How to convince your employer to teach you to code

A lot of people learning to code are doing so in their spare time. If you work in a company that needs developers and are trying to teach yourself to code, your employer might be your best ally.

Group coding

Photo by John Schnobrich on Unsplash

I’ve taught dozens of people to code, and had local companies send their customer service and support staff through classes and then bring them back on as developers. While it might not seem like it would make sense for a company to give you money or time off to learn to code, it’s a great move.

If you want to get your company to do this for you, here’s a set of reasons they’ll respond to:

  • You know the business. As someone who’s worked within the organization, you have domain knowledge that they can’t hire for. Maybe you work for a financial services company or in medicine. Whatever the field, there are specific details about it that aren’t easily conveyed to a software developer who hasn’t had first-hand experience.

  • You’re already hired. The cost of hiring a qualified developer is steep. Maybe you want to take three months off to focus on your studies, or maybe you want to attend a coding academy. Either way, it will cost your employer just as much to find a good developer as it would for them to help you grow into one.

  • You’re loyal. It’s not unusual for software developers to change jobs every one to two years. You’ve already proven you’re loyal to the company, plus you want to come back to it in a bigger role. An employee committed to sticking around saves money and sustains institutional knowledge.

  • You’ll be a great collaborator and mentor. You’ve struggled with tough programming concepts and come out the other side. You know how hard it is to learn to code and know how to talk about it effectively to non-technical people. As someone committed to lifelong learning, you’ll be great at helping others learn new concepts and mentoring more junior developers as they continue to grow.

If you want to take our immersive course at Momentum, reach out and we’ll even help you have this conversation with your company.