Last month I attended PyTennessee and saw Kim Crayton’s talk on “Overcoming the Challenges of Mentoring”. Kim is a great speaker, I like how “real” and straightforward she is. There is something she said in her talk which really resonated with me, and which I have thought about a lot. Kim said to stop lying to new programmers because “This shit’s hard”. And I agree with her. Programming is hard and by telling everyone that it’s so easy, we make people feel stupid when they don’t find it as easy.

Kim’s talk inspired me to think about other “lies” or misconceptions about tech so I decided to write a blog post on the “hard truths” about tech, programming, and maybe a little bit life in general. There is so much people don’t tell us or that people sugarcoat, and I think it’s time for us to just talk about things as they are. Keep in mind that this post is written by me and what you’ll get is my subjective opinion, experience, and worldview. Let’s do this! Here are my hard truths:

Learning programming is hard. Couldn’t say it better than Kim: “This shit’s hard!”. Learning anything new is hard. Yes you can do it if you invest a lot of time and effort, but just keep in mind that it’s hard and it’s ok that it is and it’s ok if you struggle. I’m currently in the process of building a personal website. I chose to do it with Jekyll because I don’t need anything fancy and because people say it’s easy and fast. The truth is, I’ve been struggling and it took me many hours to understand concepts and architecture, fix errors, and finally get to the point where things work and my website is taking shape. I’ve been ashamed to ask people for help and admit my struggles because everyone says it’s so easy. It may be easi-ER than using other tools but for me it was still pretty hard.

Self-directed learning is hard. There are a million programming resources out there, some really good and some really bad ones. When you don’t have a teacher or professor who will present you with a nice curriculum and learning material, and teaching assistants who can answer your questions, it’s really hard to figure it out on your own. Where do you even start, especially in the tech world where something new pops up all the time? What do you learn first? What’s next? Which learning resources are you going to use? What are your goals for the months and week? How are you going to stick to it and hold yourself accountable? How are you going to make time after work and in between all your other commitments?

Attending one workshop or a couple won’t turn you into a professional developer. After attending a Django Girls workshop, I was so frustrated because a couple of girls seemed to score internships or jobs really quickly, while I was still seriously struggling with wrapping my head around this whole Django and programming thing. Why could they do it and I couldn’t? The truth is that they had been programming for many months or even years beforehand. They weren’t new to programming, they had already invested significant time and effort into learning and practicing, and Django Girls just gave them the confidence to take it to the next level. A Django Girls workshop or other workshops and classes can spark your interest for programming, and help you see how fun it can be, but attending a workshop like that won’t turn you into a professional and hireable developer right away. You’ll have to take it from there and learn a lot more on your own.

It takes time: You won’t become a developer in 3 months. Attending a bootcamp for 3 months or really intense self-directed learning for 3 months will teach you the basics so you can then find an apprenticeship and learn hands-on in a “real” work environment, but 3 months of programming experience don’t make you an engineer. It took me many years of practice to learn English well enough to speak and write it fluently. Learning a programming language is comparable to that. It takes a lot of time and effort to get to a decent level of “fluency”. So if you’re thinking about quitting your job to learn programming for 3 months in the hopes that you will find a super high-paying engineering job right away, I can only tell you one thing: Don’t do it without a plan B and enough savings to hold you over.

Finding your first developer job is hard. Getting your “foot in the door” as they say, is really hard, especially if you don’t have a lot of experience and are self-taught or fresh out of bootcamp. You have to convince a company to believe in you, to give you a chance, and a lot of companies won’t be willing to do that. They want senior people, not junior people that they have to train and teach. Prepare yourself for a long and frustrating job search.

Finding any kind of first job in tech is hard. When thinking about tech, most people think about engineering jobs but there are actually a ton of other jobs in tech which don’t involve writing code. Technical writing, people ops, operations, community, project management, etc. You may think that finding a “non-technical” tech job is easier than finding your first developer job, but the truth is that finding any kind of first job in tech is hard. The tech world just seems to have higher expectations and some companies really embrace their “we are cool shit” culture. You are expected to have tons of experience, and if you have a non-traditional background, you constantly have to prove that you can “do it”.

Tech interviews are terrifying. Some of the interviews I’ve done for tech jobs also were the most stressful and terrifying things I have ever done in my life. Writing code while someone else can see your screen and can follow along while you’re struggling? Terrifying! White board coding? Terrifying! Delivering example tasks which are actually full-fledged projects and don’t take you 4 hours like they are supposed to but way more than that? Terrifying! Answering questions about complicated algorithms? Terrifying? And the most terrifying part is that you can’t really prepare because you don’t know what to expect, what questions you will be asked, what tasks you will be asked to perform.

Job search in tech is extra long and frustrating. I have had jobs outside of tech. Not all of them were great jobs but they were jobs. For most of these other jobs the process was the following: Sending in an application, either receiving a rejection or being invited for an interview, doing the interview, either being rejected or being invited for a second interview, rejection or getting the job. For tech jobs add about 3-5 more interviews + technical tests, online and onsite, if you even make it past the first step because a lot of times you will never hear from a company after sending in your application, or the company will stop responding to your emails at some point in the interview process. The tech hiring process also seems to take about 3 times longer than in other industries. Brace yourselves!

Some people won’t make it. Not everyone who starts learning to code will actually “make it” and become a developer in the end. Some people simply don’t have the free time and enough financial resources to make it work. Some people will give up. Some people may decide that it’s not for them after all. Some people will discover that they prefer working in other fields. All of that is ok and it doesn’t mean that you failed. Trying something new is a wonderful thing and you will for sure learn something down the line, whether that’s simply discovering that something you thought was your dream, actually isn’t, or whether it’s learning some skills that you can use either for hobbies or jobs in other fields. What matters is that you tried.

You may not become a programmer but your skills are needed elsewhere in tech. When I first got into tech I wanted to become a developer. The truth is I have never worked as a developer and I’m currently not pursuing this goal. The first job I scored in tech was a community manager role and this role helped me see that I love working in tech, I love working with people in tech, but I love working with people more than I love writing code. Don’t get me wrong, code still gets me excited and I love working on the technical side of things, but I started to see that I don’t want to write code full-time at this point in my life. I may change my mind at some point but right now I love working at the intersection of tech and people. I also started to realize that a lot of my skills which are of “non-technical” nature like writing, teaching, event organizing, people skills, etc. are actually very much needed in certain fields of tech. Don’t think you aren’t needed in tech because you don’t want to write code for a living. You have other skills which are very much needed in the tech world.

Not everyone has to become a tech speaker. Tech takes its conferences seriously. There is a big conference culture, and I personally think conferences are wonderful, but not everyone may think so. There seems to be this new movement that everyone has to become a conference speaker and that is simply not true. I’m all for encouraging people to speak and share cool stuff they are working on, but don’t nag people and accept if they say no. Some people have a serious fear of public speaking, some people may not like to travel, some people simply may have no interest in getting up on stage and giving a talk, and you know what, that is A-OK. Let us just focus on encouraging and helping those new speakers who really want to get into conference speaking, and leave the other people to do other awesome things.

It’s all about connections. This is true for many parts of life and other industries as well, but it’s especially noticeable in the tech world. Try applying for a job in tech the “normal” way by filling out a form on a website. 8 times out of 10 you will never hear from the company. Now try getting a job at a certain company that a friend of yours works at and that friend can either connect you with the right people to talk to or can put in a good word for you. This increases your chances of getting a job immensely. Last year I was hunting for a new job, sent in a lot of applications, but the traditional way turned out to be very unsuccessful for me. The two jobs in tech I have had so far I have gotten through connections. Someone who knew that I was looking for a job knew someone else who was looking for someone with my skills and connected us, and so on. Knowing the right people is worth gold!

Volunteering won’t get you a job. Volunteering is amazing and I have met so many great people through volunteering and learned so many great things, but one misconception I had is that volunteering will get me a job. When I first started out in tech, I jumped on all things that came my way because that’s what people told me to do. Volunteer my time at first and then eventually find a job through volunteering. There was this one board of directors of a software foundation that had so many awesome people on it that I admired and all of them had awesome jobs, so when I was elected I was so excited because I thought I would find a job through that position as well. There are so many speakers who have awesome jobs, so I thought I may find something through my speaking gigs. It didn’t work out that way. Volunteer your time and speak at conferences because you love doing it but don’t go into it with the expectation that it’ll get you a job. I made many connections and that’s what eventually got me jobs in tech but there are other, less time-consuming ways, for making connections. Don’t work endless amounts for free because people tell you it will get you a job in the end. That is a lie and it’s exploitation.

You will often feel really stupid, you will often be really frustrated. Writing code consists of many ups and downs. You get something to work, you feel like a champion. You mess up something, don’t know how to do something, spend hours fixing errors, you feel like a total loser. Technology moves so fast that there is no way of ever knowing everything. You have to accept your limitations, you have to be aware that writing code, as cool as it is, often will drive you insane and make you doubt yourself and your skills. All of that is normal. Learn when to take breaks, learn when to ask for help, learn when to start over. In general try to see everything as a learning experience and remember that you are not the code you write.

It’s a struggle. Emotionally, financially, personally. Learning to program is a struggle. It’s hard. It’s a long process. You will often doubt yourself and your decision to make that move. You will feel stupid and at times you will want to give up. You may give up for a while and then try again a few months later. It’s best to acknowledge that it probably will be a struggle so you can prepare yourself for it.

Not everyone has the money to attend a bootcamp or wants to attend a bootcamp. Bootcamps may be a successful way of learning how to code in a relatively short amount of time, but they are expensive. $10k or more in fees + living expenses is a shit load of money, and most people don’t have that kind of money just sitting in their bank account. Also giving up your job and possibly moving to a new city in order to give a bootcamp a go without knowing if it’ll be successful and if you’ll find a job afterwards, is a big decision. Some people may not even want to attend a bootcamp, whatever their reason may be. Stop telling people that bootcamps are the way to go and stop making them feel bad about it when they either can’t afford it or have their doubts about bootcamps. There are many other ways for becoming a developer.