Jamie De Langhe originally published this article.
About half the people I have worked with at both Etsy and Slack have a history, art, English or humanities background.
My co-workers have been creative. They look at complex problems and find novel solutions. Stewart Butterfield was a philosophy major with a desire to become a professor one day.
Something has changed. According to PBS, only 5 percent of college graduates earned liberal arts degrees. Nowadays, everyone tells young people that they can't make money or build a future with a liberal arts degree, because they want a degree that will lead to a high-paying job.
It's a shame, because there are many of us who have done that. We make the tech industry richer.
How to get a job in tech.
I arrived in New York City in September of 2008 with an honors degree. I majored in English literature and was sure I would eventually become a professor. I looked to publishing and media companies for my first real job out of school because of the drawbacks of the professorial life.
The Great Recession made entry-level jobs pay more and interns more popular. I was hired at a small circular where I was responsible for finding the best nightlife in NYC and writing regular listicles. I worked at a coffee shop to pay my bills.
By November, writers for Slate and Cond were joking that they would be happy to take my job. My stop-gap plan was no longer viable because of the economic downturn. I was completely unsure of what the future held after applying to graduate programs.
A dear friend pitched me on applying for a job at a small tech company that was full of creative people with full-time benefits.
I was the 120th employee. We were a small team, working to scale a website and a business that was rapidly outgrowing our existing systems. Legal, billing, policy enforcement, and even closing accounts were some of the parts of the business that I dealt with as a customer service representative. I knew how to serve customers from my restaurant days, but instead of running tables, I was helping people deal with software that I didn't fully understand.
I have always been uncomfortable in situations where I don't understand what's happening around me and I'm confident in my ability to learn. I started taking online computer science classes, listening to business, design, and statistics books, speaking with engineers and designers, and building a mental map of how everything around me actually worked.
It became clear to me that product management was a job that fit my interests and skills. Product managers perform in-depth research, pull ideas together into a coherent narrative and influence the people around them to see the same way forward. My years of writing essays and research papers made me unique in these areas.
Search and machine learning was a second love for me as my career grew. This was also connected to my collegiate years. I am fascinated by how language works to communicate, translate meaning, and develop new ideas. All of the same linguistic and semiotic challenges need to be solved in order to build a good search product.
I transitioned into my first role at Slack as the product lead for search and machine learning because of this last skill.
The technology industry requires analytical thinking, quantitative reasoning, attention to detail, and the drive to find clear, repeatable answers. It requires people who are interested in how we see the world and why.
Liberal arts students learn how to approach problems from many different perspectives, whether that is a sociological point of view, a historical view or a more vague human perspective. You can find solutions that take into account the various needs of all your stakeholders if you consider the different lenses. The tech industry benefits from the inclusion of people from all academic, professional, and life background, so lean into what you already know and consider getting your foot in the door with a non-technical role first.
If you are looking for a bigger shift than just changing your place of work, you should look for a role that is related to the subjects that you already have considerable expertise in. Every field has challenges that technology can solve. Whether it's community management, education, healthcare or marketing, you probably understand a specific subject that someone somewhere is trying to build a technical solution around.
They would be happy to find you. If you want to learn the technical side of things, find a company you admire, show them what you have to offer, and then get serious about it.
My best advice is to grow that first gig in tech into a successful career.
In 2008 when the economy fell out, the Pandemic has rearranged our priorities. Many people are changing jobs and career paths, and some are considering a career in tech.
Forbes shared my story and that of other women who have successfully transitioned to careers in tech. I'm celebrating. I've seen how this diversity of thought contributes to the tech industry's advancement, and I'm certainly technical now, though I still don't write code.
If you want to spend your college years doing extensive research and writing essays, do it! Even if it is completely unpredictable to you now, you will find your way.
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