How To Make a Career Change into Tech at 50

Use bridged or another tool to explore different technical career options. Identify the job that fits your core competencies and interests best.

Core competencies are defined as capabilities, knowledge, and skills that constitute a person's "defining strengths." Use this framework to identify the skills you have, and the skill gaps you still need to bridge. If you’re not sure yet on a particular job and just know you’d like a remote one, we recommend reading about Remote Jobs that Don’t Require Experience.

Feeling overwhelmed about where to start? Try researching some of our top recommended career paths below.

Project Management

• Core Competencies: Organization & Collaboration
• Short Job Description: Keep team members on track to complete various projects by their deadlines.
• Relevant Experience: Anything administrative, executive assistant, receptionist, teaching.
• Average Salary: $65-75k, depending on location and experience
• Number of Open Entry-Level Roles: 157,168

Project Management is a great role to break into tech and learn quickly about all the technical roles involved with making a product or marketing team effective. Project Managers are in charge of making sure all team members have what they need to get certain tasks done by set deadlines. Administrative work directly correlates from keeping track of budgets, timelines, and details around projects or offices.

View Project Management Job Guide

Product or Marketing Analyst

• Core Competencies: Analytics & Data Literacy
• Short Job Description: Pull, analyze, and present data to help teams make decisions.
• Relevant Experience: Anything data-entry related, clerical work, finance or business operations
• Average Salary: $75-95k, depending on location, department and experience
• Number of Open Entry-Level Roles: 200k+

Analytics sometimes can sounds like a scary field, but fear not! Any previous role with budgeting, data entry, or even sometimes administrative work can be a great jumping point to break into the field. A key part of analytics is showcasing an ability to work in an organized way with lots of different numbers (known as metrics, usually on spreadsheets). This is a great career change for those in finance or assistant work due to the inherent nature of budgeting and spreadsheet monitoring.

Learn About Different Types of Analysts

Product Manager

• Core Competencies: Collaboration & Communication
• Short Job Description: Work across several teams and create strategic initiatives to increase company goals.
• Relevant Experience: Almost anything if communicated correctly! See below.
• Average Salary: $105-115k, depending on location and experience
• Number of Open Roles: 197,543

Companies love hiring Product Managers that come from diverse backgrounds, and almost any previous work experience can be spun into a unique POV. We recommend targeting your job search towards companies in the same industry as your previous experience-- for example, if you were in real estate for several years, maybe look into PropTech (Property Technology) companies to lend your subject-matter-experience.

Some companies have great Product Management Programs to help people with no experience try out the role-- while sometimes these are for new grads only, Meta encourages all types of backgrounds to apply.

View Product Management Job Guide

Once you have a role in mind, the next step is putting yourself and your experience out there for recruiters and sourcers to find. Finding a remote job is almost impossible without Linkedin, because most of these jobs are in tech. Linkedin has almost replaced the modern resume, with employers and recruiters asking specifically for links to your profile in lieu of a resume. Linkedin is one of the biggest job marketplaces in the world.

Craft your Linkedin bio and resume to specifically mention experiences around the role you'd like to pivot to. Include your current and past skills that directly relate to the role. Use our job guides to mimic the popular wording in common job descriptions. Be sure to include the skill names themselves so recruiters can find you in a skill-keyword search (yes, that’s a thing!).

After your Linkedin is reflective of the correct skills and you’ve identified some specific job listings, we recommend taking targeted actions towards bridging your skill gaps. If there are multiple skills missing, we recommend using a certification subscription system like Linkedin Learning or Coursera Plus.

Coursera Plus is a little steeper at $59/month, but it offers crazy flexibility with certifications. If you’re serious about your job hunt, we recommend signing up for a few months, using self discipline to finish the certs quickly, and being diligent about updating your Linkedin.

Remember, using self discipline and stacking certifications will save you thousands of dollars over traditional education or a Bootcamp when making a career change. Be diligent, and let us know when it works out for you!

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