Work ItFive years into being a flight attendant, Jane Tan switched career tracks to become a software engineer. She found herself struggling in the beginning, but failure was not an option. Jane shares how she leverages transferable skills, deals with imposter syndrome and thrives in the tech sector.
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Hi, it's Tiffany and Gerald on the Work It podcast. Now, I've been in journalism ever since I graduated from school. Yes, I've worked for several news organizations, but I've never stepped outside of this field. So I'm always interested to meet people who do a hard pivot with their careers. Gerald, what's the biggest career switch you've ever heard of? I think in my experience, big career switches are not very common.
Yeah, just minor ones, right? Yeah, you see the smaller adjacent or career pivots, like for example, from social worker, you may become a counselor, but I did recently meet someone who made a larger career switch from banking to diplomatic foreign affairs. Oh wow, that's really quite different because different skill sets, right? To make this big switch, we really need to find what's transferable across that person's experience. One of the hardest career switches.
I can think of is going from one where you pick up generalized skills to a job that requires technical know-how. For example, I don't think I can survive an interview for a tech job. That is something that I have zero skills in like coding. I don't know. I mean, have you? Yeah, so I've tried coding in HTML in school before and I failed that subject because the minute the teacher say, go into the back end and type the, I don't know, slash donor.
what that kind of stuff. I was like, OK. Then I had to try and see whether I could copy someone else's work. So it looked exactly like someone else's work. Yeah, it's not easy, not easy to make this sort of change, which is why today we invited Jane Tan, a former flight attendant who's now a software engineer at Tommy Technologies to find out how she made that switch and how she, most importantly is the interview to get the job. Yeah, I'm sure many people want to know.
Hi, thank you for having me. Jane,
as Gerald mentioned earlier, you were flying for 5 years. Tell us a bit more about why did you decide to make that switch to go into the tech
world?
Well, for me personally, after flying for 5 years, I began to feel very stagnant. My parents were also getting older. I just wanted to spend more time with my loved ones. I have a dog that was getting older too.
The constant travel meant that I was away more than I was home. I realized that I need to change not just for my career, but also for my personal life.
So why did you choose to fly
in the first place? You wanted to see the world, I guess.
That was part of the reason, but mainly I sort of fell into it because I accompanied my friend for the interview.
No way. So you got the job?
Unfortunately, she didn't. So
you accompanied her for the job interview.
She didn't get the job and you got the job. OK, look, just spoiler alert, this is not the first time she has spoiled an interview for somebody else, OK? Because later on in the podcast, as we were here, she aced another job interview that other people couldn't get. We'll get to that later on. Friends of Jane, beware. Yeah, be careful. Don't go with her to an interview. So you decided with all these different factors to shift and decided that it's time to stay grounded, pun intended, right? Yeah, when you were on the job as a flight attendant.
you also picked up certain skills. I would like to hear from you, what sort of skills do you think were skills that you picked up on the job as a flight attendant that you think were transferable for your next pivot.
From my experience as a flight attendant, I picked up some communication skills because they train us on how to handle different passenger situations, how to handle conflicts on board. And so when I decided to transit into tech,
I sort of positioned myself as someone with stronger communication skills because I realized that in such a highly technical industry, many people were able to show their technical skills, but not so much their interpersonal skills. So I did some research on the industry while job searching and noticed the companies were saying that to have
A very good software engineer, you don't just want to look for someone with good technical skills. You need to have someone with good communication and interpersonal skills as well, so that you can communicate the technical aspects to technical and non-technical stakeholders. I was able to explain technical concepts very well in layman terms to, for example, the hiring manager who's not technical or the HR person.
Or clients, what kind of features do they want and translate that into code for the team, that's a skill that I brought over.
As a flight attendant, you were attending to the needs of your passengers and now your passengers have changed and they are basically your clients who need some software, so they're asking you, can you write some software and you're able to pick that up and build a relationship with them. Yeah. So all the jobs in the world that you could choose, why did you choose the tech industry? Did you have any prior knowledge of how to code?
before.
I did a bit of HTML. Does blogspot count?
Oh you colors.
Other than that, I do not have any prior knowledge. I knew that even if it wasn't tech, I had to step out of the flying life. Tech seemed to be something that I could learn on the site while flying. So I started to dabble in code with some short external courses online. I realized.
that coding wasn't just about creating something, solving problems and more than that, it was a learning journey. Every single time I was able to debug a very complicated technical problem, I just felt a sense of satisfaction, after hours of pondering over the same problem I was able to solve it. That felt really exciting to me. I was learning something all the time.
And it felt like, OK, it's not just a stepping stone for me. I want to do this for my career. So I decided to take the lead and go into this.
So that's very interesting because you were doing this outside of your regular hours, but then knowing the work that you had, it can be quite punishing on the body because you're working in different time zones and
The last thing you want is to come back and sit in front of a computer and do this and like you say, hours of doing this, you feel a sense of achievement after you debug something. I would probably quit after 30 minutes. I think 30 minutes is the max for my attention span.
I mean, for flying the same destinations, I've reached a certain point where I'd rather just stay in the hotel. So I just took the time to try this out.
Jane puts it right, like dabbling, try. I think these are words right, that you may think that it's nothing, but actually what you're doing is you're learning and you're actually exploring, you're testing the limits, the boundaries of how much of this interest should I pursue further. Many of us when we work, we are so busy with our work life, right? We don't have time to dabble or to try and that's the reason why career development doesn't really take place. You're always in that zone.
But what Jane really did well is in her non-flying times, she's just trying out things. I think that is really one critical step as part of her knowing that this is the thing for her. But exactly when did you realize that this was the right move for you? So, from dabbling to actually making this a full-time career, how did you know that
this is it? Because when I reached the 5 year mark,
SIA has this thing called the 5 year gratuity. So it's a lump sum of bonus. I looked at my financials and I decided that, yeah, I want to do the switch now. I'm very sure of where I want to go into, so I knew that I needed to take steps to formalize my learning, not just doing it on the side. So I gathered about 2 years' worth. I know that I can sustain for more than 2 years and then I quit my job.
So, I came across the tech immersion and placement program, TIPP. They offered various academies including General Assembly, subsidies for students, a certain percentage. So you pay a small percentage and you go into the course and they will help you.
With the tech transition,
including helping you to find placement after you graduate.
They do not help you find placement per se, but they do guide you with their career cultures.
At any point did you feel that you had a disadvantage because you are starting late. Would you ever compare yourself with people who maybe they have studied this for many years? Did you ever feel that you would never be able to catch
up?
Of course, there were many moments where I felt like that.
But before the course, I did preempt that I will have a more difficult time understanding concepts that might be intuitive to other people who already have a more STEM background. My degree is business and management, so I really don't have the background. So what I did was previously, I dabbled a little bit at the site. I took up short courses to reinforce what I've learned before I went into the course. For General Assembly, they also
have this short course called pre-work where you have to clear the pre-work before you officially enroll into the course. So I took that more seriously because I know that I needed to. I always go back and revisit concepts that I wasn't sure of. I make sure that I really understood it properly before I moved on. The deadlines are very tight and the pace was extremely relentless. We barely had any break and about halfway through.
Through the course, I found myself really struggling. I couldn't catch up to the pace of learning we're going at, because some of them had engineering backgrounds. I would say almost half my class. I even admitted to my instructor that I wasn't able to complete my homework on time, but fortunately for me, my instructor was super understanding. He pushed the deadline back for me and gave a lot of valuable feedback on my code, on my project.
How to proceed from where I'm at, and eventually I came out the other side. I felt a very great sense of achievement because it was so tough.
I want to ask you, Jane, at that point where you felt like you were already left very far behind, did the thought of just giving up ever cross your mind? And if not, what made you
keep going?
Oh, it didn't cross my mind because I had quit my job. Oh, so it's all committed to it. So I told myself if I'm able to get a tech job.
So words and good for me. Otherwise, coding is a very important skill in today's world and I could do my own business, I could set up my own websites, I could freelance. When I pick up coding, it's not necessarily I have to go into a software engineering role. There are other tech adjacent roles as well, tech sales, product management, many things actually
failing was not an option for her. I think she can see that there's an attitude of very determined, very resilient, you.
Your money and you make sure that as you got in, you want to get something out of this, right? And I like how she mentioned also, at the end, she might not be a software engineer, but she could do other things. I think the adjacent parts, starting to connect back with your degree in business management, you said, I'll maybe do my own business, tech sales, yeah, which is all soft skills that you have already clocked under your career experience of 5 years. And we understand that during one of your technical interviews, you were just a bootcamp graduate, right?
You had to solve questions that were posed to you. In fact, the interviewer was surprised that you managed to solve questions that stumped some candidates who had a computer science degree. I'm interested to know, how did you actually solve a problem that people with that technical knowledge couldn't
do?
Because people with computer science degrees, they study this subject for 4 years, right? They don't study the full coding part for 4 years. They do study theory and many other things to foster.
Some background understanding. OK. But for me, we focus all our time on purely web development and clearing technical interviews. So in that sense, we did have some advantage. Actually, I did get the offer for that company and it was my very first offer that I scored. I was very happy, but when I went home and thought about it, it seemed like a fluke. I just got lucky and I didn't feel like I solved it on my own. So I was feeling a bit of an imposter.
Syndrome and I spoke to my family about it. I was telling my brother that I just got lucky and my brother was telling me, but you are the one that practiced the question. When you had the opportunity to practice it, you practiced it, so how can it be luck? So I think it's very important to practice these technical skills as well, in addition to other soft skills in interviews.
I
think this is really, if I take this advice from Jane and extrapolate it a bit larger, it applies to many things we do actually, right, when we are thinking of changing or learning something.
There's always going to be a lot of new challenges. We have to keep learning, keep doing something different. All these little bits, they add up to what we actually know, but most of the time people tend to avoid challenges, they want to be comfortable. True. But having gone through what you've gone through, right, how realistic do you think it will be for people who aspire to be in your situation? Because I think the last thing we want
is to make people think that it's so easy to get it right. Anybody can do this hard pivot. What would you say are some tips you would give to somebody who's thinking of being in your position? I
mean, I am an average person, right? I'm not someone special. I do not have prior knowledge and even when in primary secondary school,
I don't like science, I don't like math, I prefer writing essays over solving for acts. So if you are going to ask me, I feel that anybody can do it, but whether to be able to successfully transit into tech, I think it takes a lot of determination, it takes a lot of courage to step out of your current role and you need to like what you are going into.
One of the biggest things to consider would be to sort out your financials first because a career transition is already very stressful. You don't need financial pressure on top of that. So there isn't a one size fits all savings amount that I can recommend, but it depends on everyone's lifestyle, everyone's needs, and another important factor is being honest with yourself about your career goals.
Money is undoubtedly a strong motivator in why people want to transit, but beyond financial gain, it's not very sustainable if money is the sole factor. For me, I prioritize more time with my loved ones and enjoy the process of continuous learning. It is also crucial to research the industry before you look into the career path that you want to go into.
Look at their job postings, look at what kind of skills they are looking for in those job postings and see if there's a viable path towards attaining these skills rather than chasing those hype skills. They might fit within a year or two, but just focus on long term stability. I did take a look at government reports on jobs in demand and make sure that this
career
is one of it.
In demand until you retire.
And last but not least, I think if you're coming from a non-STEM background like me, just take more time before you go into the course to learn things so that when it gets rigorous, when it gets intense, you will not be completely lost.
So now that you have gotten the job, are there days where you have struggled?
Some days I ask myself, am I really a software engineer?
In my team, I'm still considered a very junior software engineer. I have my seniors ahead of me, I have my techni ahead of me and also not many women, right? Not many. When I look at the code that they are writing, sometimes I really don't understand. It makes me feel like, oh, we are all software engineers. How come I don't understand what you're writing? Am I really a software engineer? So
how do you overcome that when these thoughts come?
You cannot be afraid to ask questions.
No matter how simple you might think it is, just go ahead and ask the person. Actually, what is this about? Eventually you will be able to get to the point where you will still have impostor syndrome, but it will slowly get better.
Yeah, I think a lot of us, we are so worried about asking questions. We are afraid that our questions make us look like we don't know, right? But yet asking questions is like the door to find an answer, it's a door to learn something new.
And if you never ask that question, you will come out from the situation not knowing what really happened. So I really admire what Jane is giving us today, like a lot of traits of determination, resilience, learnability, very high learnability, and I think these are the preconditions actually for someone to make a career switch. It's not just about going to a job that has high in demand, not just about that, but also like, can you sustain can you last that transition. So thank you so much, Jane, for coming on and sharing
your story.
Thank you for the opportunity.
Hi, this is our Ask Me Anything segment where we tackle a question you have sent us. Our listener acquaint sent one to us and we're going to talk about it. He's in a close-knit team of about 15 people and they're in the banking sector. One of the senior managers came across an opportunity in a competing firm and has floated the idea to 5 people in the team, including Queen.
Now no one has a non-compete or a non-solicitation clause in their contract, but they're concerned about the fallout when they announced their resignation. Before we could record this AMA, Quin wrote back to me that one of the directors that he wants to work with pulled out saying that he prefers the stability of the current job but may move in 9 months' time. Quinn is not sure what to do now. Should he move? And if he does, will this mass exodus look bad for all of them.
I think Tiffany, this is a very interesting situation. 15 people are moving together. Yeah, 15 people in the team, but about 5 people are going to move, so a third of them are going to move. So it's like the first batch, first batch. Who knows, there may be more. I think just based on this situation, right, my suspicion is Quinn may be seeing things from perhaps a roast.
The lens of a happy family working together, but I think in reality it really doesn't work that way. Yeah. Usually most of big groups of people moving across competing firms, they don't really happen. When they break it up into like batches of the 1st 5, sometimes there's a reason why they break you into the batches, right? Certain things are maybe
The first group of people are the ones that they really, really want, and then after that, things may change. It's like nice to have, but then I feel bad that we didn't bring you across. So we kind of floated the idea as well. Yeah, so that's what I mean by the rose-tinted lenses. Usually the higher, maybe they prefer certain employees and then they want them to come as the first batch. The rest is like see how. OK. I think also when
Moves are being discussed, right? It's not just the demand side that may change, but it's also even on the employee side, the supply side because they are in different life stages, different tenure in the company. Some of them might feel that, OK, if some people in my team move on, I have opportunities. Oh yes, that's true. If I stay on, the loyalty may be rewarded. I be able to progress further.
It's a gap, you see. So it's not realistic to say everybody will move together for the same thing. I think the sound of it at the start sounds very good because it sounds like very spartan moment, like we are going to go and then everybody is like move, charge that kind of stuff, but you're right because there might be people who are let's say parents or who have loans and they might go.
You know, I would prefer the stability, like one of the directors that he mentioned, right, would prefer the stability and I think when he said I might move in 9 months' time, I think that person is also sussing out because what if things change within the current company if he gets a promotion like you say, he might not move or if the company decides, OK, this is not very, yeah, there's now double bootload, we are not going to increase headcount, then maybe he will move. But whatever is the case.
There are people who want the stability. They don't really want the lure of going to something that is new, something that pays well now, because they want something that it's like bird in hand, right? You have the bird in hand. Why do I want to shake my own foundation. So you're right, I think maybe what Quin can do is to think where is he at at this point in his career. Does he need the stability or
Does he want to try something different? So move not because it's like a spartan moment, but you know, do it because he wants to. I mean, would you say that would be your advice as a career counselor? Exactly. I think when we take ownership of our own career, we think for ourselves and not just rely on other people and what they are doing. It puts the ownership of career into our own hands and we are more convinced and convicted, committed towards how we want our career to move forward. I mean, just imagine, right, if today
Quin makes a move across and then he realizes that actually the grass is not greener on the other side. Then where do you put that blame? Do you blame that because everybody went, so that's why I also followed on, and it's not working out for me, but it's working out for everybody else. I think it's important to think for yourself so that you have the ownership.
Good thing is work relationships can progress into friendships outside of work. So the relationships that Queen, you built up with your 14 other people on the team, it will last past the companies that you are in, no matter where you are at. So continue to build that into a friendship, perhaps then you won't miss them that much. Yeah, exactly.
Now Quaint, I hope our conversation has given you some clarity on what to do. Let us know what you decide. We're really very curious. If like Quint you have a work-related question, do write into us. We're at CNA podcasts at Medcorp.com.sg. You can also find us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube.
The team behind the Work It podcast is Christina Robert, Joan Chan, Juani Johari and Sai Ye Win. Sound mixing by Carrie Lim, video by Hanida Amin. I'm Gry and I'm Tiffany. Here's wishing you a good work week ahead.