Career Change To Tech Newsletter

Career Change To Tech

Career change to code? Learning to code is not enough. Not even close. Just like learning how to dribble doesn't make you a pro ball player. There are 7 steps. So you need 7 campaigns. My newsletter is your unfair advantage on each. You also get access to my Podcast and other free resources - each of which help you understand exactly how I went from 37yo lawyer to Google Engineer. Sign up so you never miss out.

What Separates AI Hobbyists From AI Engineers?

(Warning: if you read this essay to the end, don’t be surprised or discouraged to learn that your AI engineering courses from 2025 are already obsolete. This essay is an effort to focus you on the meta-engineering skills that matter regardless of what AI hype technology comes up). I've been havin...

by Zubin Pratap — Dec 30, 2025

Wow. This is the last week of 2025. Zoom. Whoosh. Year done.

And here’s an opportunity for those of you looking for coding jobs. While everyone's fighting for the same shrinking pool of Big Tech jobs, the federal government just opened a side door most people will ignore. The US Tech Force program launched last week. They're hiring engineers—salaries $150K...

by Zubin Pratap — Dec 28, 2025

Token Limits Aren't Your Problem. Context Engineering Is.

Everyone's obsessing over token limits. They're solving the wrong problem. Google just dropped a guide on multi-agent context management that exposes what most developers get catastrophically wrong: treating context like string concatenation when it's actually an architecture problem. Read it. Se...

by Zubin Pratap — Dec 17, 2025

The job search isn't about being good. It's about being good and noticed.

You learned to code. You can build. You solve problems. You're competent. You’re hard-working. And you're still not getting hired. So you blame the market. You blame AI. You blame hiring managers for being "gatekeepers." You don't blame yourself for doing the one thing that actually matters: tel...

by Zubin Pratap — Dec 10, 2025

RAG Isn't a Technology. It's a Design Pattern. And You're Probably Wasting Time Building It.

After 4 years stuck learning "fundamentals" that got me nowhere as a lawyer, trying to become a developer, I learned something critical: the real skill isn't learning the hot new thing. It's learning the classical thing that underpins the hot new thing. Like me, you've probably done a bunch of co...

by Zubin Pratap — Nov 23, 2025

Speed, Not Potential: Why Learning to Code Isn't Enough Anymore

The market has shifted. And most aspiring engineers haven't noticed. Five years ago, companies hired for potential. "You can code? Great, we'll train you." There was patience. There was a runway. You got hired as a junior, and the company invested in your growth. That world is gone. Here’s what a...

by Zubin Pratap — Nov 05, 2025

The Highlight Reel Killed Resilience: Why Your Rejections Are Actually Proof You're Getting Closer

Everyone you see on LinkedIn landed their dream job. They got the offer. They posted the celebration. Their journey looks clean. Linear. Like they knew exactly what they were doing the whole time. You know what they didn't post? The rejections. The failed interviews. The months where nothing happ...

by Zubin Pratap — Oct 27, 2025

AI Engineering Courses: Old Wine, New Bottles (You May Already Have These Skills)

Every few years, the tech world loses its mind over the "next big thing." Ruby on Rails had developers convinced they needed to relearn web development from scratch. Then it was React. Blockchain. Big Data. DevOps. Machine Learning. Now? "AI Engineering." And with each wave comes the same predict...

by Zubin Pratap — Oct 19, 2025

The Five Critical Decisions That Separate Successful Career Changes From Expensive Failures

AI won't take your job. Someone using AI will. That's triggering panic. People are Googling "career change" at 2 am, convinced they need to blow up their lives and start over. Most of them are wrong. Career change is terrible for most people. It takes 12-24 months minimum. You'll spend nights and...

Oct 07, 2025

What Coding Is Like IRL (on the job)

Hey there, Feeling overwhelmed before you’ve even truly started? You’ve likely been told the path to becoming a software engineer involves endless tutorials, coding challenges, and grinding out lines of code. It’s a picture painted in bright, shiny colors, promising a direct route to a new career...

by Zubin Pratap — Oct 04, 2025

The Best Learning To Code Goal-Setting Framework for Time-Poor Professionals (I Used This) [Stage 1/7]

Last week, I got an email that made my stomach drop. "Zubin, I've completed 17 Udemy courses, built more than 100 projects, and I still freeze up when someone asks me to code something from scratch. What's wrong with me?" 100 projects? I literally had 100 times less when I got into Google. Talk ...

by Zubin Pratap — Sep 30, 2025

Why Your Code Skills Aren't Getting You Interviews: The 4 Hidden Stages of Tech Career Change

𝗠𝗼𝘀𝘁 𝗽𝗲𝗼𝗽𝗹𝗲 𝗳𝗼𝗰𝘂𝘀 𝗼𝗻 𝟯 𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗽𝘀. 𝗧𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝟳. 𝗔𝗻𝗱 𝗜 𝗱𝗼𝗻'𝘁 𝗸𝗻𝗼𝘄 𝘄𝗵𝘆 𝗻𝗼 𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝘁𝗮𝗹𝗸𝘀 𝗮𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗼𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿 𝟰. Folks who come to me for help tend to be "Stuck Intermediates." They've sunk months, maybe years, into learning code. They know the basics. They can build a shopping cart app. But they're still not ...

by Zubin Pratap — Sep 24, 2025

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