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Breaking Into Tech With a Nontraditional Background

July 31, 2025 by Joshua Birk Leave a Comment

Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we talk to Derika West, IT Application Support Analyst II at KinderCare Learning Companies. Join us as we chat about how she got started in her tech career and how she started her Salesforce journey.

You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Derika West.

Getting started in a tech career

Derika started her career in the U.S. Army as a Carpentry and Masonry Specialist. From there, she bounced around between service industry jobs while she tried to figure out what was next. “There’s no way I could get into tech,” she told herself, “that’s way too smart for me.”

However, when Derika moved to the West Coast, her friends believed in her. She applied for a position as a QA Test Technician, and spent a lot of time figuring out how to pitch her

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