This essay as told is based on a conversation with Zubin Pratap, a software engineer based in Melbourne. It has been edited for length and clarity. Business Insider checked his employment history.
I started studying law in the late 90s.
By the time I graduated in 2003, the Internet boom had come, the Internet bust had arrived, Google had been invented, and the Internet had gone mainstream.
Seven years into my career, which took me from litigation to corporate law, from India to Australia, I became interested in technology.
I realized I was far from the fringes of the tech industry and had no way of entering it. I was doing well in my legal career, but it didn’t fit with who I was as a person: I was more interested in creating things rather than calculating risks and reviewing contracts.
Over the next few years, I tried a variety of things: I worked on two startup attempts while in full-time employment, and then moved into a sales role within the company. I quit my job suddenly to start a tech startup, which cost me six figures and ultimately didn’t work out.
I decided to restart my career, this time in technology. I was 38 years old.
Foot in the door
Even though I had learned enough about software to run a small business, convincing someone to let me work for them was another matter entirely.
Given the competition in the industry and my non-IT background, I knew I had to work hard to stand out.
This is the four-step plan I used to land my first software job.
Spend time with people in the industry:
I gave up networking on LinkedIn. I tried to meet people over coffee and place myself in places where developers and engineers gathered, like conferences. The idea was to start learning the ways of the industry. Instead of asking them about the skills I needed to learn and getting canned answers, I asked people what they did every day. This gave me my biggest advantage: being able to speak to engineers in their language.
Identify employers who need someone like me:
I focused on companies with fewer candidates and high turnover: those that are smaller, high-pressure, and don’t pay as much as Big Tech.
Skip LinkedIn’s “Easy Apply” feature:
Once I identified that small web development agencies were a good fit, all I had to do was convince them to take a chance. I showed up at their offices and asked if they were hiring developers. Talking to people in person or on the phone gave me the opportunity to understand how “crazy” it was to be a former lawyer changing careers at 38 and risking a lot working for them.
Build relationships with recruiters:
I realized that most people are nice to recruiters until they get what they need. After reaching out, I tried to stay in touch with the recruiters. I would message them from time to time and even pick up the phone to catch up or suggest good candidates I had met while networking.
My efforts landed me four job offers, and I ended up accepting one at a small software development company in Melbourne, where I was based. I took a 75% cut from my final salary as a lawyer and started as a junior developer.
Four refusals before an offer from Google
In a year and a half, I moved to a software engineer position at Google. I applied some of the same strategies: talking to lots of people and getting an overview of the industry. Google had rejected me four times before, three times as a lawyer and once as a product manager, areas in which I had the most experience. Landing an offer a fifth time was a combination of effort and luck.
I left Google after almost two years to work at a smaller company where I thought I could make a bigger impact.
My compensation recovered after leaving law and is now higher than my final pre-tech salary.
Looking back, I know Google is part of my journey that everyone talks about, but my big break was the small company that hired me when I had no experience.
Have you suffered a significant pay cut during your career and do you have a story to share about it? Send an email to sgoel@businessinsider.com.
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