Eastern suburbs man reflects on career change through tech bootcamp Earlywork Academy

A 25-year-old uni dropout working as a rope access technician on city skyscrapers says his career journey into tech sales shows the modern job market is all about transferable skills. Read his story.

Sam Grew pictured at an Earlywork Sales Academy meetup. Picture: supplied.

Eastern suburbs man Sam Grew was working as a rope access technician when he began thinking about a career change.

While he made good money in the trade – which involved dangerous work rigging to undertake work on city skyscrapers – he wanted to explore a new industry, but worried his lack of higher education would make that impossible.

Mr Grew dropped out of uni and had logged over five years in the industry at that time.

“I started doing it for work, but it was never a super intentional job,” he said.

Earlywork Sales Academy meetup with Sam Grew, left, and Earlywork co-founder Dan Brockwell, right. Picture: supplied.

“And there were a few things that came up working that job that made me consider what my life would look like and what my career would look like moving forward”.

The 25-year-old Coogee resident decided to take the leap to try something new, and, through a friend enrolled in a Sydney-based training program designed to facilitate career switches for people with non-technical backgrounds.

Launched in January, Earlywork Academy is a sales tech bootcamp which guides a selective cohort of students through three weeks of training in tech sales skills, one-on-one job search coaching, and direct introductions to top tech companies.

The company was founded by Sydney graduates Dan Brockwell, Jono Herman and Marina Wu in 2021 as an invite-only Slack channel aimed at creating a supportive community for early career tech and start-up workers.

Earlywork Sales Academy. Picture: Supplied.

Grew at his previous workplace. Picture: supplied.

Now, Earlywork has venture capital funding and a suite of ventures to help young people transition from jobs as diverse as photography and banking into tech jobs.

Mr Brockwell said the myth a university degree was the only pathway into high-paying jobs in emerging industries had been dispelled.

Thirty-one per cent of the bootcamp’s graduates didn’t go to university, and 37 per cent were career switchers aged over 25.

“There is a fundamental misalignment between the tertiary education business model and employment outcomes for tomorrow’s tech talent,” he said, adding tech sales represented a “hidden pathway” into growing industries.

“It’s an in-demand future-proof skill, and it allows you to leverage your people skills,” he said.

Grew said his career transition revealed the possibilities of the new world of work. Picture: supplied.

Mr Grew said his salary had increased since landing a tech sales role at ticketing platform Humanitix, but more importantly the experience had revealed possibilities open to him in the world of work.

“Basically, all these skills and things that I’ve learned in a seemingly unrelated career; soft skills, like communicating, building up persistence and resilience, actually transfer surprisingly well into a job in tech,” he said.

“I think impostor syndrome is really prevalent in that people feel stuck in their ways. I think we have a predisposition to fear change as humans. And I think that we can really pleasantly surprise ourselves when we try to face that.”

“I’m in awe of how much I’ve managed to learn in that short time,” he said.

“Going through the academy empowered me to be able to make the leap into tech sales, I don’t know that I would have without it”.