Is Still Coding a Good Career in 2025?

Note: this is written for high school students — but anyone is welcome to read :)

Short answer: Yes.

Long answer:

tldr: coding is very worth your time if you have the right system to land jobs

I've worked as coder for 3 years now.

(First, making menu signs for McDonalds, then making digital maps for Disney)

But I haven't always been a coder.

My "main" career is in education. I spent 8 years teaching English and debate in Asian classrooms before I became a code monkey.

To pivot careers, I took a 10-week bootcamp.

But here's the thing: I didn't even graduate my bootcamp.

8 weeks in, sitting next to a pool on rooftop in Tulum, I decided to stop wasting my time on silly projects and find a job. And I did.

But that's not typical.

According to the internet:

• "nobody's hiring! I've been applying for months and haven't had an interview"

• "We're coming up on 2 years unemployment. Don't listen to what they say. This job market is brutal."

• "the market is saturated! everyone and their mom wants to be a coder."

So, how did I do it?

On that rooftop in Mexico, I made over 200 calls, one to every tech recruiter I could find in the United States.

Not Linkedin, not Indeed, not tech networking events. Targeted, guerrilla networking.

Now, I'm not saying you should do what I did. In fact, there's far-better ways to find higher-impact careers than I landed, and without making a single outbound phone call.

What I AM saying is you need a unique approach to the job search to make coding work as a career in 2025.

Using guerrilla search techniques will ensure that you can "game" the job market to work for you.

what about the future? won't AI take all the coding jobs?

3 things to know:

1. AI is your friend. Use it.

   
   

   Because YES. AI will continue to change the market. And that includes "taking" jobs. But only from people who don't use it.

   
   

   By analogy:

   
   

   The chainsaw was popularized in the 1950s. Before that, loggers would use large crosscut saws to fell trees.

   
   

   Did loggers lose their jobs? Well, those that refused to use chainsaws sure did.

   
   

   All of a sudden, chainsaw-equipped loggers were 5x more productive. Obviously, those were the ones that stayed employable.

   
   
   
   

2. Tech jobs are slated to grow.

   
   

   Over the next 5 years, tech jobs absolutely dominate the World Economic Forum's list of fastest-growing jobs. Just look at it. 11/15 of the top jobs are explicitly about coding, and 14/15 top jobs require coding.

   
   

   If you were properly niched down, you almost couldn't help but remain wildly employable for at least the next 10+ years.

   
   

   

   
   

3. you can treating coding as a skill vs. a job.

There's a handful of skills that are universally-beneficial in corporate America: writing, speaking, research. Sales. Marketing. Automations. And coding.

Learn coding and you'll be head-and-shoulders above anyone you're competing with for a job, even if it's not exactly a tech job.

In the same way that you should know how to write even if you're not a "copywriting professional".

And know how to speak even if you're not a "professional motivational speaker".

You can know how to apply coding principles to your industry, even if you're not a "programmer" for your dayjob. Learning coding is valuable just about wherever you land.

So, for high school students today: is it worth studying coding?

Yes. But you'll need the right approach.

Transitioning out of high school can be confusing, frustrating, and stressful.

A 30-minute phone call (absolutely free) can help bring some clarity to the process.