How to break into IT when courses don't help

Last week, I wrote about why online courses won't turn you into a sought-after developer. For those aspiring to enter the profession, the question of alternatives arises: if not courses, then what? So, I decided to continue the topic and discuss where to acquire knowledge and skills, how to land your first job, whether developers need mathematics, and how to enter IT through another specialty.

The Thicket of Employment

In my previous article, I mentioned that completing an online course—just like graduating from a university, for that matter—is a zero-value argument for the company you want to join. The only thing that matters to an employer is what you can do. This means that by the time you're hired, you should have some practical experience under your belt. Where you gain this experience isn't as important: it could be through simple freelance work, or by working on your own or academic projects.

One of the best ways, though not the easiest, is to get a real internship. Companies usually post internship openings on their websites and on HeadHunter, and you can find many compilations of open vacancies for junior specialists online. Yes, getting an internship isn't easy: typically, you need to meet the company's requirements and pass a competitive selection process. But, firstly, there you can hone your skills on real tasks, even the simplest ones. Secondly, you'll get an inside look at the commercial development process. Thirdly, you'll constantly interact with people who have much more experience than you. And most importantly, you'll have the opportunity to stay with the company as a full-time employee. To get such an invitation, you need to prove yourself exceptionally well – but if an employer is looking for someone for an entry-level position, they are more likely to hire someone who is already familiar with their processes. And as a bonus, IT internships are usually paid.

Of course, an internship is just one path. You can start with freelancing, then land an entry-level position at a small company that needs an employee with minimal experience. You could do an internship after freelancing. You might jump straight into a digital agency, fail probation, then go for an internship at another company, go freelance, and then try for an entry-level position again. The routes can be varied – the main thing is that you increase your experience and professional weight along the way.

Routes into IT

• 🎯 · Internship · Real tasks, mentorship, chance to stay full-time · Hard to get in
• 💻 · Freelance · Build portfolio on simple projects, gain experience · Easy to start
• 🏢 · Digital agency · Entry-level position, standard but real tasks · Medium
• 🎓 · Pet projects · Your own or academic projects, GitHub portfolio · Self-driven

The key: with each new stage, task complexity should increase

However, there's a nuance: to grow professionally, you need to constantly increase the complexity of your work tasks. If you do roughly the same thing for three years, it won't significantly impact your level – so you constantly need to try new things that require effort to find a solution. This is precisely why, by the way, transitioning from a startup or agency to a large company often involves a title downgrade (and vice versa): in a typical digital agency, tasks are usually standard and repetitive, whereas in a large technology company, they are non-trivial and always new. Therefore, a mid-level developer at a startup often becomes a junior developer in a corporation.

While people in larger companies usually grow faster, this isn't a mandatory step in career progression; after all, not everyone wants to work in a corporation. The key factor for development is to constantly take on tasks you haven't solved before, or even don't know how to approach.

All Roads Lead to Google

The main and simplest source of knowledge and skills for solving work tasks is, broadly speaking, Google. You can almost always find the information you need online, where there's a wealth of literature, self-study guides, video tutorials, textbooks, tests, forums, articles, and more to draw knowledge from. There are millions of open repositories, GitHub, and Stack Overflow. You can analyze others' code, ask friends, and consult professional communities. No IT specialist, when faced with a task whose solution they don't know, will reinvent the wheel: they will look for solutions that someone else has already applied in a similar situation.

Free learning resources

• Search & docs · Google, official documentation, MDN
• Code & repos · GitHub, open-source projects, Stack Overflow
• Video & courses · YouTube tutorials, company programs (Yandex, Sber)
• Community · Forums, Telegram channels, professional communities
• Practice · Codewars, LeetCode, HackerRank

Of course, self-study isn't for everyone. Many IT course students attend precisely to get structured information, a work plan, assignments, and someone they can confidently pester with any questions. In this case, going to an online school can indeed be useful: not to kickstart a career, but to get content and exercises. Spoiler: you'll still have to Google, but less so – at least during the training.

When choosing a course, it's best to rely on the opinions of those who have already studied somewhere – that is, to ask around among IT professionals. Even better is to get into programs offered by companies that then hire graduates for internships or full-time positions: SberUniversity, Alfa Campus, Yandex.Practicum, and Yandex's School of Data Analysis. These are more advantageous options than typical online platforms: firstly, they are taught by practicing specialists, and secondly, you definitely won't be taught unnecessary things – since companies recruit students with the aim of eventually bringing them into their team. Moreover, many of these schools are free. However, getting into them is much harder.

Universities and Networking

Since I'm covering all possible ways to learn IT, I can't not mention universities. There's little point in pursuing a higher education in an IT specialty: in 4-6 years, everything you learned will be hopelessly outdated. On the other hand, at a university, you can gain fundamental knowledge – particularly in mathematics and algorithms.

The question is whether you need this knowledge. It all depends on your specialty: if you plan to go into frontend development, you'll likely do just fine without advanced mathematics. But for heavy-duty development and architecture, fundamental knowledge is a very good foundation for growth. The rest is up to you – are you willing to invest several years into this foundation? For recent high school graduates, this is a good option: you can enroll in a physics and mathematics program, study development simultaneously – and gain a time advantage to definitively decide on your future profession. But if you're changing specialties at a mature age, the opportunities and desire to spend several years studying mathematics significantly decrease.

University vs. Self-study

Finally, networking greatly assists career and professional growth. Primarily, it's about connecting with people who have already walked the path you've set for yourself. From them, you can learn how they succeeded, precisely what they did, what they read and studied, and how they found work. You can find such people online or at professional events—conferences, meetups, hackathons, and open days. Moreover, through such events, you might even find a job—if you meet employees from a company you want to join, ask for a recommendation, and make a good impression.

Horizontal Shift

There's another interesting way to enter IT: starting as a QA engineer. The barrier to entry for this profession isn't as high; learning manual testing is usually quicker than development. Here, there are more opportunities to get not just an internship, but also a full-time position where you can get acquainted with real projects. Then you start learning professional standards, writing reports, then automating your tasks – and suddenly, you can code at a basic level and are steadily moving closer to development. This is a fairly popular scenario that many have already experienced.

Of course, you can arrive at development through other professions, like a project manager or even an IT recruiter (history knows such cases). But through testing, this path will objectively be shorter: you interact with almost all stages and aspects of a project. And you do it not from the outside, like a project manager, but from within the development team.

An important caveat: I am by no means diminishing the importance and professionalism of QA engineers, especially skilled and experienced ones. However, when it comes to basic manual testing, it is always easier and faster to get into than directly into development. What happens next is up to fate: perhaps you'll decide to stay in testing and eventually grow into a top-notch specialist.

Path: QA → Developer

• 01 · Manual QA · Learn testing basics, write test cases and reports
• 02 · Real projects · Work with actual codebases, understand dev processes
• 03 · Automation · Start writing test scripts, learn basic coding
• 04 · Development · Transition to dev role with solid project understanding

Lower entry barrier, but a longer path to development

In closing, I want to say: whatever path you choose into IT, don't focus too narrowly on it. If something goes wrong—you can't get an internship or aren't accepted into a corporate university—you have a million other options. There's freelancing, personal projects, self-study, digital agencies, and related professions. You can combine these options however you like; one thing remains paramount: with each new stage, the complexity of your tasks should increase. If this happens, you're growing.