Ever wonder if you can thrive in tech without a computer science degree?
We sit down with Alison Leightley, now Events Marketing Manager at Redgate Software, who started in biochemistry and spent a decade in the lab before pivoting into commercial roles, sales, and eventually software. Her story is a roadmap for career changers: how to translate domain expertise into marketing impact, how to navigate jargon without getting stuck, and how a supportive culture can accelerate learning far more than any one credential.
We dig into the shift from specialist to beginner and the uncomfortable middle where acronyms fly and confidence dips. Alison shares the tactics that worked: ask direct questions to multiple functions, use simple analogies to build mental models, talk to customers to shape event content, and connect the dots across engineering, sales, and marketing. We also explore why diverse backgrounds strengthen teams, how hackathons and tech-for-good projects welcome nontechnical contributors, and how to use free bootcamps and community resources to test whether building is right for you.
A big theme is culture. Redgate’s values show up in practice – leaders modelling flexible schedules, zero tolerance for ego, real collaboration over silos – which turns trust into productivity. If you’re weighing a move into tech, you’ll leave with practical steps: inventory your transferable skills, translate them into outcomes, prototype small wins, and use your network to get the honest version of what the work entails. Subscribe, share this with a friend who’s considering a pivot, and leave a review with the one question you still want answered – we’ll tackle it in a future show.
