Career advice: specializing in niche tech stack vs. finishing first degree
Hello all, was inspired to fish for responses after seeing another user request resume feedback. Apologies if the background is on the longer side.
TLDR: Dropped out 10 years ago; have only a high school degree and university transfer credits. Conflicted between finishing my degree online while working full time, vs. specializing in a niche tech stack (Salesforce) via current employment. Looking for any input because I'm prone to decision paralysis.
Background
I'm in a really weird place currently in terms of long term career track. I dropped out of college for computer science a decade ago. The school was a private for-profit (yikes) and I couldn't transfer any credits out. Either way, I was aimless, so I enrolled at a local community college with the intent of transferring to a state 4-year, earn my bachelor's, and figure things out from there. A connection at the community college helped me find full-time employment in a help desk role, so I paused my studies.That help desk role turned into a weird application analyst/developer position that involved configuring applications using a low code platform. I taught myself Python and some super basic React while there, and my crowning achievement was making a hideous set of Python scripts that ended up replacing an automation program that the company couldn't get working anyways. When my boss at that job moved to a new company, he contacted me in the next year to fill a systems analyst position, which in practice was learning Salesforce administration and whatever else third party tech tools the company decides to adopt for projects. I've been here for 1.5 years now. The pay is not amazing for HCOL, but I'm still living with family and the work is fully remote so I'm not complaining.
The best part, actually, is that there's a lot of room for career growth with actual on the job experience... if I teach myself Salesforce development. There's a few other people on my team who all stumbled into Salesforce admin tasks like myself, but none have a CS background so I've already taken on and delivered on some tasks that would previously have gone to a consultant.
I don't know how many folks here work with Salesforce development, but my research tells me that it's a locked ecosystem, incredibly flooded on the entry level by people holding certificates from Salesforce, and a different enough beast from traditional software engineering that X years as a Salesforce developer won't exactly translate to X years of experience when trying to pivot to a software dev role. I already had a difficult time getting any responses back when I tried to apply to junior software dev roles during the pandemic - which could be my resume, but I'm sure the lack of a degree and primary work experience being on low code platforms were not helpful. Either way, the thought of relying on Salesforce for breadwinning is... not something I am "above" by any means, but does trigger a bit of anxiety for the future.
The second option would be to go through some reputable online degree program like WGU or CSU Monterey Bay's CS Online. I've actually been slowly earning credits to transfer to the latter, but I've never been a great self-paced learner. I read that these programs are perfect for people working full time, but I absolutely do not fit the bill for the type of student who can blitz through WGU's program in a year. So both would take me maybe two years to complete if I start in 2025, which is something to the tune of $15-20k USD. I can afford this, but it's not exactly a drop in the bucket either. Dropping work to attend in-person at lower costs at a local university unfortunately is not an option.
If I were driven and disciplined enough, I could do both - learning SF dev on my own time and applying it to work, while also earning my degree - but I'll be honest and say that's just a recipe for disaster. I know me; if I had even a fraction of the discipline required to make that work, I'd have upskilled out of here years back when pandemic hiring at tech companies were at an all time high. That train has come and gone, though.
First, a degree isn’t necessarily a requirement to get ahead as a developer/system administrator/data analyst/etc. Almost all people I’ve worked with over the past 15 years did not have CS degrees. However, and this is a very important thing, most of them had The Knack in some way. It sounds like you can also find your way, so nurture that skill as it will help you develop further.
What sounds like an issue to me is being stuck in this bubble you’re in right now. Pay must be ok, work must be ok, but it also sounds like you’re locking yourself in. In ten years time, how is a future employer going to look at your resume? When I’m interviewing people, skills I’m looking for are: problem solving skills (can figure things out ánd know when to ask for help), being pragmatic and maybe most important of all, know how to work together in a software development environment. Having the right attitude/skills in a team makes that team successful. And this might be stupid on my part, but seeing mostly Salesforce on a resume would be a bit of a red flag for me.
Salesforce will not be there in the future, and when that happens, what can you fall back on/what will you tell the person interviewing you?
First, thank you for the response! I've stewed on it over the weekend. I will admit that the degree route is partly deferred responsibility (easy to say I'll commit 2 years to reaching a milestone, and figure out job things afterwards) and partly conflicting anecdotal info online. As it currently stands, I'd be competing for a junior position along with the year's fresh CS graduates / any affected by recent layoffs, and info is conflicting on whether personal projects help self-taught individuals at all in getting an interview. My past and current experience is several degrees removed from "actual" software development so while I'm very fortunate to not be jobless, I just don't really see the best way to pivot, I think?
I absolutely agree about avoiding putting my eggs in one basket, ie. specializing in Salesforce. It's definitely not a platform I particularly enjoy but I fear giving up the bird in hand, especially when there's a lot of pessimism regarding birds available in the brush currently.
Either way I see a lot of studying up in my near future...
My two cents:
Pursuing a degree in CS will net you more skills you may find useful in the long run, and will help you grow in the field. I was programming as a hobbyist for most of my life before I finally pulled the lever and went to college...but I was never going to study things like calculus or the content of upper level data structure and algorithm classes on my own. Being forced to do the fundamental stuff teaches you things you don't know you need to know and gives you a more well-rounded knowledge that makes it easier to pivot to different kinds of work.
A degree isn't necessarily required in the industry, but it absolutely helps. My company definitely puts people in a higher role and pay grade if they have a degree, and prefers it, even if they do hire people without them. We're also in a nasty period of layoffs and hiring freezes in the industry...sitting that out and gaining a competitive skill advantage isn't necessarily the worst thing.
As for Salesforce...my opinion is to never get pigeonholed as an "X developer," especially when that means hitching your career to a single vendor that could torpedo their business or fall out of fashion. A skilled software engineer should be able to rotate to different programming languages and frameworks easily, with a little bit of lead time to get up to speed. If you were hiring a team of developers yourself, would you want the person who knows one thing well, and might not be an asset a year down the line when that service is mature and business needs change, or would you want someone who can be dropped onto a new project and be productive?
One of the things I've observed in my relatively short time in the professional world is that the engineers who are the best to work with are the ones who are always looking for new things to learn and expand their skill set. It's not only good to build your resume and grow your career, but it's a sign of effectiveness.
Also, being able to demonstrate knowledge of SDLCs and ask questions about Agile practices signals that you know how the business side of development works, and managers love that.
It seems it's getting harder and harder to break into software development nowadays. Having business knowledge is a huge leg up. So for the immediate future, Salesforce seems to be a good option for you.
I know you said you had some discipline issues, but mayve you could finish your CS degree and work Salesforce dev. Possibly get the company to pay for it. At least then you'd have an easier time looking for a more traditional dev role.
Thank you for the response! You're right that the general outlook (even for folks with decent amount of experience) is looking really grim for the foreseeable future and my best bet is probably to continue working on both the degree and upskilling.
Here's my advise as someone who didn't finish their degree 30 years ago. At that time, tech was absolutely booming (early 90's) and if you could turn on a computer, you had a job. I could do much more than turn the computer on, so off I went to do various roles over the years -- all self taught.
Salesforce isn't going away any time soon. You are right that there a bunch of people who are entry level and pollute that lower end market. You have your foot in the door and are already differentiating yourself from that lower tier. For the short to mid term, lean into that. Your goal should be to become the consultant you spoke of. The one that companies bring in when in house talent isn't up to par. At that consultant level, the money will be great.
If your passions really lie in more traditional development, self teach yourself those technologies. Build side projects, get involved in an open source project for that technology. Then, if you are working full time for a company, find people using that technology and network with them. Talk to your manager and let them know your aspirations and see if you can spend 5-10% of your time just sitting in daily standups or doing peer reviews for the other team. If you see a gap in your companies internal tooling, but a prototype and sell it around the company.
As for the degree, I definitely wish I'd completed mine. If you have the cash and can find the time and discipline to complete it (even if it takes you 3-4 years), definitely do it. Don't be a 50 year old guy wishing you had it. Not having the degree has hurt me over the years. Doors have been closed, especially doors that lead to more senior roles.
I don't think a university degree counts for that much once you start working in industry. One of the problems is it's too generic - unless you have a specialty in mind that requires a degree, it would be easier and cheaper to look up some certifications you could work towards in your own time (some employers will pay for your exam token, ask them - make the case that them upskilling you allows you to bring more value to the company).
Even a field like cybersecurity doesn't need a CS degree - I don't have one - but I took the initiative to learn it in my own time and employers appreciate that you want to improve and it's not just words. I'd be wary of getting locked into single-vendor training though - for example, learn networking, not Cisco networking. Companies come and go, but skills are always in demand.
Do both! Get going/stable on Salesforce and be ready for the next thing. I have a coworker on my team whose ERP specialty is being phased out so he came to my more generalist cloud team. If you don't get too lost in the S(aaS|auce), you can parley that experience into something else. I would try to be more involved ij the other side of any integrations you may be involved with, for example.
You could also get certs for the stuff you want more experience in. It's easier to expand your experience when you have some understanding of what is happening in a domain. Just studying for a related cert has made me better at my job.
If you're worried about work and college, which you seem to be, work on building a solid experiential foundation.