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33-year-old went from working in a warehouse to earning over $100,000 working in tech without a bachelor's degree—here's how

Shanelle Gibson
Photo: Shanelle Gibson

This story is part of CNBC Make It's Ditching the Degree series, where women who have built six-figure careers without a bachelor's degree reveal the secrets of their success. Got a story to tell? Let us know! Email us at AskMakeIt@cnbc.com.

Ten years ago, Shanelle Gibson was working 12-hour shifts sorting and folding clothes in a warehouse. She almost gave up on finding her dream job.

Gibson, then 23, watched online as her friends celebrated graduating from college, landing their first corporate jobs and moving to new cities. 

Gibson nearly joined them. She spent one year studying at Valdosta State University in Valdosta, Georgia before dropping out, as she couldn't stomach the debt she'd accrue pursuing a bachelor's degree. 

That decision marked the start of what Gibson calls her "soul-searching years," a period in her early 20s filled with "hard, unfulfilling" jobs after leaving school and moving to Atlanta. 

She worked in a warehouse, a pizza kitchen, a day care, and even spent six months in the Air Force before being discharged for medical reasons. Yet nothing clicked.

Looking back, Gibson says she doesn't regret those years. They ultimately led her to a career she loves in tech and product development.

Gibson has been working in tech since 2016. Now 33, she's a lead scrum master at a small health-care firm, working full time from her home in Loganville, Georgia. 

She earns about $132,000 in her role, according to financial documents reviewed by CNBC Make It — a salary that Gibson says would have been "unimaginable" at this point in her career, had she continued working in the jobs she had in her 20s, which paid no more than $15 an hour. 

Here's how Gibson pivoted her career and earns six figures without a bachelor's degree:

A career breakthrough on Craigslist

One morning in 2015, during yet another long shift at the warehouse, Gibson says she looked up from the pair of chinos she was folding and had a sudden realization: She'd been approaching her career all wrong.

"I just had this 'aha moment' where I looked around at these mountains of boxes and tired people working alongside me and thought, 'I shouldn't be here, I feel like I'm destined for more than this minimum wage job I'm not happy in," Gibson recalls. "That propelled me to quit and just start applying everywhere."

Desperate for a change, she posted her resume on Craigslist. A manager at ParkingSoft, a parking management software startup, saw her resume and invited her to interview for an open phone dispatcher role at their Atlanta office.

Gibson landed the job and quickly stood out. Within weeks, she was promoted to customer support analyst after her boss noticed how she proactively solved customer problems instead of merely forwarding calls to the service team.

"That job started my tech career," she says. "All of the technical skills I learned doing that job – from SQL [a programming language] to JIRA [project tracking software] made me a more confident, competitive candidate for higher-paying tech jobs, even without a degree." 

Becoming a scrum master, sans degree

After leaving ParkingSoft in 2019, Gibson spent the next two years in various technical support and project management roles at companies like Ceredian Dayforce and United Healthcare. 

But over time, she grew restless with the monotony of customer support tasks.

A friend suggested she explore becoming a scrum master, a role focused on coaching product development teams and guiding Agile processes — a framework for flexible, iterative project management. 

The idea appealed to Gibson, who wanted more challenging work that leveraged her problem-solving skills. In 2021, Gibson earned her scrum master certification through Scrum Alliance, completing a two-day course that cost about $400. 

Shortly after, she landed her first scrum master role at UnitedHealthcare. In 2022, she joined her current company as a lead scrum master.

'There's no special formula to earning six figures'

Gibson maintains a typical 9-to-5 schedule while working from home, sometimes logging on earlier or later, depending on her workload.

"It's honestly the perfect job for an introvert like me," she says. "I concentrate better in quiet spaces, it allows me to be more creative; I don't need to be the most outspoken or energetic person to be a great scrum master."

It's also the first job where Gibson earns more than $100,000 a year. For her, crossing the six-figure threshold was "pretty shocking," she says. 

"I knew that I was capable and hardworking, but society tells us that you need a college degree to land a high-paying job," she continues. "Hitting that milestone helped me realize that there's no special formula to earning six figures; it's up to you to decide how hard you're willing to work toward that goal and not let something like a degree requirement limit you."

The technical skills Gibson learned in the scrum master course — working in different Agile software, and online project management — played a big role in her ability to transition into this field without a bachelor's degree. Equally important, however, were the soft skills she developed in retail and customer service, including problem-solving and time management.

Gibson's biggest piece of advice for others hoping to land a high-paying job without a bachelor's degree? Don't underestimate the value of your transferable skills, and the power of a positive mindset in chasing your career goals. 

"Whether you succeed in college or not doesn't define who you are as a person," she says. "You can read books, and take boot camps online, there are so many ways to improve your skills. Whatever it is that you want to do, if you have the right attitude and put the work in, you'll achieve it."

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