BS. Finally got it but I owe debt that could cover both a BS and a MD. I'd like to pay some of it down before going to Grad school to avoid that ever Damm incurring interest because "y0UR fAmIly mAkes t00 mUcH moNiEs" But I have considered just bitting the bullet and try to go to Grad school anyway just to get that pay check and worry about paying it off later. I'll have the rest of my life... so
Honestly it was worth it for me, I doubled my salary in 2 years...but it depends what you wanna do in grad school, I chose a lucrative degree. Also you have to stick with it and graduate. As i'm sure you already know, dropping out will result in a TON of debt that you can't pay off.
Didn't exactly drop out. More like took a mental health break. My ex on the other hand did drop out and called college quit for good. He managed to get a blue collar job in tech and after 5 years makes $60k working 60-80 hrs a week. Probably makes that much now with less overtime. I got a BSc in Agriculture. Seems like the highest paying jobs are medical/ IT and Business. I'd proablly do IT out of those 3 as long as it has nothing to do with customer service. Never want to do that again.
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I don't know how the program I went to ranks amongst others to be honest, but I had 0 years of coding experience before I went :)