Rekindling His Curiosity for Tech After A Decade in Sales: Andrew Millsaps’s TripleTen Story

Who actually knows what they want to do in life when they graduate high school? At first, Andrew Millsaps was curious about pursuing wireless engineering in college, but he instead landed on a major in biology. Then, after a few twists and turns, he ended up in sales. From an external point of view, this was all for the best; he even opened his own insurance agency. 

But after establishing a robust career, something still just wasn’t adding up. His job was good. The thing was, he wanted something great.

Here’s how he joined TripleTen, sold his agency, and after a full decade in sales, is now pursuing a new path in tech.

The path not taken

After deciding not to pursue wireless engineering, Andrew completed a degree in biology. Initially, he planned on pursuing optometry school, but he soon found out that the field wasn’t right for him. There was just one hitch: he still had six months on his lease. “I got the easiest job I could find at the time,” he said. He started selling cars in Memphis, Tennessee. His career in sales had begun.

And ten years later, he’d achieved a lot. In fact, he’d even opened his own insurance agency. For most people, that would be enough. Not for Andrew.

I no longer enjoyed my career. Just the monotony of the same types of questions, the same types of answers. There wasn’t the variety that I wanted to have, or that I wanted to be experiencing. Andrew Millsaps, TripleTen grad

So despite the momentum of a decade in sales, he started looking for something new. He remembered his interest in wireless engineering and started researching how to land a job in tech. For him, a bootcamp was the way to go_{Bootcamps: Are They Good Value for Money?} because he “wanted to learn how to do the job and do it as quickly as possible.” 

TripleTen caught his eye, and one feature convinced him to join: “There's really one reason and that reason was the job guarantee.” In short, if you don’t get a job in your new field within six months of your graduation from one of our programs, you get your money back. “There's not a lot of programs out there that do that,” Andrew said.

He was in. He joined the Data Science bootcamp.

Learning the material he missed out on

When Andrew enrolled, he made a decision: even though the bootcamp was designed to be part-time he was going to treat this like a full time job. “My goal was just to get through the program, quickly learn the skills.”

Owning an insurance agency would have made that commitment untenable, but in a twist of fate, he had been approached with an offer to sell it. “I took some time to consider it and decided to make the move out of the industry.”

He was all-in on the bootcamp. “I really spent like an entire work day, virtually every single day, five or six days a week, studying.”

And that was vital because, for him, there was a lot of new material. In fact, in summary of what he found most challenging about the bootcamp, Andrew said, “You don't really know what you don't know.” After all, so much of learning is discovering just how much there is to learn.

With data science, that meant he spent a good deal of time getting a handle on coding. But code reviewers_{TripleTen Code Reviews: Why, Who, How?} were there to make sure he was learning how to code properly, efficiently, and elegantly.

His coding skills were growing, and the reviewers made sure he had the material down. Each time he would send in his code, he’d get more feedback. “In my case, most of the time, when I would resubmit the second time, the issues would be resolved, but not every time.” And, looking back on it, he’s appreciative. “It’s a very one-on-one type of experience. In the real world, that's how you learn things. The quickest way to learn is by getting that very targeted feedback.”

The skills to land a new career

As Andrew was still deep in that process of learning, a connection of his shared a new role on social media: data analyst at a utilities company. Andrew reached out to his connection, talked about the role, and thought it could be right for him. Even though he was only two-thirds of the way through the bootcamp, he applied. 

The day after, he got a call to schedule the first interview. The conversation was fairly standard. “They asked about different things like, ‘What types of things have you done? What types of things have you not done? And then from there, I was scheduled for a second interview with the CEO of the company.”

But after that initial meeting, something became eminently clear to Andrew.

Between that first interview and the second one, I realized this is the role that I want to have. I want it to be with this company. Andrew Millsaps, TripleTen grad

So he decided to show off what he could do. He built a side project, a comprehensive map of the United States that was color-coded by price per kilowatt hour of energy. It paid off. “When I was interviewing with the CEO, we actually pulled up the project and looked at it right there at the interview. And I remember thinking, Man, I'm glad I did that.”

Now, he’s a Data Analyst at Volunteer Energy Cooperative. “I really spend all my time piecing together information, and answering questions from leadership,” he says, modestly summarizing his job. After all, one of his projects is promising to save numerous hours of manual labor, thus reducing overhead and opening people’s time for more productive tasks.

But best of all, his new job is dynamic. “Any given week or two, I could be working on anything from something directly customer related, to something about vehicles, or to something about some other project that we're getting ready to roll out to make things not as labor intensive.”

It’s the position he was looking for, and even looking back on his 10 years in sales, he sees just how worth it the career change has been, especially thanks to all the communication and soft skills he gained over that decade. 

I have done a variety of different jobs, and now I'm in tech, and I'm loving it. And I know it's just been just a few short months so far, but I love it. Andrew Millsaps, TripleTen grad

Our pitch to you

If you, too, are looking for a part-time bootcamp that will help you rediscover an interest in tech and make the switch after an extensive career, then check out our Data Science and Business Intelligence Analytics bootcamps.