It’s About Legacy: Why Parents Should Consider a New Career in Tech

As a parent, your career has a profound impact on your children in ways that stretch far beyond financial benefits. What you do, how you feel about it, and how it makes you feel all influence the way you show up as a parent — and gives your children their first blueprint of working life.

While every parent deserves to model professional fulfillment and growth, the reality is some jobs simply involve more stress and dissatisfaction. If that feels true for you, the good news is it’s never too late to make a change. Here’s why we recommend considering a career in tech.

Children inherit more than material things

A growing body of research shows that the quality of a parent’s professional life cascades into outcomes for children. Unsurprisingly, higher levels of quality lead to more positive impacts that last well beyond the childhood years — like these five ripple effects below.

1. Social-emotional skills

Jobs that offer parents autonomy, complexity, and supervisory responsibilities are linked to better social skills in children. These work conditions are shown to support parents’ ability to be engaged and sensitive caretakers, ultimately leading to better mental health in adolescents.

2. Academic performance

Looking more closely at mothers, maternal occupational complexity is related to positive academic outcomes in school across reading and mathematics. Boys’ math abilities in particular benefit when their mothers perceive work as a source of challenge, creativity, and enjoyment.

3. Earning potential

Having a working mother also supports children by normalizing women in the workplace. Daughters of working mothers complete more years of education, are more likely to be employed, are more likely to work in supervisory roles, and earn higher incomes.

4. Physical health

Getting preventative care is especially important during the growing years, yet an astonishing 4.2% of US children do not have health insurance. When parents work in careers with competitive pay and employer-sponsored benefits, their kids have better access to care.

5. Work ethic

Professional habits parents model are consciously or unconsciously adopted or rejected by children as they enter the workforce themselves. Cultivating a healthy work-life balance and demonstrating what that looks like in practice helps kids find the same as they grow up.

Take a hard look at your current career

Turning a critical eye towards your career can help reveal what your children might be learning from your example today and whether that aligns with the values you want to pass on. To help you kickstart this self-evaluation process, here are nine questions for assessing your current role’s impact.

9 questions to assess career-family fit for working parents

If you answered yes to most questions, you’re likely already modeling healthy work behaviors for your children. Congrats! But if you responded no to most, then it’s probably time to consider a change to something that’s more flexible and supportive of working parents — like tech.

Tech is the industry for parents

A recent TripleTen survey found that nearly three quarters of parents said they’d be likely to switch industries to find more accommodation for family life; within that cohort, the majority were very likely to switch. As for what they’d switch to, tech placed first among named industries.

It’s easy to see why. Tech offers the types of accommodations working parents desire_{Why Tech is For Moms} (such as greater work flexibility) and the complexity, engagement, and creativity highlighted by developmental experts that contribute to mentally healthier parents who have more to give.

3 reasons to believe a career in tech is for you

1. ‍Better pay and benefits. Here are TripleTen, we help people from all walks of life switch to a career in tech. Our graduates come to our bootcamps making a median salary of $46,000 — upon graduating and entering the workforce, that figure jumps to $76,600.‍
2. Improved work-life balance. Across the board, tech companies tend to be more supportive when it comes to work schedules, with 97% offering some work location flexibility. That includes fully remote and hybrid options with a few days in the office.‍
3. Opportunities for growth. Tech is a dynamic and fast-evolving field. Most employers invest in some type of learning and development for their workforce to stay competitive. And internal mobility, e.g. changing roles in the same company, is commonplace in tech.

You can make the change

Despite Silicon Valley stereotypes, launching a career in tech isn’t as challenging as you might think. Today’s employers don’t particularly care where new skills come from, as long as they’re demonstrable. In fact, 79% already hire candidates with non-traditional backgrounds. 

That’s great news for parents and extended family members like aunts looking to set a good example for their kids or nephews, like TripleTen graduates Pinwei Wu_{A New Country, A New Career, A New Calling: Pinwei Wu’s TripleTen Story} and Desiree Bradish_{From Graphic Design to Code Design: Desiree Bradish’s TripleTen Story}.

Pinwei’s story: Modeling work ethic and ambition for her children

Over a decade ago, Pinwei Wu was working in industrial engineering. Then, two things happened: She became a mother and her family moved to the US. But after seven years of being a stay-at-home mom, she decided she wanted to get back in the game.

An internship helped her realize she enjoyed building websites, so she decided to enroll in an online coding course. She had just landed on TripleTen’s Software Engineering bootcamp when the pandemic hit. Juggling coursework and her children’s lessons wasn’t easy, but she was inspired to set an example for her family. 

“I think I set a good example because my children saw me learning things and studying very hard.” Pinwei Wu, TripleTen grad

Since graduating, Pinwei has been happily employed as a developer at Workbay — where she helps job seekers find training and improve their resumes.

Desiree’s story: Modeling work-life balance for her nephews

Desiree Bradish was five years into a career as a graphic designer when the pandemic hit. Like many others, she was laid off, and although she found a part-time gig that kept her working, Desiree wasn’t interested in returning full time to the profession’s long hours and poor pay.

So she decided to use her spare time to reconnect with a love from her college days — coding — and set a better example for her nephews on what a career should be at the same time. She began her reskilling with free online training resources, but realized she needed more direction and also enrolled in TripleTen’s Software Engineering bootcamp. Upon graduation, Desiree was employed within weeks and still works at that company, Flexion, as a full stack engineer.

“I figured that by doing that, it’d set a good example for my nephews, and I just really wanted our family and myself to do better as a whole.” Desiree Bradish, TripleTen grad

Discover more data

Now that you know a bit more about why your job satisfaction matters so much for the health and wellbeing of your children, you’re probably wondering if switching to tech is truly as great as it sounds. That’s where hearing from parents who have made the switch is really important.

‍Our new survey offers an exclusive inside look at why parents like you are choosing tech — and how it’s winning back family time for people who make the change. Dive into the findings today and see why a new career in tech could be the right decision for you and your whole family.