Careers in tech: finding your path without a university degree

By Digital Futures
August 22, 2024

“I was incredibly motivated to start work – I was put into a position where I had to support my family.”

Momin Mirza

Business Analyst

Career change

At Digital Futures, we firmly believe in the importance of alternative routes into careers in tech.

In this article, we spoke to Momin Mirza, who is currently places as a Business Analyst with one of our clients. As someone who came to Digital Futures both in pursuit of a significant career change and without a degree, Momin shared his remarkable perspective on entering the workplace without a degree and gave us insight into the skills, motivation and genuine life experience that gave him.

School days and overcoming early challenges

My experience at secondary school had a major impact on my later life. I grew up in a working class area and it was just me and my mum. I always loved education but the experiences I had at school – racism, bullying, really affected my ability to learn and as a result I became distracted. After failing my GCSEs, I had a bit of a wake-up call. I re-took them successfully and was able to pursue a unique opportunity with the University of Portsmouth. Rather than doing A-Levels, I could start a foundation course which would fast-track me into Pharmacy. I applied, was successful and received an unconditional offer, which was quite the turnaround,

But, after a year on the programme, I had to drop out. My mum wasn’t very well and she had to stop working. She needed support financially, so I made the decision to drop out to start working and my life completely changed.

Building a career in tech from scratch, searching for purpose and new beginnings

I was incredibly motivated to start work – I was put into a position where I had to support my mum and my family. Being honest, even when I was making my decisions about going to university, I didn’t have a clear passion. Pharmacy made sense because I was good at science and it seemed like it could get me a solid career, but I wasn’t excited about it.

So, when it came to finding a job, I would ultimately take anything that would earn me money. I was fortunate to start my career as a Cashier at Nationwide, where I developed a strong foundation in sales and customer service. After gaining valuable experience, I transitioned into an office-based sales role at Bupa, further advancing my career in the financial services industry.

I was then headhunted by a major private healthcare brokerage – I had more responsibilities, more clients and this was the first time I got to experience the hustle and bustle of city life. There was always something to do – life was absolutely non-stop and, from the outside, I was doing really well.

But, I had absolutely no sense of fulfilment. I was just doing the same thing month after month.

I started thinking deeply about my life – there had to be more than this. People couldn’t just be going to work for the sake of it. Surely, there should be passion and a sense of purpose in your job?

“I started thinking deeply about my life - there had to be more than this."

I had always struggled finding my passion and I also didn’t have any role models to show me the way. Then the pandemic came along. I know that this period was difficult for a lot of people, but for me, it was the break I needed. It gave me a chance to consider my next steps. I ended up searching for the most in-demand skills globally and everything was centred around tech.

I enrolled on the Harvard CS50 and I did my first bit of coding and something just clicked. For the first time in my life, I was captivated. I would stay up into the early hours learning, coding and doing courses. Finally, I had found my passion. I eventually applied for Digital Futures who offer pathways in fields like data analytics and data engineering.

The benefits of the "real-world" and finding new routes into careers in tech

Being thrown into the world of work meant I matured much more quickly and I learned career-focused skills and general life skills that I would never have picked up as a student.

If I were to give some advice to anyone that isn’t sure about going to university it would be firstly, to stay clear of other people’s opinions. You may not make the right or best decision but that’s okay, because you’ll learn from it. Going to university is a big commitment. If you’re really unsure about what you want to do, just go out and start earning money, learning life skills and seeing what the real world has to offer. You’ll start at the bottom of the food chain, but that’s so incredibly important – it helps you to be driven, to want to achieve more and to work your way up.

Unless you’re doing something vocational like medicine, I think that the reality is, in today’s world, there are so many better and more efficient alternatives available to you to learn and get the knowledge and skills to get a job.

For me, that route was Digital Futures and I was so excited by the chance to start my career in tech.

“Throughout the Academy, I was really motivated by the fact that this was my opportunity to break into tech - I was so hungry to learn and practise more.”

Throughout the Academy, I was really motivated by the fact that this was my opportunity to make my career change and break into tech – I was so hungry to learn and practise more.

When I finished the Academy, I was offered a placement opportunity to go into a role as a technical business analyst at a global investment bank. I’ll admit it wasn’t the role I thought I’d be going into – while it was less data-science focused, Digital Futures assured me that my skills were highly transferable and that this position would seamlessly combine my work experience with my newly acquired technical expertise. Fundamentally, the role would help me get my foot in the door, so I decided to take the leap of faith. I work on an amazing variety of things, primarily architecting big data-focused technical and business solutions for the pipelines and infrastructure within ESG. As a business analyst, I work across a variety of different pods, communicating with various stakeholders and bridging the gap between the business and technical side.

Taking that leap of faith has massively paid off – after putting the work in and proving myself, I’m now having conversations about pivoting into a data science focused role on my placement and my career is progressing in the way I had envisioned. It proves the value of taking the opportunities that come your way and the team at Digital Futures has been instrumental in this journey for me. It’s been a dream come true and I couldn’t be more grateful for the opportunity and for all the people that helped me to get here.

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