Video game companies are now hiring economists:
"Game maker Valve appoints in-house video games economist" https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-18456171
Ask HN: I am studying economics and want to work in Tech. How?
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Re: Ask HN: I am studying economics and want to work in Tech. How?
#12Video game companies are now hiring economists: "Game maker Valve appoints in-house video games economist" https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-18456171
That economist went on to become Greece's finance minister and challenged EU leadership, the World Bank and International Monetary Fund during the Euro crisis facing Greece.
Re: Ask HN: I am studying economics and want to work in Tech. How?
#13You should look into Product Management! I studied Economics and am now a Product Manager. The entry level job title is typically called Associate Product Manager. I believe that several large tech companies recruit for this role in college career fairs so look into that.
Just make sure to look into the expectations of any roles you apply to. The PM role can vary from company to company. I personally look for roles where I am expected to analyze data and run A/B tests to make decisions.
Re: Ask HN: I am studying economics and want to work in Tech. How?
#14I'm a professor of machine learning and I also work for a large tech company. I've worked for startups in the past. My PhD is in stats. Large tech companies hire economists. Go to Linkedin and search "economist Amazon" or "economist Microsoft." Find some early or mid career people. Then you can look at roles and titles they took after school and extrapolate from there. Make sure you can talk a good game about causal…
an economist is not a math graduate, and asking for hardcore math level statistics on top of computer science level programming skills is unrealistic. someone close to me has 3 degrees in economics/comm eng. and a PhD and went through these ridiculous interviews and eventually walked away.
Re: Ask HN: I am studying economics and want to work in Tech. How?
#15I’ve seen a lot of people in your shoes become data scientists
Re: Ask HN: I am studying economics and want to work in Tech. How?
#16Former Econ major, now in tech (worked at multiple unicorns in first 50 people and now am a repeat founder). Have hired all the functions over the years.
Product management, BizOps, corporate finance, or data science / data analytics are good bets. You can definitely try sales or marketing too if you want, undergrad major doesn’t matter much for those roles. SalesOps and Marketing Analytics / Growth Ops tend to be more interesting over time than Sales or Marketing channel ownership.
It’s hard to break in to being a PM, so often starting with strong analytical roles will help you make that case, if you’re not technical and don’t have UX experience. PM is generally an apprenticeship model so I’d recommend working under an A+ product-minder founder at a product-led company, over going to the Google APM program or something similar where you learn process more than results. You’ll learn faster.
No path is wrong - corp finance you get into by being an i-banker first, BizOps a consultant, data science through data analysis (or PhD but that doesn’t seem like your path). Professional services are mostly 2 year, entry level jobs so it’s far from a permanent decision if you did that. Great founders have come from many paths, like the recovering lawyers in the PayPal mafia.
Just make sure you stay humble and remember you’re not the one who can actually build the company, like your Eng partners :)
Re: Ask HN: I am studying economics and want to work in Tech. How?
#17FIRST:
Best resource:
https://www.bls.gov/careeroutlook/2019/article/wages-and-ope...
Now... The answer to your question is a simple equation which has been written numerous times around the internet, in various forums. But I'll chart it out here, yet again.
First define your goal. Looks like you've already done that.
Programming is just a tool. And so, as a tool, it can help you build various things and a career along the lines of the ones you've mentioned.
Such as skills in: full stack web app dev. Full stack Phone App dev. data science. Web or Network Security.
Either way-- Whether you become a web app developer or some other technical role-- The following still applies:
- Build projects (A. Study how to make small projects via tutorials on Udemy.com / Youtube / www.Libgen.is books B. Extrapolate what you learn (such as writing functions and REST API + UI) Let's say you want to be a BUsiness Analyst (btw, what the heck does Business Analyst even mean, lol? I was a Business Systems Analyst for a bit-- guess what: I mostly did programming work >.- Publish your projects: to Github to show your code off, and link to those projects from your website (i.e. web portfolio -- look for web portfolio templates. For example, you can mostly copy and paste html/css from some of these (mix and match) https://bulmatemplates.github.io/bulma-templates/ - Create a LinkedIn Presence
- Start working: Don't worry about getting paid much especially if you don't yet have a strong, productive skillset. I started at a e-commerce website for $13/hr (In USA). I also did contract consulting work (in this case, accounting at $25/hr (In USA)). This allowed me to: A. Learn how to conduct business B. Grow my network Later I did digtial marketing at an IT security company. The CRM I used (Marketo) led me into other jobs because the skillset of using Marketo is in demand for marketers. That led me into a role as the business systems analyst I mentioned above. Which led into web dev -- which was my goal.
- Be willing to move: If you live somewhere without a burgeoning tech industry, you'll obviously have a higher probability of landing for your first jobs much more easily, if you move to a place which does have a burgeoning tech industry. Personally, I camped in a tent in the San Francisco bay area for 2 weeks, then couch surfed for 4 weeks because I was adamant about becoming a software developer. So, you might have to make some strategic sacrifices.
Other than that... Just go, sit down, and study and build and market yourself. That's all it takes: a strategy of studying, building, and marketing.
Re: Ask HN: I am studying economics and want to work in Tech. How?
#18I was originally an econ major in undergrad. Back in my senior year in 2012, I realized I was facing call center or similar work, so a few months before graduation I set out to teach myself to program.
Fortunately I was able to achieve decent enough competence and get an entry level software job shortly after graduation.
A year later I got a job offer for a startup out in SF and moved out there, leading to a fruitful career.
I felt like an imposter for about 3-4 years, but that feeling has long faded.
Nowadays it seems bootcamps are probably better value than self teaching, given the structure, though I don't have any personal experience there.
I also highly recommend the Georgia Tech OMSCS program for a very cheap but fairly rigorous masters program in CS you can do on the side. Formal credentials aren't super important in tech, but it's cheap and quick enough that it felt like a no brainer to me. And the projects, at least at the time, were very intensive and useful for learning certain concepts.
So highlights:
- Teach yourself/bootcamp
- Never give up. There is so much demand in tech, you will find an in if you keep trying, even without formal background. It's basically impossible to fail if you're persistent
- Become an expert. You'll feel like an imposter for awhile, but you can meet and surpass those that went the formal route within a few years, if you put in the work. Vast majority of people only improve marginally after college. Your career is much longer than a 4 year degree
Anyway, happy to chat more/provide mentorship if you're looking for it.
Re: Ask HN: I am studying economics and want to work in Tech. How?
#19Actual economics professor here… Take as much econometrics as you can possibly stomach. Augment it with classes from the stat department but econometrics will teach you about making causal inferences in situations where experiments are impossible, unethical, or extremely expensive (or all of the above). Modern empirical economics is 99% about making causal inferences. That’s basically the only thing we care about. Me…
I can confirm. I didn't go all the way to the PhD, doors opened earlier than that for a basic analytic job (and the compensations don't make you think twice about staying an extra 5 years in academic).
Econometrics, and by extension statistics, is the most sell-able assets you have as a fresh grad. It is so transferable that you can pretty much work in any industries. I fitted models to forecast water pollution. Although, I should add that most tasks required from analyst are: data cleaning and descriptive analysis.
From there you can demonstrate all the other skills (project management for example) and evolve in whatever position interest you the most.
Re: Ask HN: I am studying economics and want to work in Tech. How?
#20I was in a nearly identical situation to yours about 10 years ago.
At the end of undergrad finance/economics studies I recognized I needed more technical expertise, so I went to a grad program and learned as much as I could about econometrics. I thought this would eventually position me as a consultant/data scientist.
As I studied, I realized programming was my favorite part of the work.
I used these skills in a few different roles. A couple years later a friend/mentor suggested that I just consider becoming a software engineer.
I never pictured myself in a pure tech role. It worked out better than I would have guessed.
My suggestion is that an engineering role is not as far away as you imagine. You have time to make a career in it, so you should reflect on if you’d enjoy it.