June 9, 2025 • 39 mins
Check out everything Careerist has to offer: https://crst.co/K0LtWThe speaker highlights that it's never too late for a career transition, even after 30, and that your job doesn't define your identity. There are many courses after bds abroad and bootcamps available that make it possible to improve your life. Changing your career change can be an incredible experience that betters your life, so don't be afraid to switch career and find job satisfaction.🔗 Don’t wait—click here to start your tech career journey: https://thebeardeditdad.com/itcareeraccelerator/Exclusive Career Resources✅ Weekly Insider Tips: https://thebeardeditdad.ck.page/55f710292b🎧Listen to The I.T. Career Podcast HERE: ➡︎YT: https://itdad.info/ytpodcast➡︎Apple: https://apple.co/4aw0uVM➡︎Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3yBcrfuDisclaimer: Some of these links are affiliate links where I'll earn a small commission if you make a purchase at no additional cost to you.#qaengineer #tech #career
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
And have people realize that your job is not your identity
now. So where you are now, you can't
change. I thought 30 was old.
I thought I couldn't change. I couldn't go back to school.
It's not true. Don't waste the rest of your
life thinking that like, you canonly stay in one career.
And that is not true at all. You know, the way that they have
these different courses and careers and you know all the
(00:21):
like, you know, different boot camps set up like it is possible
to change your life now you know, and change your life,
change your family's life. It's it is incredible.
Imagine investing $5000 for a boot camp for a career you've
never heard of. No degree, no tech background,
just a hope that it might work out.
(00:41):
That's exactly what David did when he left his eight-year
career in healthcare to pursue software QA.
First, it sounded almost too good to be true.
But what happened next? Over 3000 job applications,
countless rejections, and a journey that tested his grit
every step of the way. Today, David's AQA engineer in
tech, and in this episode, we'rebreaking down exactly how he
(01:04):
made the leap, what it took, andwhy he wouldn't trade it for
anything. This is the real story behind
the pivot, and you don't want tomiss it.
David, welcome to the show. Awesome.
Thank you so much for having me.I appreciate it.
Absolutely. Do you mind just taking a few
minutes and kind of tell us a little bit about yourself?
Yeah, So I started as a dietitian and that's where I
(01:26):
thought my dream and career aspiration was pretty much my
whole life. And so became a dietitian and
got into healthcare. And then I realized I hated it.
And so I was about, I was about 30 years old.
I hit my third year crisis, whatever, and I realized I had
to make a change. I was working a ton of hours.
I was working an hour away from my house and time.
(01:48):
I probably had two or three kidsand now I have 4 now and I
realized that like I I can't do this anymore.
You know, it's put a strain on the family strand me mentally.
I wasn't happy. And so I literally just googled
like because I knew I wanted to get into tech somehow, but I
also did not have four years to go back and get a degree.
I went to school for five years like I'm done.
(02:10):
I'm not going back. Don't have the money, don't have
the time to literally googled, you know, like careers in tech
that don't require a degree. And then, you know, couple
things would come up. I thought about maybe taking
like a, you know, coding boot camp or something.
And then I kept seeing, you know, software QA, software QA,
you know, you don't, you don't, you don't need a degree.
Take this course. You don't need a degree.
(02:31):
I was like, that doesn't really seem right, but it's like I, I
also have one of those like everything seems rosier than it
is, you know, like you like, I want to believe things are true.
And I've gotten bitten by a couple of like investment scams,
you know, And so I felt like, gosh, is this another one of
those? And, you know, trying like
trying to convince my wife like,hey, like this is this is the
(02:51):
next great thing. So I found this program, this
career course called Careerist and basically it's a 2 month
course and they offer a couple different levels, some that's
just manual QA which is strictlynon coding and they also offer
an automation QA which does include coding as well.
(03:13):
And it sounded too good to be true, 100% too good to be true.
I didn't believe it and I did more research in it.
I was like, maybe this is, I hadn't even heard of what
software QA was, didn't even know anything about it.
And I honestly, I didn't, I didn't know anyone who did it
either. So like I didn't have a person
to talk to. Like, is this a good career path
(03:33):
to go on? Like I had no real guidance.
So it's really just YouTube videos, like watching people
kind of like yourself, you know,giving, giving people the
opportunity in the space for like real life people to
showcase like, OK, like this, this is a real career.
This is the real thing. And, you know, one thing led to
another and started the course. And yeah, here we are today.
(03:54):
That's crazy. And I, I'm super excited
actually to unpack all this. And I kind of watched that back
to the beginning because you have an interesting story.
Can you tell us a bit about likeyour background as a dietitian
and like, what was that moment that made you decide like this
isn't working out? Like, you know, you kind of
mentioned a little bit, but like, can you go into like a bit
more of like, what was that Iowaopening, like a change?
(04:16):
What is going to have to happen?Yeah, a lot of it was we just
working more and more and more hours.
And I was in food service, in school food service.
And so it's basically like you're running large teams and
it was basically you're now HR and so you're just handling
hundreds and hundreds of staff. And it was like, this isn't fun
anymore. I don't enjoy this.
(04:37):
You know, you're getting calls at 5:00 in the morning because
the kitchen's open early. Things breaking down at night,
like you got to try to fix the everyone's calling off.
The money was not where I wantedto be.
I think at the time I think I ended, I think I left there at
67,000. And that was with like, one of
the largest school districts in Michigan.
That's crazy. So, and that's at 67, five years
(04:58):
of school and I'm handling a lot, you know, at 67,000.
And so then I start to see. And so there was AI, don't know
there's an exact moment, but it's one of the things that like
some like higher decisions were made.
And I was like, I don't really agree with this.
Why am I doing this? There's got to be something
else. You know, I know I'm capable.
I've been to school for a long time, but I didn't want to feel
(05:18):
stuck as a dietitian. It's hard.
Like I feel like I did this myself to make my job, my
identity right, and to feel likethat is okay.
I'm a dietitian. I can only be a dietitian.
It's silly now, but at the time I thought 30 is 30 is too late
to go back and restart a career.I'm pretty cold, you know?
Like I've got a family, I've gota house.
(05:39):
Like there's no way I can do that.
I can't just restart my career. A lot of Googling and a lot of
YouTube and careerists. And so I so I settled on
careers. Yeah.
So that wasn't exactly a defining moment, but it's
basically like a little bit of probably a six month period that
I was like, OK, I am really hating this job now.
I'm really hating this. And being a dietitian as a
(06:00):
whole, I was like, I don't really love it anymore.
Yeah. So I, I knew that like I, I knew
I wanted to get into IT. I did, but I didn't know what.
And so I thought like, OK, to bea developer, to be a coder, you
know, that seems like, OK, thosepeople are very smart.
They've got their, you know, they've got their computer
science degrees. That takes a long time to do and
I can't do this. But then the more I watch shows
(06:21):
like yours and like heard stories of people like I did
take a boot camp and you know, it was six months of hard work
or five months of hard work, butI was able to get a six figure
job and I was able to do that. I was like, Oh, that sounds
pretty crazy. And so I kind of started down
that path. I took some, I took some basic,
basic coding classes and I was like, this is going to take me
(06:41):
because I tried to do it on my own first.
You know, I was like, oh, I don't actually want to do I, I
didn't want to spend, you know, some of some of those boot camps
are 1012 to $14,000. And so I thought, let me see if
I can do it on my own. And, you know, one of the
benefits of a boot camp is like,it's fast-paced, it's hard work,
it's fast-paced. And like everything is given to
you as opposed to like on the Internet.
(07:02):
There's so much like, hey, you go down this path, go down this
path, go down this path. And you don't know what you
don't know, you know? So you try to like, OK, is this
important? Is this not important?
And take you a while? So I started that.
So for a couple months, you know, I was up every morning at
4:00 trying to try to code before work, trying to like get,
you know, trying to create theselittle projects and stuff.
(07:22):
You know, and looking back now, that's kind of a waste of time,
but I ended up settling on software QA.
OK, this is something that I canstart.
It doesn't seem like it takes much schooling like the, the
courses, the course is 2 months and it seemed like this is very
doable. And so, yeah, I, I took this
(07:45):
careers course and 100% a lot inthis kind of, you probably say
this all the time with, with a lot of your people is you get
out of it what you put in it. And I wish I thought this way
when I was in college because like utilizing the coaches.
So careers have. So you have your, you have your
normal classes, I think it was two days a week.
(08:07):
And you can you, you, if you want to watch them live, you can
do them live with the instructor.
You can ask questions and all that.
Or if you were like me and like,I got home from work today and I
couldn't do that. So like, I can just watch them
at midnight if I had to. And then they had, they had
instructors, a ton of instructors and a lot of them
were overseas. So if I was watching it at
(08:27):
midnight, I could have a live call with them at any time I
wanted. It was awesome.
So if I'm up at 4:00 in the morning, I could contact
somebody and like, hey, like I'mtrying to work on this project.
I don't know what this is. They could have a live call.
And I did it almost every singleday, you know, So like I got my
money worth, you know, that's awesome.
So just make sure whatever boot camp you're doing, a lot of them
(08:50):
offer coaching like that. Take advantage of, ask your
questions, get your money's worth.
You know, these people, they arehere to help you.
They do love helping you. And I think that's one of the
reasons why I was able to get a job was because I, I really dove
into it and like, I, I don't have a choice.
I cannot fail. I can't, you know, I have, I
have 4:00 kids at home. You know, I, I, I can't.
(09:11):
And so, yeah, there's a struggle.
I'm curious, so you mentioned you know, you when you're
looking at Chris, it seemed likeit was too good to be true and
you had your doubts. Like what were some of your
biggest doubts when you were first looking at them and also
comparing them to other boot camps out there as well?
I think the biggest thing was I'm going to spend, I think at
the time I think it was $5000. I'm going to spend $5000 for
(09:33):
this job I've never even heard of.
And they're saying that the average, the average pay I think
was somewhere between like 60 and 80,000.
And I was like, that seems very high.
I was like, I'm in the middle ofnowhere Michigan, like they're,
there's no way that any of thesecompanies are going to pay that
much money. And so that, that was kind of a
big concern. So it's like I, I, I, I don't
(09:54):
mind spending the money. I understand you go to college.
You know, if you go to college, you're going to spend money on
courses. Great.
But will you get out what they actually promised?
And that that was kind of like, I'm going to put this time and
effort in. Will I get out what has been
promised? That was the scariest moment for
me was like, is this real? Is it not real?
I have no idea. No, when I knew no family
(10:15):
members, no friends had even heard of this.
They're like, David, this is notreal.
Like companies are going to pay you to like do manual QA.
And so for. So for the audience who doesn't
actually know what manual QA is,basically is before a app or a
website or an e-mail or anythingthat a company is producing, QA
checks it. And so they check all the links,
all the tracking, all the buttons, anything that is
(10:37):
supposed to work, make sure it works, make sure you know
nothing is misaligned. And it seems kind of silly that
like, OK, this is even a job, but we find issues all day long.
So developers are developing these things.
And then they're like, Yep, sendit, send it, send it.
Yep, looks good. Send it.
And so that they have this thirdparty, they have a QA person who
goes through and checks it like,hey, oh, this is actually
broken. This link doesn't work.
(10:58):
Send it back to developers. Developers check it, they fix it
again and send it back. So it's a, it's a big loop.
So that's basically what manual QA is in a nutshell.
And it seems like why do they need that?
And 100% they do, even though like AI is coming out.
And I was worried as well that like, OK, AI is going to take
all these manual jobs. And basically the truth is AI is
(11:22):
helping developers develop things faster.
And we have manual QA also uses tools to help QA things faster.
But there are still misses all the time.
There's issues, there's bugs, you still need a human to check
AI 100%. Absolutely.
Especially like these bigger. Imagine you've got Nike, you've
got any of these buttons. If they're buy now button does
(11:46):
not work, how many millions of dollars a day is that gonna cost
them? You know, So just to make sure
that like every button works, Yeah, it's huge.
And so apparently it's a thing. And 100% it's a thing.
What finally pushed you to make that big of an investment?
I mean, a lot of people listening to this like 5 grand
is like no, no small chump change that.
That's a a decent size investment.
(12:08):
What was there like something that finally like, OK, you know,
I think this is I'm going to just do this.
Yeah, I knew I was going to takesome course so I, I tried it on
my own for a couple months and Irealized like this is going to
take forever. This is going to take way too
long. I, I don't have the time for
this. And honestly, like not to get
personal finance advice, but take out a interest free credit
(12:31):
card, take out just free credit card ahead of time and then put
it on whatever course you take, put it on that.
And then just, you know, if it'sa 12 month interest free credit
card, then just roll it over into another interest free
credit card. And that way it's interest free
even if you don't have the money.
So, so that's definitely what I did.
I didn't have $5000. And so interest free credit
card, put it on that and then just pray the pray, pray that it
(12:54):
works. But yes, it was, I think I was
just taking way too long to actually get any progress.
And I was going back and forth between doing like some like
doing like a full stack boot camp, a front end boot camp,
like one of those things. And I am so glad I didn't
because like now with AI, like those are the ones who are so
(13:17):
the ones who are losing their jobs.
I didn't do those specifically because it just took too long.
It those were like intensive andthat as they should be.
Like you're learning new languages and you know, it's,
it's six months and like you're spending four or five hours plus
homework and all that. Like I didn't have that time.
So I needed I needed something that I could do at night and
(13:38):
also that like would be a quick turn around.
What, what was your learning curve like coming from like a
non-technical background? Was it like drinking from a fire
hose the whole time? Or was there a point where
you're finally like, OK, this is, this isn't, you know, too
bad? In the beginning it was a little
harder because I had 00 technical anything, you know,
(13:59):
besides my just like what I've learned on YouTube, but I had no
proper training. I had no nothing.
And in the beginning it was kindof hard because it's, it's a
different, different profession.So it's kind of like, because
you're not like in it, it's like, what does this mean?
What does the developer do? What is like even like
understanding the whole softwarelife cycle basically, you know,
(14:20):
so like how, how, how is software built?
Like what, how are applications built?
How are apps built? You know, I had zero knowledge
of how any of that worked. And so that was kind of the
biggest learning curve. But once you are, I don't know,
within the first couple weeks and it's like, OK, this actually
makes sense. And like, this is what they do.
And they do a really good job ofgiving you real life training of
(14:43):
like, OK, this is what you know,this is how you would if you
were on a job because most of they do they, they focus on what
would a regular job be like? So give you real world scenarios
and you're constantly doing likeprojects.
So you're constantly like, they'll give you a project
during the class and then part of your homework is to then
(15:04):
complete it. And then they have, if you have
any questions on your homework, you can go back and forth with,
with some of the coaches, the instructors.
But yeah, in the beginning, little bit of a learning curve.
But overall, 100%, anybody can do manual QA. 100% Basically, if
you can use a computer, you can do QA, you know?
That's cool. Oh, and let's dive into that a
(15:25):
little bit more. I'm curious, like can you kind
of describe what the day-to-day looked like like while you're in
the course? You know, you mentioned you're
working on projects and you sometimes would, you know, call
and get help with those and stuff like that.
But what did the course load actually like look like?
What were you learning? Yeah.
So in the beginning, if I remember correctly, so it was
two days a week and each lesson was maybe it's three days a
(15:46):
week, each lesson was two hours or hour and a half, two hours at
a time. And it basically go through
like, OK, you're given, you're given this project and you're
given APDF. So basically companies will make
this is our, this is what we want our website to look like.
And so they have a designer who designs this, we want our
(16:07):
website to look like this. And then they give you what the
developers actually developed and they say go find all the
issues. And so they show you the proper
way to actually write these up, which is exactly the way I do it
in my current job now. So the exact template they
showed you is the exact way my first day.
They're like, hey, like this is how we want you to do it.
I don't know if you've done it like this, like, Oh yeah, I do
(16:29):
it like that all the time, you know, and they show you exactly
what you would do in normal everyday job.
So it was, it was awesome. So in the, in the, in the
beginning, it's tough because like you're kind of, you know,
think like now looking back, it's like, wow, it was actually
really easy. But at the time, like you're
brand new, you're learning all these new things.
And so it was, I want to say difficult, but it was a little
(16:52):
bit of a challenge. But within the first couple
weeks you'll be able to get the hang of it no problem at all.
That's so cool. Like did it like still though,
did it feel challenging? Like if you're learning coding,
people are really intimidated bythat.
Did you have to do any like coding or anything like that or
was this just kind of learning processes and systems?
(17:13):
Right. Yeah.
So 0 coding, if you're strictly doing manual, it's 0 coding
really just processes. So like, what do you do?
How do you do it? How do you write this up?
Basically, what does the developer want to see and need
to see? So if you're writing up a bug,
if like you're trying to click on a button and the button
doesn't work, how do you let thedeveloper know quickly what the
(17:34):
issue is and and where in the screen it is?
So because developers get paid aton of money, you want them to
be able to be in and out quickly, find it, fix it, and
then get moving. Because typically with a lot of
these, a lot of these applications.
So like today, you know, I found30 issues on one e-mail.
And so a developer is going to be able to go through all of my
(17:55):
tickets and be able to look through, OK, this is an issue,
fix it. This is an issue fixed.
He's got to find it quick and fix it.
Because otherwise, if he's, if Idon't write it correctly or if
I'm not clear about what the problem is, then he's going to
take forever to find it. So that's a strong majority of
it is just writing up issues. So you're you've most of the job
is just being detail oriented, which is a huge, a huge benefit
(18:17):
if, if you are in a career. So a lot of people who are
teachers end up being Q as if you're a copywriter, great.
Q As secretaries, office workers, admin workers, if you
do any type of like bookmaking, great.
So if you are detail oriented and you see that, OK, that
shouldn't be like that and that shouldn't be like that.
Those are all great career pathsthat you can jump right into QA.
(18:41):
Nice. Cuz everything you're doing is
already QA and now you're just doing in a software.
That's all it is. That's really cool.
You, you said you applied for over 3000 jobs.
That's, that's nuts. And you only got 3 interviews
out of that. Like how did you manage to like
keep going And like, like to me like 3000 jobs, I'd be thinking
(19:04):
like, man, I, I did, I, you know, picked the wrong career
path. Did I do something wrong?
What am I doing? How did you keep going through
and, you know, persevering? Yeah, so one of the nice things
about careers was upfront, even before you paid the money, they
explained that they said like most people will take 1 to 2000
(19:26):
job applications before they land a job, easy.
So that's what they tell you upfront.
And they said, you know, gosh, Ithink it was 25 to 30 jobs a day
is what they expect you to applyfor.
Wow. They do have software that helps
you as well to help kind of automate some of the process to
like fill out the applications for you.
And it does make it a lot easier.
(19:47):
But they are very upfront with you about that.
So I don't want anyone to be, you know, you like you read
these things online. They didn't tell me like 100%
they told you, you know, so it's, it's a lot of work.
They tell you upfront. It will take a lot of
applications. 100% it will. So if you don't want to apply
that many, like it might not be the career path for you.
It's an awesome job when you getin, but getting that first job
(20:09):
is very tough one. It is very tough to do, but they
they are very upfront with you about it and they do help you.
And you have a, you have AI don't know career coach, I
guess. Who's alongside you as well?
What I love about them 100% loveis they were great with mock
interviews. So that's cool when you finish
(20:30):
the course. So after two weeks, I'm sorry,
after two months, when you finish the course, they give you
questions, they give you a list of like 20 questions.
And before you can like graduatefrom the course, you have to do
a mock interview to I guess passthat section.
And then there's another couple,another like 10 questions that
they'll do as well. So these are, these are real
questions that I 100% was asked on almost every, almost every
(20:55):
job. And you know, every job
interview I had these same exactquestions.
Like when you're, when you firstget them, you're like, gosh, are
they actually going to ask me that?
And yes, they did. So they, they prep you very
well. That's crazy.
And you also have access to yourcoach at all times.
And I was probably super annoying to my, you know, like
I, I've because they spent the money on it, you know, like I'm
going to make sure I get my, I want to make sure I get my money
(21:17):
worth. Yeah, but they're very, very
receptive and they're constantlygiving you feedback.
So I'm like, listen, you know, I've, I've sent, I've sent 500,
you know, I've sent 500. I haven't gotten any feedback.
Now listen, you know, we can, wecan tweak your, we can tweak
your LinkedIn, we can tweak this, we can do that.
So we're constantly trying to help you, trying to move
different things. If this is not working, OK,
let's try it like this and that,OK, Well, now I've done 1000,
(21:39):
I've done 1500. And so, you know, you just, you
got to keep going 100% keep going.
And a lot of it was knowing thatI had spent the money.
I'm not going to give up. I couldn't give up.
Like I, I did not want to go back to my old job and it took a
long time. It did, I want to say.
So I'm currently on my second QArole, my second QA job and my,
(22:04):
my first one, I think took aboutfour or five months to get that
role. And then my second one, I, I
just wasn't a good fit for the, for the first job.
And, and that was, that was an hour away that, that one was on
site. But I was like, gosh, I guess I
finally got a job. So I took the first position I
got a offer with and then for mysecond position took me about
(22:27):
about six months of applying as well.
Oh wow. And then I think at that point,
I had been out of the program for a year and a half and I was
still calling my career coach once a week.
You know, anytime I did have like a next step with a company,
I would call my coach like, hey,this is the company, this is
what they do. And like, hey, Kim, Kim, Kim,
Kim, Kim. Can we do a mock interview?
(22:48):
Absolutely. So they would pretend to be in
that, to be in that environment,to be in that industry and give
me questions based off of, you know, what was in the
application, you know, what are their values and stuff like
that. So it was, it was that it was
very helpful. That's that's really cool.
The. First couple of interviews I was
horrible at. I think we all are, but still.
(23:10):
Yeah, and it was, I think it wasdiscouraging.
Not discouraging, but like beinga dietitian I think.
I think I had applied for like 5roles and I got 5 interviews and
I maybe have like 3 offers. And so then it's like very
different all of a sudden now it's like 1015 hundred 2000, you
know, and like I haven't had anyinterviews yet.
And so it's it was very different.
It was very different. So, you know, you mentioned, you
(23:33):
know, mock interviews, mentorship, you know, help with
your resume, you know, what werethose all the tools they offered
to as part of, you know, the, the boot camp program?
Absolutely, yeah. And and just to be clear, when I
say I spent $5000, I did the automation portion as well.
I think if you just did the manual banner, that's a couple
(23:54):
$1000 left, sorry less. But I did the automation portion
as well, which I currently do not even use, but I wanted, OK,
like let let me see if I can do this.
Yeah. And so with the automation
portion, do you want me to go onthat as well?
Do you want me to stay with manual?
Oh, yeah. No, no, go ahead.
Yep. So with the automation portion,
you learn Python And you learn how to actually like make
(24:19):
programs that can check that cancheck a website.
So basically we we would, we would mock Target.
So we would mock like the Targetwebsite, mock Amazon.
So like if if you were a QA and you would want to make sure, OK,
do all these websites work? So you would, you would be able
to write a program that could open up target.com.
(24:40):
It would check all the links, itwould check all the boxes, check
all the text is correct, you know, and then it would print
you out, you know, a final thingthat says like, yes, everything
is good. Or it would state like, OK, like
this is wrong. And it would send you a
screenshot of like, this is whatthe issue is.
And so you can learn how to do all that.
And I was like, holy crap, it was awesome.
And so that so that that part was hard.
(25:00):
So definitely that is much more tech involved.
You know, it did, that's how that was a lot of studying.
That was a lot of calls. Those are the ones where like I
was calling my, you call my coach at midnight, calling them
at 4:00 in the morning, you know, but like one of the great
parts is like having coaches in different parts of the world so
they, so they can match up whatever time you want to call.
(25:23):
It was incredible because I, I, I know most people probably are
working jobs when they're doing this and they can't do these
calls during work hours. Yeah.
And so the fact that like, I could do it at midnight, you
know, I could do it when everyone was sleeping, it was
awesome. Like I those were those were
100% like for me one of the greatest gifts they could have
offered. That's awesome.
(25:44):
Can you kind of go into a bit oflike what the hiring process
looks like for, you know, someone in QA, You know what,
what was that process? You know, was it a really
intensive interviews or you know, how did that look like?
For both jobs that I've had, it starts with just the
application. And I think both of them, I
almost didn't apply. I was like, I don't know if I
(26:05):
fit this role. I'm not, I'm not gonna do it.
And I was like, whatever. So I sent the application and
then both of them, I think I gota call like immediately.
So it's your first call for bothof them was HR just calling
like, hey, this is, you know, doyou still want this role, blah,
blah, blah. Is this something you want to
and to give a little background about yourself, which is
(26:25):
something that that they've coached you on in in the
coaching process, They have OK, your first call is probably HR,
you know, this is what they'll ask you.
And this this is kind of like the banter of that they get you
comfortable to be in that to be in that call, which was very
helpful. Then the next one was in person
with the hiring manager, and then the third interview was
(26:46):
with a hiring manager and some of the other QAT members as well
to get kind of more of a feel. But I promise almost every
question that they had given youin these mock interviews, they
asked those. They asked those in the in the
coaching part, they had said. What?
What a confidence boost though, you know what I mean?
(27:08):
Absolutely. And they they said memory, I
think from, I think from day one, they give you the questions
and they say start to memorize these, start to memorize these.
And you know, like that, like I'll be fine.
I need to know those. But like yes, please, if you
take this course, they give you the questions.
You will be asked those, you will be asked those questions.
Exactly. It was a huge, huge confidence
(27:30):
boost that like you asked the question, like, hey, like I've
practiced this 1000 times, you know, it was very nice.
What would you say to someone that is in the position you were
a year ago, You know, burnt out,skeptical, but like curious
about making this kind of careerchange.
What advice do you have for someone like that?
I think you've really got to askyourself, how bad do you want?
(27:51):
How, how, how bad do you want tomake a change?
And I think until you're really ready to put the time and put
the effort in, really just make sure you're ready mentally.
And if you are married, make sure your wifes on board because
doing this process is hard enough.
But if you don't have a spouse that's on board, I don't know
how you'd even do it. Make sure the whole team is on
(28:13):
board. Get the train rolling.
It's not easy, 100% it's not easy.
You know, I'm not going to lie to you.
It's not easy. A lot of late nights, a lot of
early mornings. Just make sure that you are
ready and make sure that you understand going into it that it
will not be quick. It's going to be 6 months and
you're going to be applying every day.
But it is possible. It is possible to do.
And I've, I've, you know, I, I was, I'm in the middle of
(28:35):
nowhere, Michigan, you know, andI, I'm able to get a job that
pays well. Yeah.
You know, so I get paid more nowthan I did as a dietitian, you
know, after five years of school.
That's that's awesome. It doesn't make any sense.
Your story's so similar to mine.You know, I was a bulldozer
operator before I got into tech,and I was just miserable.
(28:55):
I made great. Actually, I made decent money as
a bulldozer operator. I was making like $70,000 a
year. But I hated my job.
It was just so mind numbing. I was miserable and I went to my
wife. I'm like, I, I can't keep doing
this. I got to make a career change
and I knew like I always had a passion for tech and I really
(29:17):
wanted to get into tech. I, I tried several times
previously, but you know, I'm like, I kind of want to start
researching tech. And she's like, OK, we'll start
doing research and don't just quit your job, you know, start
looking. And I'm like, OK, OK, so I
started studying and stuff like that.
While I was studying, I lost my job and I had to go to my wife.
(29:41):
And I'm like, look, there's two options.
One, I can just go get a job, put food on the table.
I'm going to be miserable, but you know, I can go that route.
Or two, this is the my chance totry to break into tech.
So we talked about it and luckily, you know, she of course
supported me all the way the wayand I didn't go through a boot
(30:06):
camp and it was very difficult because I had no degree.
I didn't have time to go back toschool.
And we had just bought a house like not even a year before this
happened. And we had, you know, 3 kids and
luckily we had some in the savings, but it took a long
time. And the area I lived in, you
(30:27):
couldn't get into tech unless pretty much.
I always remember joking and like someone had to die to be
able to get in the industry because as soon as a position
would open up, everyone was justlike, like flies on it and like,
they'd be in that position forever.
And so we end up relocating to do this.
Wow, wow. So.
(30:47):
You guys moved? Yeah.
So we, we moved like 2 1/2 hoursaway and looking back now, if I
had gone the a route of like a boot camp, I would have been
able to make that switch way sooner without some of the
heartache, you know, we went through.
Is it possible to do without a boot camp?
(31:09):
Probably like you mentioned, butyou know, you have, there's no
structure. Everyone's telling you to do
everything. And for a lot of people that is
really, really hard. So and that leads me kind of to
my next question for you. What are some key differences
you think, between people who will succeed in boot camps and
(31:30):
someone who doesn't? Well, that's a good question,
honestly. Honestly, it depends how bad
your situation is. I'd say that if you, if you need
it and you want it, you know, itdepends.
If you're just a quitter, you're, you're doesn't matter
what it is, how much money you spend, you're, you're going to,
you're going to quit. It's something that's hard, It's
(31:51):
going to take a lot of effort. But if you want it, if you truly
want it, if you realize that, like if you can visualize your
end goal, that's what that's that's honestly what kept me
going and say, okay, I need to work from home.
I need to work from home. I need to work from home.
You know, I need to be closer. I need to be closer.
And just having those thoughts in my head that like, OK, it is
possible. It is possible.
(32:11):
And then like hearing stories like yours, like your guy who
was a blue collar worker and then now you got into tech and
like, so Someone Like You is, it's such an inspiration to be
able to hear people like you, like tell their story that like,
it is possible. Yeah.
For someone who has no technicalbackground is able to do it.
So 100% it is possible. And so I always think like, why
(32:33):
not me? If other people can do it, why,
like, I should be able to do it too, you know, like 100% can do
it too. We've got the power of the
Internet now. God, the power, you know?
And do I, you know, do I do I want to spend the time to do it,
You know, it's in. Yeah, so.
But, yeah, one of, you know, a lot of people who do their
(32:53):
careers boot camp also don't putthe time and the effort in to do
it. And they'll and they'll, they'll
start it, but then they don't want to do the applications and
they realize like, oh gosh, thisis a lot of work and I I don't
want to do the work. Yeah.
Honestly, like those people who wouldn't feel like it's probably
better that they quit at this point because by the time they
actually get into it and realizelike, you know, everything is
not all, you know, roses and stuff, you know, so.
(33:14):
If you you are determined enoughto sign up for a boot camp, you
know, there can be great success, but there definitely
has to be that level of commitment, you know, that level
of motivation and determination.Like for me, spending five grand
on a boot camp, but I don't wantto waste that money.
That's enough, you know, motivation for me.
You know, I want to get every penny out of that.
(33:35):
But not everyone thinks that way.
And looking back on the investment, and not only
financial investment, but the time you think you made the
right decision, like was careersworth it for you?
If you compare it to going back to school, if you compare it to
saves, you know, if you did, youknow, if you got an associate's,
you know, even if you spent two years going back.
(33:55):
So if you didn't have a degree and you realize, like, hey, I
can actually go back to school for free because they have so
many like back to school, like back to tech programs that the
government pays for now. If you, if you, if you, if you
don't have a degree yet, but you've got to spend that, you've
got to spend 2 years now. And so it's like I can spend two
months and then just like work my tail off applying or I can
(34:18):
spend 2 years minimum, you know,minimum getting like a actual
associate's degree. It's kind of like, you know,
what do you know, what do you want to do?
Do you want to work hard now, orare you going to work hard
later? No, absolutely.
And you know, for people who've made it this far in the
interview and are interested in careers, we'll actually leave a
link down in the description to them.
They they are sponsoring this episode.
(34:38):
I do want to give a shout out tothem.
You know, it is a a great resource.
David's here. His story here is really been
inspirational. David, thank you for taking the
time to kind of share your journey for us.
No problem at all. Thank you for having me on.
And I appreciate people like youtelling these real normal people
(34:58):
stories. Yeah, that's what I love about
you. I love about your channel is
just normal people, you know, like it's not, they're not trust
fund babies. Like they don't have these crazy
degrees. They're just normal everyday
people who have just worked hard, worked hard and then got
what they wanted. And it's awesome.
It's an inspiration. Well, and you know that that was
the whole thing for me because that's how I got into the field.
(35:21):
You know, I worked hard and I got here and I realized not
everyone realizes how achievablea career in the tech industry
is. And I want to share other
people's stories to hopefully motivate people.
If one person listening to this is motivated by this story, you
know that's worth it for me. You know, I want to try to help
(35:42):
people achieve their dreams and then maybe give them the push in
the right direction. And you know, if a boot camp is
what they need to make that career change out of a job they
are miserable in to a, you know,I enjoyable, lucrative career
field in the tech, then absolutely.
Why would I not want to share that story?
(36:03):
Absolutely. And, you know, just have people
realize that your that your job is not your identity now.
So where you are now, you can't change.
You know, like I thought 30 was old.
I thought I couldn't change. I couldn't go back to school.
It's not true. You know, don't, don't, don't,
don't waste the rest of your life thinking that like, you can
only stay in one career. And that is not true at all.
(36:25):
You know, the way that they havethese, you know, different
courses and careers and you knowall the like, you know,
different boot camps set up likeit is possible to change your
life now you know, and change your life, change your family's
life. It's it is incredible.
As we start to land the plane here, I'm curious like, what is
your career now that you're in working in the field, you're
working as a QA tester, you know, what does your future look
(36:48):
like? Do you have like a career plan
for your next steps? You know, do you know what that
next job position you're lookingto, you know, grow into type of
thing is? I have always been in
management, everything I've done, every job I've ever had,
I, I got into management pretty quickly.
So that's kind of where I like to be, where they want to be.
I would say that and you know, Ido so many things on the side.
(37:09):
You know, I do TikTok, Amazon videos, kind of, you know, buy
real estate, you know, being, being, being, being a landlord
and all that. So like there's so many things
that you can do outside of your job, but it just gives you the
freedom to do those things outside that's.
So cool. That's that's what I love about
it. That's awesome.
And you know, if people have questions for you, is there a
(37:31):
place people can find you and connect with you and ask any
questions they might have? That is a good question.
I probably, I don't know, give you my e-mail or something and
we'll throw it down there in thelink.
Absolutely, Yeah. We'll definitely link up that
down in the the show notes down below as we close out this
episode. Any final words of wisdom you'd
like to to give everyone listening to this that you know
(37:52):
is maybe motivated by this and they're ready to to take that
dive in? Absolutely.
You know, it just may. Yeah, I would say it.
This is possible for anybody. Like you don't have to be in a
big city. I'm in the middle of nowhere.
It is possible, You know, just work hard.
You can do it. You know, you don't have to take
(38:13):
this career. You don't have to take this
career as course. Doesn't matter.
Do something. If you want it, go get it.
If you hate your job, I don't want you to quit, but do stuff,
do stuff outside 100%. Work your tail off.
Go get it. Change your life.
Change your family's life. Yeah.
Just just just get after it. Get after it and work hard.
(38:35):
And you, you, you, you will be able to do it.
You know, I applied to 3000 jobs. 2999 said no, but one said
yes, you know, one said yes. And that is all you need.
All you need is one person to say yes, you know, and then
boom, all all of a sudden you'rea software QA engineer.
Yeah. That's that's why I tell people
when I do my career coaching is,you know, don't lose faith when
(38:59):
you're, you know, you're applying for all these jobs.
Don't lose hope because you know, you might get rejected
1000 times, but only takes one person to say yes and you're in
and, and from there, you know, the doors just start opening for
you once you start getting into the industry.
So. Absolutely, 100% true.
David, thank you so much for dropping so much wisdom and so
(39:21):
much advice for everyone. I really appreciate you coming
on the show and sharing your story with us.
Awesome. Well, thank you so much.
I appreciate you and appreciate everything you and your channel
do. It is awesome.
Thank you so much. Thank you.
Thank you so much and everyone. I really hope you enjoyed this
episode. I hope you took something away.
Again, reminder, if you're interested in checking out
Chris, their link is down in thedescription.
(39:41):
Go check them out, see if it's right for you.
And I hope you guys enjoyed thisepisode and until next time,
keep learning.
And have people realize that your job is not your identity
now. So where you are now, you can't
change. I thought 30 was old.
I thought I couldn't change. I couldn't go back to school.
It's not true. Don't waste the rest of your
life thinking that like, you canonly stay in one career.
And that is not true at all. You know, the way that they have
these different courses and careers and you know all the
(00:21):
like, you know, different boot camps set up like it is possible
to change your life now you know, and change your life,
change your family's life. It's it is incredible.
Imagine investing $5000 for a boot camp for a career you've
never heard of. No degree, no tech background,
just a hope that it might work out.
(00:41):
That's exactly what David did when he left his eight-year
career in healthcare to pursue software QA.
First, it sounded almost too good to be true.
But what happened next? Over 3000 job applications,
countless rejections, and a journey that tested his grit
every step of the way. Today, David's AQA engineer in
tech, and in this episode, we'rebreaking down exactly how he
(01:04):
made the leap, what it took, andwhy he wouldn't trade it for
anything. This is the real story behind
the pivot, and you don't want tomiss it.
David, welcome to the show. Awesome.
Thank you so much for having me.I appreciate it.
Absolutely. Do you mind just taking a few
minutes and kind of tell us a little bit about yourself?
Yeah, So I started as a dietitian and that's where I
(01:26):
thought my dream and career aspiration was pretty much my
whole life. And so became a dietitian and
got into healthcare. And then I realized I hated it.
And so I was about, I was about 30 years old.
I hit my third year crisis, whatever, and I realized I had
to make a change. I was working a ton of hours.
I was working an hour away from my house and time.
(01:48):
I probably had two or three kidsand now I have 4 now and I
realized that like I I can't do this anymore.
You know, it's put a strain on the family strand me mentally.
I wasn't happy. And so I literally just googled
like because I knew I wanted to get into tech somehow, but I
also did not have four years to go back and get a degree.
I went to school for five years like I'm done.
(02:10):
I'm not going back. Don't have the money, don't have
the time to literally googled, you know, like careers in tech
that don't require a degree. And then, you know, couple
things would come up. I thought about maybe taking
like a, you know, coding boot camp or something.
And then I kept seeing, you know, software QA, software QA,
you know, you don't, you don't, you don't need a degree.
Take this course. You don't need a degree.
(02:31):
I was like, that doesn't really seem right, but it's like I, I
also have one of those like everything seems rosier than it
is, you know, like you like, I want to believe things are true.
And I've gotten bitten by a couple of like investment scams,
you know, And so I felt like, gosh, is this another one of
those? And, you know, trying like
trying to convince my wife like,hey, like this is this is the
(02:51):
next great thing. So I found this program, this
career course called Careerist and basically it's a 2 month
course and they offer a couple different levels, some that's
just manual QA which is strictlynon coding and they also offer
an automation QA which does include coding as well.
(03:13):
And it sounded too good to be true, 100% too good to be true.
I didn't believe it and I did more research in it.
I was like, maybe this is, I hadn't even heard of what
software QA was, didn't even know anything about it.
And I honestly, I didn't, I didn't know anyone who did it
either. So like I didn't have a person
to talk to. Like, is this a good career path
(03:33):
to go on? Like I had no real guidance.
So it's really just YouTube videos, like watching people
kind of like yourself, you know,giving, giving people the
opportunity in the space for like real life people to
showcase like, OK, like this, this is a real career.
This is the real thing. And, you know, one thing led to
another and started the course. And yeah, here we are today.
(03:54):
That's crazy. And I, I'm super excited
actually to unpack all this. And I kind of watched that back
to the beginning because you have an interesting story.
Can you tell us a bit about likeyour background as a dietitian
and like, what was that moment that made you decide like this
isn't working out? Like, you know, you kind of
mentioned a little bit, but like, can you go into like a bit
more of like, what was that Iowaopening, like a change?
(04:16):
What is going to have to happen?Yeah, a lot of it was we just
working more and more and more hours.
And I was in food service, in school food service.
And so it's basically like you're running large teams and
it was basically you're now HR and so you're just handling
hundreds and hundreds of staff. And it was like, this isn't fun
anymore. I don't enjoy this.
(04:37):
You know, you're getting calls at 5:00 in the morning because
the kitchen's open early. Things breaking down at night,
like you got to try to fix the everyone's calling off.
The money was not where I wantedto be.
I think at the time I think I ended, I think I left there at
67,000. And that was with like, one of
the largest school districts in Michigan.
That's crazy. So, and that's at 67, five years
(04:58):
of school and I'm handling a lot, you know, at 67,000.
And so then I start to see. And so there was AI, don't know
there's an exact moment, but it's one of the things that like
some like higher decisions were made.
And I was like, I don't really agree with this.
Why am I doing this? There's got to be something
else. You know, I know I'm capable.
I've been to school for a long time, but I didn't want to feel
(05:18):
stuck as a dietitian. It's hard.
Like I feel like I did this myself to make my job, my
identity right, and to feel likethat is okay.
I'm a dietitian. I can only be a dietitian.
It's silly now, but at the time I thought 30 is 30 is too late
to go back and restart a career.I'm pretty cold, you know?
Like I've got a family, I've gota house.
(05:39):
Like there's no way I can do that.
I can't just restart my career. A lot of Googling and a lot of
YouTube and careerists. And so I so I settled on
careers. Yeah.
So that wasn't exactly a defining moment, but it's
basically like a little bit of probably a six month period that
I was like, OK, I am really hating this job now.
I'm really hating this. And being a dietitian as a
(06:00):
whole, I was like, I don't really love it anymore.
Yeah. So I, I knew that like I, I knew
I wanted to get into IT. I did, but I didn't know what.
And so I thought like, OK, to bea developer, to be a coder, you
know, that seems like, OK, thosepeople are very smart.
They've got their, you know, they've got their computer
science degrees. That takes a long time to do and
I can't do this. But then the more I watch shows
(06:21):
like yours and like heard stories of people like I did
take a boot camp and you know, it was six months of hard work
or five months of hard work, butI was able to get a six figure
job and I was able to do that. I was like, Oh, that sounds
pretty crazy. And so I kind of started down
that path. I took some, I took some basic,
basic coding classes and I was like, this is going to take me
(06:41):
because I tried to do it on my own first.
You know, I was like, oh, I don't actually want to do I, I
didn't want to spend, you know, some of some of those boot camps
are 1012 to $14,000. And so I thought, let me see if
I can do it on my own. And, you know, one of the
benefits of a boot camp is like,it's fast-paced, it's hard work,
it's fast-paced. And like everything is given to
you as opposed to like on the Internet.
(07:02):
There's so much like, hey, you go down this path, go down this
path, go down this path. And you don't know what you
don't know, you know? So you try to like, OK, is this
important? Is this not important?
And take you a while? So I started that.
So for a couple months, you know, I was up every morning at
4:00 trying to try to code before work, trying to like get,
you know, trying to create theselittle projects and stuff.
(07:22):
You know, and looking back now, that's kind of a waste of time,
but I ended up settling on software QA.
OK, this is something that I canstart.
It doesn't seem like it takes much schooling like the, the
courses, the course is 2 months and it seemed like this is very
doable. And so, yeah, I, I took this
(07:45):
careers course and 100% a lot inthis kind of, you probably say
this all the time with, with a lot of your people is you get
out of it what you put in it. And I wish I thought this way
when I was in college because like utilizing the coaches.
So careers have. So you have your, you have your
normal classes, I think it was two days a week.
(08:07):
And you can you, you, if you want to watch them live, you can
do them live with the instructor.
You can ask questions and all that.
Or if you were like me and like,I got home from work today and I
couldn't do that. So like, I can just watch them
at midnight if I had to. And then they had, they had
instructors, a ton of instructors and a lot of them
were overseas. So if I was watching it at
(08:27):
midnight, I could have a live call with them at any time I
wanted. It was awesome.
So if I'm up at 4:00 in the morning, I could contact
somebody and like, hey, like I'mtrying to work on this project.
I don't know what this is. They could have a live call.
And I did it almost every singleday, you know, So like I got my
money worth, you know, that's awesome.
So just make sure whatever boot camp you're doing, a lot of them
(08:50):
offer coaching like that. Take advantage of, ask your
questions, get your money's worth.
You know, these people, they arehere to help you.
They do love helping you. And I think that's one of the
reasons why I was able to get a job was because I, I really dove
into it and like, I, I don't have a choice.
I cannot fail. I can't, you know, I have, I
have 4:00 kids at home. You know, I, I, I can't.
(09:11):
And so, yeah, there's a struggle.
I'm curious, so you mentioned you know, you when you're
looking at Chris, it seemed likeit was too good to be true and
you had your doubts. Like what were some of your
biggest doubts when you were first looking at them and also
comparing them to other boot camps out there as well?
I think the biggest thing was I'm going to spend, I think at
the time I think it was $5000. I'm going to spend $5000 for
(09:33):
this job I've never even heard of.
And they're saying that the average, the average pay I think
was somewhere between like 60 and 80,000.
And I was like, that seems very high.
I was like, I'm in the middle ofnowhere Michigan, like they're,
there's no way that any of thesecompanies are going to pay that
much money. And so that, that was kind of a
big concern. So it's like I, I, I, I don't
(09:54):
mind spending the money. I understand you go to college.
You know, if you go to college, you're going to spend money on
courses. Great.
But will you get out what they actually promised?
And that that was kind of like, I'm going to put this time and
effort in. Will I get out what has been
promised? That was the scariest moment for
me was like, is this real? Is it not real?
I have no idea. No, when I knew no family
(10:15):
members, no friends had even heard of this.
They're like, David, this is notreal.
Like companies are going to pay you to like do manual QA.
And so for. So for the audience who doesn't
actually know what manual QA is,basically is before a app or a
website or an e-mail or anythingthat a company is producing, QA
checks it. And so they check all the links,
all the tracking, all the buttons, anything that is
(10:37):
supposed to work, make sure it works, make sure you know
nothing is misaligned. And it seems kind of silly that
like, OK, this is even a job, but we find issues all day long.
So developers are developing these things.
And then they're like, Yep, sendit, send it, send it.
Yep, looks good. Send it.
And so that they have this thirdparty, they have a QA person who
goes through and checks it like,hey, oh, this is actually
broken. This link doesn't work.
(10:58):
Send it back to developers. Developers check it, they fix it
again and send it back. So it's a, it's a big loop.
So that's basically what manual QA is in a nutshell.
And it seems like why do they need that?
And 100% they do, even though like AI is coming out.
And I was worried as well that like, OK, AI is going to take
all these manual jobs. And basically the truth is AI is
(11:22):
helping developers develop things faster.
And we have manual QA also uses tools to help QA things faster.
But there are still misses all the time.
There's issues, there's bugs, you still need a human to check
AI 100%. Absolutely.
Especially like these bigger. Imagine you've got Nike, you've
got any of these buttons. If they're buy now button does
(11:46):
not work, how many millions of dollars a day is that gonna cost
them? You know, So just to make sure
that like every button works, Yeah, it's huge.
And so apparently it's a thing. And 100% it's a thing.
What finally pushed you to make that big of an investment?
I mean, a lot of people listening to this like 5 grand
is like no, no small chump change that.
That's a a decent size investment.
(12:08):
What was there like something that finally like, OK, you know,
I think this is I'm going to just do this.
Yeah, I knew I was going to takesome course so I, I tried it on
my own for a couple months and Irealized like this is going to
take forever. This is going to take way too
long. I, I don't have the time for
this. And honestly, like not to get
personal finance advice, but take out a interest free credit
(12:31):
card, take out just free credit card ahead of time and then put
it on whatever course you take, put it on that.
And then just, you know, if it'sa 12 month interest free credit
card, then just roll it over into another interest free
credit card. And that way it's interest free
even if you don't have the money.
So, so that's definitely what I did.
I didn't have $5000. And so interest free credit
card, put it on that and then just pray the pray, pray that it
(12:54):
works. But yes, it was, I think I was
just taking way too long to actually get any progress.
And I was going back and forth between doing like some like
doing like a full stack boot camp, a front end boot camp,
like one of those things. And I am so glad I didn't
because like now with AI, like those are the ones who are so
(13:17):
the ones who are losing their jobs.
I didn't do those specifically because it just took too long.
It those were like intensive andthat as they should be.
Like you're learning new languages and you know, it's,
it's six months and like you're spending four or five hours plus
homework and all that. Like I didn't have that time.
So I needed I needed something that I could do at night and
(13:38):
also that like would be a quick turn around.
What, what was your learning curve like coming from like a
non-technical background? Was it like drinking from a fire
hose the whole time? Or was there a point where
you're finally like, OK, this is, this isn't, you know, too
bad? In the beginning it was a little
harder because I had 00 technical anything, you know,
(13:59):
besides my just like what I've learned on YouTube, but I had no
proper training. I had no nothing.
And in the beginning it was kindof hard because it's, it's a
different, different profession.So it's kind of like, because
you're not like in it, it's like, what does this mean?
What does the developer do? What is like even like
understanding the whole softwarelife cycle basically, you know,
(14:20):
so like how, how, how is software built?
Like what, how are applications built?
How are apps built? You know, I had zero knowledge
of how any of that worked. And so that was kind of the
biggest learning curve. But once you are, I don't know,
within the first couple weeks and it's like, OK, this actually
makes sense. And like, this is what they do.
And they do a really good job ofgiving you real life training of
(14:43):
like, OK, this is what you know,this is how you would if you
were on a job because most of they do they, they focus on what
would a regular job be like? So give you real world scenarios
and you're constantly doing likeprojects.
So you're constantly like, they'll give you a project
during the class and then part of your homework is to then
(15:04):
complete it. And then they have, if you have
any questions on your homework, you can go back and forth with,
with some of the coaches, the instructors.
But yeah, in the beginning, little bit of a learning curve.
But overall, 100%, anybody can do manual QA. 100% Basically, if
you can use a computer, you can do QA, you know?
That's cool. Oh, and let's dive into that a
(15:25):
little bit more. I'm curious, like can you kind
of describe what the day-to-day looked like like while you're in
the course? You know, you mentioned you're
working on projects and you sometimes would, you know, call
and get help with those and stuff like that.
But what did the course load actually like look like?
What were you learning? Yeah.
So in the beginning, if I remember correctly, so it was
two days a week and each lesson was maybe it's three days a
(15:46):
week, each lesson was two hours or hour and a half, two hours at
a time. And it basically go through
like, OK, you're given, you're given this project and you're
given APDF. So basically companies will make
this is our, this is what we want our website to look like.
And so they have a designer who designs this, we want our
(16:07):
website to look like this. And then they give you what the
developers actually developed and they say go find all the
issues. And so they show you the proper
way to actually write these up, which is exactly the way I do it
in my current job now. So the exact template they
showed you is the exact way my first day.
They're like, hey, like this is how we want you to do it.
I don't know if you've done it like this, like, Oh yeah, I do
(16:29):
it like that all the time, you know, and they show you exactly
what you would do in normal everyday job.
So it was, it was awesome. So in the, in the, in the
beginning, it's tough because like you're kind of, you know,
think like now looking back, it's like, wow, it was actually
really easy. But at the time, like you're
brand new, you're learning all these new things.
And so it was, I want to say difficult, but it was a little
(16:52):
bit of a challenge. But within the first couple
weeks you'll be able to get the hang of it no problem at all.
That's so cool. Like did it like still though,
did it feel challenging? Like if you're learning coding,
people are really intimidated bythat.
Did you have to do any like coding or anything like that or
was this just kind of learning processes and systems?
(17:13):
Right. Yeah.
So 0 coding, if you're strictly doing manual, it's 0 coding
really just processes. So like, what do you do?
How do you do it? How do you write this up?
Basically, what does the developer want to see and need
to see? So if you're writing up a bug,
if like you're trying to click on a button and the button
doesn't work, how do you let thedeveloper know quickly what the
(17:34):
issue is and and where in the screen it is?
So because developers get paid aton of money, you want them to
be able to be in and out quickly, find it, fix it, and
then get moving. Because typically with a lot of
these, a lot of these applications.
So like today, you know, I found30 issues on one e-mail.
And so a developer is going to be able to go through all of my
(17:55):
tickets and be able to look through, OK, this is an issue,
fix it. This is an issue fixed.
He's got to find it quick and fix it.
Because otherwise, if he's, if Idon't write it correctly or if
I'm not clear about what the problem is, then he's going to
take forever to find it. So that's a strong majority of
it is just writing up issues. So you're you've most of the job
is just being detail oriented, which is a huge, a huge benefit
(18:17):
if, if you are in a career. So a lot of people who are
teachers end up being Q as if you're a copywriter, great.
Q As secretaries, office workers, admin workers, if you
do any type of like bookmaking, great.
So if you are detail oriented and you see that, OK, that
shouldn't be like that and that shouldn't be like that.
Those are all great career pathsthat you can jump right into QA.
(18:41):
Nice. Cuz everything you're doing is
already QA and now you're just doing in a software.
That's all it is. That's really cool.
You, you said you applied for over 3000 jobs.
That's, that's nuts. And you only got 3 interviews
out of that. Like how did you manage to like
keep going And like, like to me like 3000 jobs, I'd be thinking
(19:04):
like, man, I, I did, I, you know, picked the wrong career
path. Did I do something wrong?
What am I doing? How did you keep going through
and, you know, persevering? Yeah, so one of the nice things
about careers was upfront, even before you paid the money, they
explained that they said like most people will take 1 to 2000
(19:26):
job applications before they land a job, easy.
So that's what they tell you upfront.
And they said, you know, gosh, Ithink it was 25 to 30 jobs a day
is what they expect you to applyfor.
Wow. They do have software that helps
you as well to help kind of automate some of the process to
like fill out the applications for you.
And it does make it a lot easier.
(19:47):
But they are very upfront with you about that.
So I don't want anyone to be, you know, you like you read
these things online. They didn't tell me like 100%
they told you, you know, so it's, it's a lot of work.
They tell you upfront. It will take a lot of
applications. 100% it will. So if you don't want to apply
that many, like it might not be the career path for you.
It's an awesome job when you getin, but getting that first job
(20:09):
is very tough one. It is very tough to do, but they
they are very upfront with you about it and they do help you.
And you have a, you have AI don't know career coach, I
guess. Who's alongside you as well?
What I love about them 100% loveis they were great with mock
interviews. So that's cool when you finish
(20:30):
the course. So after two weeks, I'm sorry,
after two months, when you finish the course, they give you
questions, they give you a list of like 20 questions.
And before you can like graduatefrom the course, you have to do
a mock interview to I guess passthat section.
And then there's another couple,another like 10 questions that
they'll do as well. So these are, these are real
questions that I 100% was asked on almost every, almost every
(20:55):
job. And you know, every job
interview I had these same exactquestions.
Like when you're, when you firstget them, you're like, gosh, are
they actually going to ask me that?
And yes, they did. So they, they prep you very
well. That's crazy.
And you also have access to yourcoach at all times.
And I was probably super annoying to my, you know, like
I, I've because they spent the money on it, you know, like I'm
going to make sure I get my, I want to make sure I get my money
(21:17):
worth. Yeah, but they're very, very
receptive and they're constantlygiving you feedback.
So I'm like, listen, you know, I've, I've sent, I've sent 500,
you know, I've sent 500. I haven't gotten any feedback.
Now listen, you know, we can, wecan tweak your, we can tweak
your LinkedIn, we can tweak this, we can do that.
So we're constantly trying to help you, trying to move
different things. If this is not working, OK,
let's try it like this and that,OK, Well, now I've done 1000,
(21:39):
I've done 1500. And so, you know, you just, you
got to keep going 100% keep going.
And a lot of it was knowing thatI had spent the money.
I'm not going to give up. I couldn't give up.
Like I, I did not want to go back to my old job and it took a
long time. It did, I want to say.
So I'm currently on my second QArole, my second QA job and my,
(22:04):
my first one, I think took aboutfour or five months to get that
role. And then my second one, I, I
just wasn't a good fit for the, for the first job.
And, and that was, that was an hour away that, that one was on
site. But I was like, gosh, I guess I
finally got a job. So I took the first position I
got a offer with and then for mysecond position took me about
(22:27):
about six months of applying as well.
Oh wow. And then I think at that point,
I had been out of the program for a year and a half and I was
still calling my career coach once a week.
You know, anytime I did have like a next step with a company,
I would call my coach like, hey,this is the company, this is
what they do. And like, hey, Kim, Kim, Kim,
Kim, Kim. Can we do a mock interview?
(22:48):
Absolutely. So they would pretend to be in
that, to be in that environment,to be in that industry and give
me questions based off of, you know, what was in the
application, you know, what are their values and stuff like
that. So it was, it was that it was
very helpful. That's that's really cool.
The. First couple of interviews I was
horrible at. I think we all are, but still.
(23:10):
Yeah, and it was, I think it wasdiscouraging.
Not discouraging, but like beinga dietitian I think.
I think I had applied for like 5roles and I got 5 interviews and
I maybe have like 3 offers. And so then it's like very
different all of a sudden now it's like 1015 hundred 2000, you
know, and like I haven't had anyinterviews yet.
And so it's it was very different.
It was very different. So, you know, you mentioned, you
(23:33):
know, mock interviews, mentorship, you know, help with
your resume, you know, what werethose all the tools they offered
to as part of, you know, the, the boot camp program?
Absolutely, yeah. And and just to be clear, when I
say I spent $5000, I did the automation portion as well.
I think if you just did the manual banner, that's a couple
(23:54):
$1000 left, sorry less. But I did the automation portion
as well, which I currently do not even use, but I wanted, OK,
like let let me see if I can do this.
Yeah. And so with the automation
portion, do you want me to go onthat as well?
Do you want me to stay with manual?
Oh, yeah. No, no, go ahead.
Yep. So with the automation portion,
you learn Python And you learn how to actually like make
(24:19):
programs that can check that cancheck a website.
So basically we we would, we would mock Target.
So we would mock like the Targetwebsite, mock Amazon.
So like if if you were a QA and you would want to make sure, OK,
do all these websites work? So you would, you would be able
to write a program that could open up target.com.
(24:40):
It would check all the links, itwould check all the boxes, check
all the text is correct, you know, and then it would print
you out, you know, a final thingthat says like, yes, everything
is good. Or it would state like, OK, like
this is wrong. And it would send you a
screenshot of like, this is whatthe issue is.
And so you can learn how to do all that.
And I was like, holy crap, it was awesome.
And so that so that that part was hard.
(25:00):
So definitely that is much more tech involved.
You know, it did, that's how that was a lot of studying.
That was a lot of calls. Those are the ones where like I
was calling my, you call my coach at midnight, calling them
at 4:00 in the morning, you know, but like one of the great
parts is like having coaches in different parts of the world so
they, so they can match up whatever time you want to call.
(25:23):
It was incredible because I, I, I know most people probably are
working jobs when they're doing this and they can't do these
calls during work hours. Yeah.
And so the fact that like, I could do it at midnight, you
know, I could do it when everyone was sleeping, it was
awesome. Like I those were those were
100% like for me one of the greatest gifts they could have
offered. That's awesome.
(25:44):
Can you kind of go into a bit oflike what the hiring process
looks like for, you know, someone in QA, You know what,
what was that process? You know, was it a really
intensive interviews or you know, how did that look like?
For both jobs that I've had, it starts with just the
application. And I think both of them, I
almost didn't apply. I was like, I don't know if I
(26:05):
fit this role. I'm not, I'm not gonna do it.
And I was like, whatever. So I sent the application and
then both of them, I think I gota call like immediately.
So it's your first call for bothof them was HR just calling
like, hey, this is, you know, doyou still want this role, blah,
blah, blah. Is this something you want to
and to give a little background about yourself, which is
(26:25):
something that that they've coached you on in in the
coaching process, They have OK, your first call is probably HR,
you know, this is what they'll ask you.
And this this is kind of like the banter of that they get you
comfortable to be in that to be in that call, which was very
helpful. Then the next one was in person
with the hiring manager, and then the third interview was
(26:46):
with a hiring manager and some of the other QAT members as well
to get kind of more of a feel. But I promise almost every
question that they had given youin these mock interviews, they
asked those. They asked those in the in the
coaching part, they had said. What?
What a confidence boost though, you know what I mean?
(27:08):
Absolutely. And they they said memory, I
think from, I think from day one, they give you the questions
and they say start to memorize these, start to memorize these.
And you know, like that, like I'll be fine.
I need to know those. But like yes, please, if you
take this course, they give you the questions.
You will be asked those, you will be asked those questions.
Exactly. It was a huge, huge confidence
(27:30):
boost that like you asked the question, like, hey, like I've
practiced this 1000 times, you know, it was very nice.
What would you say to someone that is in the position you were
a year ago, You know, burnt out,skeptical, but like curious
about making this kind of careerchange.
What advice do you have for someone like that?
I think you've really got to askyourself, how bad do you want?
(27:51):
How, how, how bad do you want tomake a change?
And I think until you're really ready to put the time and put
the effort in, really just make sure you're ready mentally.
And if you are married, make sure your wifes on board because
doing this process is hard enough.
But if you don't have a spouse that's on board, I don't know
how you'd even do it. Make sure the whole team is on
(28:13):
board. Get the train rolling.
It's not easy, 100% it's not easy.
You know, I'm not going to lie to you.
It's not easy. A lot of late nights, a lot of
early mornings. Just make sure that you are
ready and make sure that you understand going into it that it
will not be quick. It's going to be 6 months and
you're going to be applying every day.
But it is possible. It is possible to do.
And I've, I've, you know, I, I was, I'm in the middle of
(28:35):
nowhere, Michigan, you know, andI, I'm able to get a job that
pays well. Yeah.
You know, so I get paid more nowthan I did as a dietitian, you
know, after five years of school.
That's that's awesome. It doesn't make any sense.
Your story's so similar to mine.You know, I was a bulldozer
operator before I got into tech,and I was just miserable.
(28:55):
I made great. Actually, I made decent money as
a bulldozer operator. I was making like $70,000 a
year. But I hated my job.
It was just so mind numbing. I was miserable and I went to my
wife. I'm like, I, I can't keep doing
this. I got to make a career change
and I knew like I always had a passion for tech and I really
(29:17):
wanted to get into tech. I, I tried several times
previously, but you know, I'm like, I kind of want to start
researching tech. And she's like, OK, we'll start
doing research and don't just quit your job, you know, start
looking. And I'm like, OK, OK, so I
started studying and stuff like that.
While I was studying, I lost my job and I had to go to my wife.
(29:41):
And I'm like, look, there's two options.
One, I can just go get a job, put food on the table.
I'm going to be miserable, but you know, I can go that route.
Or two, this is the my chance totry to break into tech.
So we talked about it and luckily, you know, she of course
supported me all the way the wayand I didn't go through a boot
(30:06):
camp and it was very difficult because I had no degree.
I didn't have time to go back toschool.
And we had just bought a house like not even a year before this
happened. And we had, you know, 3 kids and
luckily we had some in the savings, but it took a long
time. And the area I lived in, you
(30:27):
couldn't get into tech unless pretty much.
I always remember joking and like someone had to die to be
able to get in the industry because as soon as a position
would open up, everyone was justlike, like flies on it and like,
they'd be in that position forever.
And so we end up relocating to do this.
Wow, wow. So.
(30:47):
You guys moved? Yeah.
So we, we moved like 2 1/2 hoursaway and looking back now, if I
had gone the a route of like a boot camp, I would have been
able to make that switch way sooner without some of the
heartache, you know, we went through.
Is it possible to do without a boot camp?
(31:09):
Probably like you mentioned, butyou know, you have, there's no
structure. Everyone's telling you to do
everything. And for a lot of people that is
really, really hard. So and that leads me kind of to
my next question for you. What are some key differences
you think, between people who will succeed in boot camps and
(31:30):
someone who doesn't? Well, that's a good question,
honestly. Honestly, it depends how bad
your situation is. I'd say that if you, if you need
it and you want it, you know, itdepends.
If you're just a quitter, you're, you're doesn't matter
what it is, how much money you spend, you're, you're going to,
you're going to quit. It's something that's hard, It's
(31:51):
going to take a lot of effort. But if you want it, if you truly
want it, if you realize that, like if you can visualize your
end goal, that's what that's that's honestly what kept me
going and say, okay, I need to work from home.
I need to work from home. I need to work from home.
You know, I need to be closer. I need to be closer.
And just having those thoughts in my head that like, OK, it is
possible. It is possible.
(32:11):
And then like hearing stories like yours, like your guy who
was a blue collar worker and then now you got into tech and
like, so Someone Like You is, it's such an inspiration to be
able to hear people like you, like tell their story that like,
it is possible. Yeah.
For someone who has no technicalbackground is able to do it.
So 100% it is possible. And so I always think like, why
(32:33):
not me? If other people can do it, why,
like, I should be able to do it too, you know, like 100% can do
it too. We've got the power of the
Internet now. God, the power, you know?
And do I, you know, do I do I want to spend the time to do it,
You know, it's in. Yeah, so.
But, yeah, one of, you know, a lot of people who do their
(32:53):
careers boot camp also don't putthe time and the effort in to do
it. And they'll and they'll, they'll
start it, but then they don't want to do the applications and
they realize like, oh gosh, thisis a lot of work and I I don't
want to do the work. Yeah.
Honestly, like those people who wouldn't feel like it's probably
better that they quit at this point because by the time they
actually get into it and realizelike, you know, everything is
not all, you know, roses and stuff, you know, so.
(33:14):
If you you are determined enoughto sign up for a boot camp, you
know, there can be great success, but there definitely
has to be that level of commitment, you know, that level
of motivation and determination.Like for me, spending five grand
on a boot camp, but I don't wantto waste that money.
That's enough, you know, motivation for me.
You know, I want to get every penny out of that.
(33:35):
But not everyone thinks that way.
And looking back on the investment, and not only
financial investment, but the time you think you made the
right decision, like was careersworth it for you?
If you compare it to going back to school, if you compare it to
saves, you know, if you did, youknow, if you got an associate's,
you know, even if you spent two years going back.
(33:55):
So if you didn't have a degree and you realize, like, hey, I
can actually go back to school for free because they have so
many like back to school, like back to tech programs that the
government pays for now. If you, if you, if you, if you
don't have a degree yet, but you've got to spend that, you've
got to spend 2 years now. And so it's like I can spend two
months and then just like work my tail off applying or I can
(34:18):
spend 2 years minimum, you know,minimum getting like a actual
associate's degree. It's kind of like, you know,
what do you know, what do you want to do?
Do you want to work hard now, orare you going to work hard
later? No, absolutely.
And you know, for people who've made it this far in the
interview and are interested in careers, we'll actually leave a
link down in the description to them.
They they are sponsoring this episode.
(34:38):
I do want to give a shout out tothem.
You know, it is a a great resource.
David's here. His story here is really been
inspirational. David, thank you for taking the
time to kind of share your journey for us.
No problem at all. Thank you for having me on.
And I appreciate people like youtelling these real normal people
(34:58):
stories. Yeah, that's what I love about
you. I love about your channel is
just normal people, you know, like it's not, they're not trust
fund babies. Like they don't have these crazy
degrees. They're just normal everyday
people who have just worked hard, worked hard and then got
what they wanted. And it's awesome.
It's an inspiration. Well, and you know that that was
the whole thing for me because that's how I got into the field.
(35:21):
You know, I worked hard and I got here and I realized not
everyone realizes how achievablea career in the tech industry
is. And I want to share other
people's stories to hopefully motivate people.
If one person listening to this is motivated by this story, you
know that's worth it for me. You know, I want to try to help
(35:42):
people achieve their dreams and then maybe give them the push in
the right direction. And you know, if a boot camp is
what they need to make that career change out of a job they
are miserable in to a, you know,I enjoyable, lucrative career
field in the tech, then absolutely.
Why would I not want to share that story?
(36:03):
Absolutely. And, you know, just have people
realize that your that your job is not your identity now.
So where you are now, you can't change.
You know, like I thought 30 was old.
I thought I couldn't change. I couldn't go back to school.
It's not true. You know, don't, don't, don't,
don't waste the rest of your life thinking that like, you can
only stay in one career. And that is not true at all.
(36:25):
You know, the way that they havethese, you know, different
courses and careers and you knowall the like, you know,
different boot camps set up likeit is possible to change your
life now you know, and change your life, change your family's
life. It's it is incredible.
As we start to land the plane here, I'm curious like, what is
your career now that you're in working in the field, you're
working as a QA tester, you know, what does your future look
(36:48):
like? Do you have like a career plan
for your next steps? You know, do you know what that
next job position you're lookingto, you know, grow into type of
thing is? I have always been in
management, everything I've done, every job I've ever had,
I, I got into management pretty quickly.
So that's kind of where I like to be, where they want to be.
I would say that and you know, Ido so many things on the side.
(37:09):
You know, I do TikTok, Amazon videos, kind of, you know, buy
real estate, you know, being, being, being, being a landlord
and all that. So like there's so many things
that you can do outside of your job, but it just gives you the
freedom to do those things outside that's.
So cool. That's that's what I love about
it. That's awesome.
And you know, if people have questions for you, is there a
(37:31):
place people can find you and connect with you and ask any
questions they might have? That is a good question.
I probably, I don't know, give you my e-mail or something and
we'll throw it down there in thelink.
Absolutely, Yeah. We'll definitely link up that
down in the the show notes down below as we close out this
episode. Any final words of wisdom you'd
like to to give everyone listening to this that you know
(37:52):
is maybe motivated by this and they're ready to to take that
dive in? Absolutely.
You know, it just may. Yeah, I would say it.
This is possible for anybody. Like you don't have to be in a
big city. I'm in the middle of nowhere.
It is possible, You know, just work hard.
You can do it. You know, you don't have to take
(38:13):
this career. You don't have to take this
career as course. Doesn't matter.
Do something. If you want it, go get it.
If you hate your job, I don't want you to quit, but do stuff,
do stuff outside 100%. Work your tail off.
Go get it. Change your life.
Change your family's life. Yeah.
Just just just get after it. Get after it and work hard.
(38:35):
And you, you, you, you will be able to do it.
You know, I applied to 3000 jobs. 2999 said no, but one said
yes, you know, one said yes. And that is all you need.
All you need is one person to say yes, you know, and then
boom, all all of a sudden you'rea software QA engineer.
Yeah. That's that's why I tell people
when I do my career coaching is,you know, don't lose faith when
(38:59):
you're, you know, you're applying for all these jobs.
Don't lose hope because you know, you might get rejected
1000 times, but only takes one person to say yes and you're in
and, and from there, you know, the doors just start opening for
you once you start getting into the industry.
So. Absolutely, 100% true.
David, thank you so much for dropping so much wisdom and so
(39:21):
much advice for everyone. I really appreciate you coming
on the show and sharing your story with us.
Awesome. Well, thank you so much.
I appreciate you and appreciate everything you and your channel
do. It is awesome.
Thank you so much. Thank you.
Thank you so much and everyone. I really hope you enjoyed this
episode. I hope you took something away.
Again, reminder, if you're interested in checking out
Chris, their link is down in thedescription.
(39:41):
Go check them out, see if it's right for you.
And I hope you guys enjoyed thisepisode and until next time,
keep learning.
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