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It’s too late! You’ll never make it! In fact, if you weren’t already fluent in Python, Ruby, and C# when you were five years old, then you’ll never make it in tech.
Yeah. That’s obviously ridiculous. Take it from us, a bootcamp that’s seen tons of people like you come through and land the pivot — tech might have the reputation as a young man’s industry (and yes, we used the word “man” intentionally), but people of all sorts can absolutely gain new skills and find the jobs they’re aspiring to. And yes, they can do all this even after they’ve had extensive experience in a previous, “unrelated” career.
Don’t believe us? Here are three grads that prove our point.
Bill Samboy
Bill was approaching 50 when he realized it was time to make a change. He’d spent a long career as a lineman climbing poles and getting the power back on. It was well paid, but in exchange, he had to put his job first. Over time, that exchange felt less and less worth it.
When you get to be my age, and you've been doing that for a long time, and you drive by your house in your company truck, and you know you're not going home for the next 10 hours or two hours, at that point, you're like, ‘Okay, I got money, I got this, I got that. But what am I really doing?’
He hit his breaking point when he was on a job in Ohio, working and living out of his truck. He discovered he had transferable skills that would take him far in quality assurance (QA)How to Become a QA Engineer, and enrolled in TripleTen’s QA program.
He even started learning from the back of that truck. And even though the common wisdom is that tech is a field for the young, Bill never felt that his age was a barrier. Sure, he encountered topics that were abstruse at first. But like all his fellow students, he could reach out, get guidance from experts, and untangle anything that he didn’t understand.
So he was ready to dive into an externshipExternships: Your Ultimate Guide, a hands-on tech project with a real-world company. He and his teammates did the testing for a digital repository of textbooks — specifically making sure the log-in function worked. “I really enjoyed it,” he said. “I learned a lot — the coaches and the people that were over there were excellent.”
All in all, this prepared him for the career search. He widened his conception of where QA could take him, and started applying. He got a hit and had his first interview with a robotics company. With the new knowledge gained from TripleTen, he nailed each conversation, even one with a software engineer who really tested him: “He grilled me with some questions. Again, I went right back to the QA fundamentals, because he started asking me questions about that,” he said. “Once I got through that, I could tell I was pretty good, because they started asking me if I had any questions for them, and then they started asking me about the schedule.”
A week later, he was flown out to the company’s HQ for training, and now he’s an Automation Robotics Technician for ViaBot, which builds and runs autonomous cleaning robots.
Sheena IrvinFinding Stability, Creativity, and Inclusivity: Sheena Irvin’s TripleTen Story
Sometimes, you just go for the job that pays the bills. Sheena did — she ended up in mortgage sales, and as she puts it, it was a job that kept her in “survival mode.” She stuck with that for 16 years. She wasn’t inspired, but she was at least making ends meet. And then the pandemic struck. She was laid off.
At that point, I really sat down and thought, ‘Okay, I need to think about what I really want to do and take advantage of this opportunity.’
She did her research, and wanting to get skills that would make her career more resilient to shocks, she started looking at tech. As she got deeper and deeper into her exploration of the field, she felt like software engineering could be not only reliable, but enjoyable, too: “I really loved that [software engineers] were in a position where they can create, they can really manipulate and change websites and just make a really fun experience for all types of users.”
How to land that job? Her research skills directed her again. A bootcamp seemed like it could take her there, so she tested TripleTen in an intro course. It was the precise thing she was looking for, so she enrolled.
Now, the program wasn’t always easy, and she sometimes found herself getting overwhelmed. “I felt like I was in over my head, and honestly, I didn’t really expect anything from the tutors, but when I expressed that to them, they were like, ‘What you're going through is completely normal. What you're feeling and thinking is totally normal.’”
The assistance wasn’t only emotional, either. With the support of TripleTen experts, she mastered the skills that would impress hiring managers and moved on to focusing on her career search.
She had mock interviews. She honed her resume. She refined and built out her portfolio. She networked. And soon enough, a company got in touch — they wanted to talk about a position.
Both the intro and technical interviews were no problem for her thanks to the skills she gained at TripleTen. She had one last conversation with the team to see if she was a fit, and aced it. Now, she’s an Integrations Specialist at ePay Policy.
Isabelle CuissetRefashioning a Career with Tech: Isabelle Cuisset’s TripleTen Story
Two decades into a career in fashion, Isabelle came to a realization: something needed to change. She’d been jet-setting among the European capitals, but when the pandemic struck, it dawned on her that she wanted something else. “I decided, ‘Okay, let's stop this crazy life. I need to choose where I want to live and find a way to stay there,’” she said. “I also needed to own something, a kind of craft that I could develop, where I could continue to learn day after day.”
She’d discovered tech through a project she’d been working on with a friend, and found herself intrigued. She kept looking into the field, and decided to commit — by joining TripleTen. Sure, it wasn’t the easiest thing she’d ever done, but that challenge and breadth of the material was actually something she appreciated because it kept her motivated.
What was great with TripleTen is that you don't only learn the front end. You also learn the basics of the back end, and you can understand the full ecosystem of dynamic applications and how it works, and that was just actually amazing because I had no clue before joining the bootcamp.
That all meant she was ready for what came next. But instead of going for a job at a company, she decided to forge her own path — she launched her own boutique web design and development studio, isaWabi. Since its launch, it has been a major source of inspiration for her: “I build websites for clients, and I'm also starting to find my niche, my true passion. I like working with artists very much, and going forward, potentially with galleries and more institutions of the art world. That's really what I enjoy a lot.”
In retrospect, it is this enjoyment that Isabelle thinks others late in their career should pursue.
If you ever are afraid or are feeling you are getting old or like you are losing a bit of your enthusiasm. Yeah, that's exactly why you should start something new.
Isabelle Cuisset, TripleTen grad
Discover more grad stories
These three aren’t the only ones who’ve found success post-TripleTen. Dive into other stories here.
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