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It was not a clean decision. I did not write a Medium post about it. I did not tell anyone. I just opened a finance recruiter's profile on LinkedIn, drafted a "happy to chat about analyst roles" message, and stared at the send button.
I had been at it for nearly half a year. Two side projects on AWS Free Tier. A LinkedIn profile I had nervously rewritten three times. Thirty-one rejected applications, all logged in a spreadsheet that was starting to feel like evidence.
The rejection that broke me was a one-line email from a recruiter: "You are applying for roles that are not quite a fit for your background. Have you considered going back to finance?"
What stopped me from sending the finance message was not motivation. It was not a podcast or a quote on Instagram or a "you've got this" reply from a friend.
It was a notification.
Someone whose post I had commented on a few weeks earlier had reposted a short note I had written about S3 lifecycle policies. Six people had messaged me with questions. One of them turned out to be a hiring manager at a UK tech company.
That was the first time I had any evidence — outside of my own head — that the work was working.
I did not get a job out of that thread. The hiring manager was hiring for a senior role I was not ready for. But it shifted something in me. Until that moment, I had been measuring my progress against offers. Offers come last. By the time you see one, the work that earned it is months behind you.
Most career pivoters quit in that gap.
Here is what I tell mentees now.
1. Track inputs, not outputs.
Applications sent. Posts published. Projects shipped. Conversations had. These are the things you control. Offers, recruiter calls, replies — those are downstream signals that lag your effort by weeks or months. If you only watch the lagging numbers, you will quit before the leading numbers have time to compound.
I had a one-page log. Five rows a week. That was it.
2. Build proof in public, even when nobody is watching.
The S3 post that quietly saved my pivot had eight likes. Eight. I almost did not publish it.
The rule I give mentees now: post the thing that helped you yesterday. Someone who is one step behind you needs it today. Visibility does not compound on the day you publish — it compounds when someone Googles your name three months later and finds a trail.
3. Set a review date, not a quit date.
"I will give this one more month and then quit" is a quit date in disguise. Set a review date instead.
Every 90 days, sit down with your numbers — applications, posts, projects, conversations — and ask one question: am I doing the right things, just not enough of them, or am I doing the wrong things consistently?
You adjust the strategy. You do not adjust the goal.
What this is not
Quitting tech is a valid choice. Some people pivot, do the work, and decide it is not for them. That is fine.
Just make sure you are leaving the path because you have decided it is not yours — not because the gap between effort and results made you think nothing is working.
The gap is not a sign the work is failing. The gap is the work.
I put together a free guide that walks through the full career pivot — from picking your domain to landing the offer — including how to set up the kind of review checkpoints I should have set up earlier.
💬 Where are you in your pivot right now — month 1, month 6, somewhere in the middle of the gap?
Reply with GAP and tell me where you are in one sentence. I will tell you whether the issue is the strategy or just the lag.
Know someone in the messy middle of a career change? Share your referral link — 1 friend subscribes, you get a free LinkedIn Profile Optimisation Checklist.
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— Shola
P.P.S. If you are in the part of the pivot where you are wondering whether to keep going, reply to this email and tell me where you are. I read every reply.
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