# Nick's story: from teaching to tech

- **Episode:** [135](https://agents.truthliesandwork.com/episodes/135.md) (2024-10-10)
- **Type:** panel-interview
- **Tags:** career-change, teaching-to-tech, tech-careers, personal-story
- **Time:** 14:14–19:15 (start 854s)
- **Listen:** [https://truthliesandwork.com/135?t=854](https://truthliesandwork.com/135?t=854)

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[14:14] Al Elliott: So I think at this point it's quite clear that there's a range of opportunities, whether you're interested in coding, problem solving, or sales, there seems to be a place for you in tech, almost certainly. But what if you don't have a traditional tech background? After the break, we hear how Nick went from teaching to tech and what the challenges were
[14:48] midroll (Phil Agnew, Nudge): And 2 out of 3 of us are devilishly good-looking
[15:05] John White: Seamless, seamless
[15:07] Al Elliott: Tell us about your latest episode, Phil
[15:43] midroll (Phil Agnew, Nudge): It can
[15:46] John White: I am
[15:51] Leanne Elliott: But come back
[15:52] Al Elliott: Yeah, come back
[15:52] midroll (Phil Agnew, Nudge): Definitely come back because Nudge isn't as good as this. So come back
[15:55] Al Elliott: I'll cut that out
[15:57] midroll (Phil Agnew, Nudge): Keep that in
[16:01] Leanne Elliott: Welcome back. Nick's story of transitioning from teaching to tech is particularly inspiring. Let's hear more about how our guest found their way into the industry
[16:11] Nick Korte: At one point when I was teaching high school math, my wife and I wanted to start a family, and we talked about it, and I didn't think that I would be able to make enough money to really allow her to stay home with our child or potential potentially more than one child. And we— I tried to get a different job. I did some like database analysis for a defined benefits outsourcer, worked on pension plans and a database calculator. So I got to tinker a little bit there and then kind of stumbled into getting a job for this manufacturing company who wanted someone that was like part analyst, part IT person. So I'd done statistical analysis for this fabrication company as like a consultant type thing while I was teaching. And when they found out that I had left teaching, they offered me a job to do basically spreadsheet financial analysis type stuff and then work on the computer systems. And so from there, I kind of went from the guy who had to read the manual to plug the computer in for someone to the guy who eventually knew all the systems inside out and had built a lot of them by the time I left. So, it was just an incredible learning experience
[17:29] midroll (Phil Agnew, Nudge): Wow
[17:30] Leanne Elliott: And John, how about you? Was tech always your aim in terms of career? How did you get into the industry?
[17:38] John White: When I went to school, I thought I was going to be an electrical engineer. About halfway through that process, I went, actually, I don't know what electrical engineers do, But if it's what I'm doing right now, I can't stand doing it for another 2 years, much less another 30 or 40. So I changed majors to political science. The school that I went to, that was a pretty— it was still a very, very technical field. It was basically all the tools that economists use, just analyzing social science problems. It's called Freakonomics. So if anybody's ever read that book, then that was the kind of social science program that I was in. But yeah, I left, had no real goal or aim. This was kind of the mid-'90s, tried to do a startup. So got a little bit of experience doing web infrastructure and production Unix/Linux systems, and then kind of drifted over into the IT operations side of things. Got a job in IT operations, did it for the better part of a decade, and then realized that there's probably a lot more money. Even as much as technology might make more money than teaching, Yeah. Technology pre-sales makes more money than technology operations