Changing Lanes: How to Pivot to a Mobile Dev Career

Creating a Plan to Switch Roles

Once you’ve reviewed your options and decided to move forward, it’s time to start planning your transition. Transitioning careers, especially into mobile development, is more challenging than applying for a new role. Even if you come from a development background, you must consider where your new role will be, which skills you’ll need and how to obtain the ones you lack.

There’s a lot to learn in mobile development, but you don’t need to know everything at once. It’s vital to come up with a plan that prioritizes what you need to know to start. Next, you’ll focus on the first steps to take to change careers.

Look for Opportunities at Your Current Company

If you are currently working in tech, your first step should be to determine whether your organization has a mobile development team. Now, you might think you’re getting ahead of yourself by looking for the role before you have the knowledge you need.

However, transferring departments within your existing company is far easier than obtaining a new role at a brand new company. And you get the added benefit of accurately pinpointing what knowledge you must have to start in a beginning mobile development role. You and the mobile development manager or senior developer share an employer, making you an insider — and that comes with advantages.

Meeting with your company’s mobile team members lets you know where to start building your knowledge. They can possibly even help you develop an entire education plan. You can learn firsthand where the team is focusing their efforts today and what they have in the works for tomorrow, which lets you focus on the most important skills to learn.

By building a relationship with members of the mobile development team, you’ll also learn about new positions — possibly before they’re posted. This lets you position yourself as a leading candidate for the role.

Developing a Learning Plan on Your Own

All is not lost if your current employer doesn’t have a mobile development team. You can still efficiently obtain the knowledge of mobile development you need.

A good place to start is with job listings. Check them to see the skills that junior devs in the platform of your choice are expected to have, and then create a study plan to gain the skills you’re missing.

How to Level Up Your Skills

There are numerous free sources for learning mobile development, such as YouTube, Apple and Google, to name a few. I’ve used them and many others, but I found the resources on Kodeco are better organized for someone starting in mobile development, which helps you get interview-ready quickly and effectively.

And I’m not alone in thinking this. Chances are, wherever you find your first mobile developer role, they trust Kodeco, too. When people trust the materials you learn from, they’ll be more likely to respect your knowledge.

Studying From Books

The Apprentice series of books — SwiftUI Apprentice,Android Apprentice and Flutter Apprentice — provides an excellent foundation to build upon. In each book, you’ll create apps of various complexity, teaching you how to implement the fundamental technologies of the platform.

The concepts covered in these books make up the majority of the skills you’ll be expected to perform in a role as a new mobile developer, as well as the questions you’ll be asked in interviews.

Video Learning Paths

If you prefer video lessons to written ones, Kodeco has Learning paths for iOS and Swift, Android and Kotlin and Flutter and Dart that cover the basics you need to know.

No matter how you prefer your lessons, you must start and, most importantly, finish them. It’s easy to buy a book or course online with the best of intentions to finish it, only to get sidetracked by life commitments such as work or family.

That’s why it’s important to discuss this transition with your family or partner. You need to be psyched and prepared to do what it takes for this transition, and your family members need to be aware and on board with you as well.

If you’re like me, you probably have dozens of books and online courses you still need to finish… and many more that you still need to start. Life gets complicated and interrupts our best plans. That’s why we must avoid interruptions and plan how to address our education for this new role. Having the backing and understanding of our family or partner goes a long way in making the plans easier to stick with.

Coding Bootcamps

Coding bootcamps require a significant commitment in terms of both money and time — which can be an advantage. For many, the cost alone of bootcamp is a significant motivator for completing the bootcamp.

There are many things to consider when thinking about a bootcamp. Will you be able to take time off work to attend classes? Will there be added expenses such as lodging and meals? Can you complete the course materials and deliverables in your free time?

I attended the Kodeco iOS Accelerator bootcamp, which I chose because the timeline worked for me, the curriculum covered all the iOS development topics that would prepare me for a mobile development role and because I’d have a completed app by the end of the course.

Having a completed app lets you demonstrate your mobile development knowledge when you apply for a job, which is extremely valuable. Many employers require candidates to have an app they created on an App Store or viewable on GitHub.

Applying for Mobile Development Roles

At this point, you’ve decided you really do want to sample that greener grass on the other side of the fence. You’ve spent time getting your mobile development knowledge leveled up, and you have a working app. You may have spent some time going over some sample interview questions. You’re now ready to start applying for mobile development roles. But how do you find roles that match your skill level?

Deciding Which Roles to Apply for

The first temptation when looking for a role as starting mobile developer is to look for Junior or Apprentice roles. This has two problems: only some roles are advertised at those levels, and you’re not a Junior or Apprentice — you’re an experienced worker.

So instead of looking for absolute beginner roles, search for jobs that require one to three years of experience. There are many roles at this level.