Forget the Giants: You Can Work in Tech Without Working in Big Tech

We’re going to start with a bold claim: Google and Amazon are not the only companies out there. Not only are there more tech companies than the five biggest that usually come to mind, there are companies outside of that industry that need people with tech skills. So when you dream of a job in tech, you can of course still aspire to a position at Meta or Apple, but the field is wide open.

For just a taste of the variety of jobs you can land in tech, let’s look at three TripleTen grads. They used their tech skills to launch new, unique, fulfilling careers outside of Big Tech, and so can you. Startup vs corporate vs family business vs total independence; let’s dive into it.

You can merge your passion with your profession at a small company

Jake McCambley has always been moved by helping people. After graduating from college with a degree in psychology, he took his first job in wilderness therapy in Utah. “I have vivid memories of making fires with sticks in the woods and teaching other people how to do that. I’d see kids crying because they’d discovered something about themselves that was so transformative. It was really rewarding. It taught me a lot about who I am today,” he said.

This experience stuck with him. But he had to return to his hometown. There, he worked odd jobs until he heard about and enrolled in a bootcamp. After finishing his studies, as he was looking for a job, he wanted to rededicate himself to helping people. “I wanted to work somewhere related to mental health or related to conservation, somewhere that I felt like was going to be doing good in the world,” he said.

So he did his research and discovered Zencare, a small company that is helping people connect to therapists. In fact, the company was scrappy enough that when he reached out to the CEO, she responded. “I wrote a cover letter to her just explaining, ‘Hey, I’m passionate about mental health. I’m passionate about building products that help people,’ and she responded, saying, ‘Let’s chat on the phone,’” Jake said.

Soon enough, he’d landed the job he wanted, and he’s now a software engineer at Zencare. 

So if you, too, have a cause you’re passionate about, you can follow Jake’s example.

Find a smaller company using your values to bring about real-world change, get in touch, and who knows, you might have the same results as Jake.

Read his full story here_{Taking Therapy from the Outdoors to Tech: Jake McCambley’s TripleTen Story} or watch our video all about him here.

You can bring new skills to your family business

Antonio had a clear path. He left his native Mexico to study economics at an Ivy League college, and during his summers, he interned at Deloitte. When he graduated, he decided to go for another Big Four company; he took a job at PricewaterhouseCoopers. At that point, by all accounts, he was a success story incarnate.

But then the pandemic hit and family issues cropped up. He had to return to Mexico. Worse was yet to come; in an accident, he shattered his foot. “It was a very bad fracture. I was basically bedridden for a year,” he said.

So what did he do? He enrolled in a bootcamp. At the beginning, there was a lot to learn. “The first month was definitely the most challenging. Getting involved with a programming language that you're not familiar with, you're flabbergasted and you don't know what the heck is going on.”

But as he studied, he started mastering the material. “By the last problem set, I had a really good sense of how to do it from start to finish just by looking at the data itself.”

And this intuitive sense of what to do with data is now serving him well at his family plastic-injection manufacturing business. “We have probably about 100 to 200 different Excel sheets. Antonio before TripleTen would have been a bit overwhelmed or a bit afraid to mess with those spreadsheets. But now, it's a piece of cake.”

So tech skills can also allow you to bring true value to a company whose board of directors matches your Thanksgiving invitation list. Modern data know-how can merge with traditional business just as seamlessly as it merges with Big Tech.

Read Antonio’s full story here_{From the Big Four to Bigger Ambitions: Antonio’s TripleTen Story}.

‍You can work for yourself

Isabelle Cuisset had a career many people dream of. She was jet setting across the capitals of Europe as she worked for some of the most well-known fashion brands such as Prada and Burberry.

But it was wearing her down.

I decided, ‘Okay, let's stop this crazy life. I need to choose where I want to live and find a way to stay there.’ I also needed to own something, a kind of craft that I could develop, where I could continue to learn day after day. Isabelle Cuisset, TripleTen grad

Her solution? She would become a software engineer. See, she and a friend of hers had decided to launch a small fashion project. Naturally, it needed a website. But as she talked to the people who could make a site for them, she found herself getting drawn in. “The more I delved into those conversations, the more I felt hooked by this new world and eager to discover more. I ended up doing our website myself on WordPress. That was the entry point.”

She’d caught the programming bug, and wanted to build her skills, so she joined a bootcamp. After she graduated, the world of fashion called to her again, and she took a part-time job as director of merchandising. However, simultaneously, she began crafting tailor-made, bespoke web pages for clients such as artists and designers.

“I'm working part-time in fashion at a director level. And then, the rest of my time — including the weekends because I love it too much — I work on my own business. I build websites for clients, and I'm also starting to find my niche, my true passion. I like working with artists very much, and going forward, potentially with galleries and more institutions of the art world. That's really what I enjoy a lot,” she said.

So not only don’t you have to work for a Big Tech company — you don’t even have to work for a company at all. By joining a bootcamp, you gain the skills that enable you to venture out on your own and create projects like those displayed on Isabelle’s site, isaWabi.

Read Isabelle’s full story here_{Refashioning a Career with Tech: Isabelle Cuisset’s TripleTen Story} or hear her in her own words in our podcast here.

Our pitch to you

While there are numerous ways for you to find a fulfilling job in tech, there is one reliable way to start your journey to mastering tech skills: a bootcamp. So if you’re examining corporate vs startup or something alternative to that entirely, check out the programs we offer. And if you’re not sure which one is right for you, try out our career quiz.