The NoDegree Podcast – No Degree Success Stories for Job Searching, Careers, and Entrepreneurship · Jonaed Iqbal

How to Thrive in Tech without a Degree: Insights from a Google Engineer—Diamond Forbes | E186

·1 hr 6 min·4 clips

Diamond says he moved from network engineer to senior security engineer by teaching himself code and building projects.

$14 an hour starts the career map, and the episode keeps the numbers grounded. Junaid Iqbal introduces Diamond Forbes as a cybersecurity engineer at Google without a degree, then walks through the climb from help desk work to much better pay. The story is about moves, raises, and learning, not a neat credential ladder. Diamond starts on help desk. The jump from $14 an hour to $25 an hour in less than a year gives the episode its first jolt: progress can come faster than people expect. From there, the conversation gets more useful. Diamond argues that higher value tech work is not just knowing the tool in front of you. Operators finish assigned tasks. Engineers, as he describes it, pull together research, design, architecture, communication, negotiation, and stakeholder needs so the whole project can land. That is the bigger career shift. Over-delivering means taking responsibility for the work around the work, sometimes before the technical piece formally begins. Soft skills are not decoration in this version of the story. They are part of why someone becomes more valuable, especially when they can move across teams and organizations without losing the thread. Diamond also talks about his own focus. He can go deep, chase a topic too far, and then has to bring himself back. That kind of self-management came through failure, not polish. The through line is simple enough: without a degree, the proof has to show up in output, learning, initiative, and visible ownership. The transcript stays career-focused, and the close lands back on the show's frame: no degree does not mean no path, but the path still has to be worked on purpose.

As heard by us

A no degree career story with concrete takeaways.

This episode follows Diamond Forbes from $14-an-hour help desk work to a multiple six figure salary as a security engineer at Google, and it treats that climb as something built step by step, not handed over in one clean break.

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Hear how a $14-an-hour help desk job turned into a Google cybersecurity engineering career.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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