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Breaking Into Tech

A tech track picked from real job ads, a study plan that fits your hours and money, a portfolio of deployed projects, and a disciplined route into a first junior role in software, data, cloud or support.

Free · Mac (Apple silicon) and Windows · v1.0.0 · Other platforms

Then open the Marketplace in the app, search for Breaking Into Tech, and click Install. It goes into your own files, and works offline from then on.

What it installs.

1

Pillar

1

Area

50

Projects

192

Starter tasks

🧭 Career Growth

Breaking Into Tech

Moving into a technology career through self-study, bootcamps, portfolio projects and entry roles in software or data.

  1. Choosing your first tech track
  2. Entry-level job ad analysis for your track
  3. Honest starting-point skills audit
  4. Weekly study hours budget around your life
  5. Financial runway for a move into tech
  6. Developer laptop and tooling set-up
  7. Git and GitHub habits from day one
  8. First 100 hours learning plan
  9. Self-study, bootcamp or degree decision
  10. Bootcamp due diligence and outcome checks
  11. Daily coding practice streak
  12. Sunday learning log and plan
  13. Monthly progress check against the job ads
  14. Tech meetups and community calendar
  15. Weekly public build notes
  16. Application pipeline for junior tech roles
  17. Code review exchange with a study partner
  18. Weekly coding problem practice
  19. Quarterly tech track re-check
  20. Programming fundamentals in one language
  21. SQL fundamentals for any tech role
  22. Command line and Linux basics
  23. Web fundamentals of HTTP, DNS and APIs
  24. Testing and debugging habits for beginners
  25. Using AI coding assistants without skipping the learning
  26. How tech teams work day to day
  27. Three-project portfolio plan
  28. Portfolio capstone solving a real problem
  29. Deploying projects to a live address
  30. README and project write-up rewrite
  31. First open-source contribution
  32. Junior tech CV led by projects
  33. Entry certification choice, or skipping it
  34. Volunteer tech project for a charity or club
  35. Apprenticeships, returnships and trainee schemes
  36. Non-coding entry routes into tech
  37. Becoming the technical person in your current job
  38. Hackathon entry with a finished demo
  39. Junior technical interview rehearsal
  40. Bootcamp or course start readiness
  41. Junior offer terms and red flags check
  42. First production codebase in your first job
  43. Career changer story and domain advantage
  44. Non-computing student route into tech
  45. Learning to code as a parent with fragmented time
  46. Breaking into tech after 40
  47. Tech entry from outside a major tech hub
  48. Moving from IT support into engineering or data
  49. Specialising after the first year in tech
  50. Mentoring the next career changers

Where it starts.

Each project arrives with its purpose, milestones and first tasks written out. Here is how the first three read.

Choosing your first tech track

Tech is not one job: web development, data analysis, cloud and infrastructure, quality assurance, IT support and cyber security each want different skills and hire juniors in different numbers. Picking one track for the first year stops the common pattern of six half-finished courses in six directions, and tells you which language, tools and projects to put your hours into.

First tasks

  • List five tech tracks and the usual junior job title for each
  • Watch one day-in-the-life talk from a practitioner in each track
  • Score each track on interest, demand and existing fit out of five
  • Write down your primary track, fallback and a review date

Entry-level job ad analysis for your track

Courses teach what course writers like; job ads show what employers actually screen for. Reading fifty real junior or graduate ads for your track and counting the skills they name produces a ranked list that should drive your study plan, and it exposes which ads say junior but ask for three years of experience.

First tasks

  • Save ten junior ads for your track from one job board today
  • Build a sheet with one column per skill and tick each ad against it
  • Collect forty more ads from a second board and a company careers page
  • Rank the ten most requested skills and mark which you have

Honest starting-point skills audit

People moving into tech tend either to dismiss everything they already know or to overrate a few tutorials. Rating yourself against the top ten skills from the job ads, with evidence for each rating, shows the real size of the gap and surfaces transferable strengths such as spreadsheets, writing, customer handling or domain knowledge.

First tasks

  • Copy the top ten skills from your job ad sheet into a skills matrix
  • Rate each skill from zero to four and write the evidence beside it
  • List past work tasks that used logic, data, systems or troubleshooting
  • Circle the three largest gaps as your first study priorities

Make it yours.

Install Breaking Into Tech, then tell Aurum the date you're aiming for. It checks whether the plan fits the weeks you actually have.

Free · Mac (Apple silicon) and Windows · v1.0.0 · Other platforms

Blueprints are general information to help you organise your own work. They are not medical, financial, legal or other professional advice. See the Terms.