For better or worse, I was born a digital-native. I grew up with gaming consoles, iPhones, laptops, and more. I was curious to know how these things worked. Luckily, I had a group of friends in college who jump-started my ability to learn programming. Programming has been a Swiss army knife, allowing me to solve problems where business software comes up short.
Our lives around the internet. In high school I took a webpage design course. In college, I attended many hackathons with friends. This was a great way to learn programming. You code alongside people you like with little judgment. The paradox of programming is that the more you fail, the better you are getting.
“Programming is the surest way I know to feel brilliant one second and idiotic the next.” — Christina Cacioppo, Founder, Vanta
How do I use programming in consulting? We are assigned gross operational tasks as consultants. This is where scripting has become invaluable. If you are interested in learning how to do this, grab a book on Python or JavaScript (whichever one you have the most friends who know it and will walk you through without judgment).
It’s easier than ever to get started. With Copilot tools the world is your oyster.
Windsurf & Cursor — Integrated Developer Environments (IDEs) that can generate code.
Claude Code (intermediate) — When you get to the terminal, and I promise you will, you will go faster with generating code.
I’ve used programming to go over massive datasets. With the addition of LLMs, I’ve been able to do things like batch processing to tag specific datasets to prompt rubrics I provide. For techie friends, this is like using the LLM as-a-judge technique as your spreadsheet-in-a-box intern.
The best part about programming in consulting is that you can feel the value of your scripts every day. Slowly, you buy yourself back time. You are also gaining a valuable skill that lets you learn to punch above your weight.