Five Reasons To Learn Coding

As the global economy stutters and Malaysians struggle with retrenchment, 1MDB and rising costs of living, there is one job that doesn’t get affected by the local enonomy. Coding might have been a boring, dead end job that didn’t pay much while ensuring long working hours, but all that might have changed. Read more on the five compelling reasons to learn coding after the break

Five Reasons To Learn Coding : An Introduction

In the past year, our economy has struggled as rounds of retrenchment hit major industries such as banking, manufacturing and even service. With many people jobless and more being affected by the economy, jobs in the startup scene has been interestingly abundant. Especially if you code well.

Why so? While your sales, management or even engineering skills aren’t transferable overseas, programming skills are definitely transferable and might get you a job in local startups or even better overseas one. Let’s dive deeper into why you should learn coding below

1) Reasons To Learn Coding : Coders Are In Demand

coder

Did you know that junior coders in Singapore are paid SGD 3500 on average and out of every 10 foreign applicants for a coding job, 9 are accepted? The dearth of quality coders (with our local institutions not helping), the growth of always connected devices and the internet of things (ioT) and the fact that VCs (Venture Capitalists) consider Asia an attractive prospect for startups has created a demand for coders.

According to a report on Straits Times, Infocomm Development Authority (IDA), the statutory board in charge of the various Smart Nation initiatives, shared that in 2014, though there were 150,000 technology professionals working in Singapore, about 15,000 vacancies could not be filled. (ref : Vulcan Post)

If you understand your code and can code relatively well, you would never lack a job. I’ve friends who got retrenched, retooled themselves with coding skills and then found jobs out there instead of waiting for an opening in their previous industry.

2) Reasons To Learn Coding : Earn More

money

While earning four to five thousand ringgit was considered enough back during our parents’ time, the cost of property and household expenses has risen over the years, making that amount insignificant. In response to that, some people have either decreased their spending or worked two jobs in order to survive.

I’ve seen friends doing MLM, insurance or perhaps even moonlight as baristas in cafes and models for photoshoots. But what if there was a way to earn four times more than your current salary? What if you can get hired by a foreign company and get paid what their locals get monthly? Here’s how below.

The average salary for a junior coder with a US based startup would be about USD 6k per month. That translates to RM 24k in Malaysia. A senior coder earns about USD 12k while top Google developers in US earn about USD 40k per month! After conversion you can earn somewhere between RM 48k till RM 160k monthly just by code wrangling every month.

Due to a dearth of quality coders and the rise of startups, remote coding jobs are now a norm in the industry. In comparison, a banker, engineer, teacher or lawyer might not have that kind of mobility that lets them be remotely hired.

Even if you are not hired remotely, I’ve met local Malaysian coders who earn about RM 30k per month by just working on freelance projects. That makes coding a very lucrative job in our depressed economy.

3) Reasons To Learn Coding : Launch Your Startup

WhatsApp Jam Koum

Ever heard the fairy tale story of WhatApp? The two founders were so broke that they relied on food coupons while working on WhatsApp, which was ultimately sold for a whopping nineteen billion US dollars. Or how about Uber, Google, Amazon and AliBaba?

If you noticed the similarities, these are all software tech startups.

But the cost of building a MVP isn’t cheap if you don’t code yourself. A customised ecommerce site can start from ten thousand ringgit till the tune of hundreds of thousands, depending of the customization, integration and development work needed. Without coding, you’ll be forced to hire someone or worse, bring in a CTO who might not understand the your vision. And don’t get me started with the issue of hiring coders from India via Freelancer.

The best way to launch a startup and have the chance to be a multi millionaire, would be to learn coding. There’s no two ways about it.

4) Reasons To Learn Coding : Travel The World

Chiang Mai Coder

Have you ever considered travelling around the world? Or perhaps living in some scenic place like Koh Samui, Chiang Rai, Beijing and the likes? Or perhaps explore South America for months. Well, with coding you can travel and work without worrying about money.

Even if you don’t have a remote job, coding enables you to find work with Freelancer, the largest freelancing site out there. I’ve personally met people who live off their coding freelance work while trekking across Asia. All they needed was an internet connection, a laptop and some coding skills.

In comparison, travelling around the world for the non-coders of us would be short term jaunts with the laptop/smartphone on at all times as the bosses might just contact us on something whilst on our holidays.

5) Reasons To Learn Coding : It Gives You SuperPowers

Super Hero

Coding is no longer something that geeks do. Instead coding is as essential as learning languages, maths and the likes. In UK, they are starting the program to teach kids as young as 6 years old how to code. Bangladesh produces coders as they realise that while they might be a financially poor country, coders might be able to produce the next Google, Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp.

And even if they don’t end up building a unicorn startup (meaning a very successful startup like FaceBook), a good Bangladeshi coder might get hired and move to US with his/her coding skills.

As the world edges towards constant connectivity, tech based startups are revolutionising the world just like how age of manufacturing changed the 19th century and made men like John D. Rockefeller, rich. Coding gives you the super power to build things that you wish for, that others would need to buy or rent from you. Would you learn coding today?

Conclusion :

There is never a better time to start coding. I’ve seen non-coders as young as 17 and as mature as 45 picking up coding and changing their lives for the better. As the economy worsens and the Asian startup scene heats up, coding can be a very valuable tool in the near future.

If you have not started, why not start now? Learn coding from TeamTreeHouse today.

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