Prelude
About a year ago, I was in the same position that a lot of people are in today; I felt stagnant at my job and wanted to find a more fulfilling and rewarding career. One that paid more and offered more flexibility. One that allowed me to spend more time with my family. One that my family and I could be proud of.
Now, a year later, I'm at a job I love and I'm excited to get out of bed every day. I care about what I do and my physical and mental health is at an all-time high. So how exactly did I get here?
Entree
I graduated in 2021 with a degree in Finance and Accounting, and, while I'm sure there is some merit to having such an accolade, I could not for the life of me find an ounce of motivation or passion for the direction my yet-to-begin career was heading in. Thankfully, soon after graduating, I managed to find a very entry-level data entry job to keep the lights on. I thought to myself, "sure, I'll work here for a few months while I figure out exactly what I want to do! No problem, right?"
Well, three months pass, and then six months. A whole year passes, and I'm still stuck at a job I find boring, staring at a screen I've grown much too accustomed to. It was after two whole years of this that something clicked inside this hormone-producing mound of matter inside my head, and I decided that I wanted more out of life. At the ripe old age of 23, I had my first existential crisis and went searching for answers.
Thankfully, I found an answer pretty quickly; in about the time it takes for Google to populate a search result page. The number one suggested career at the time was in technology. There was no shortage of gurus and influencers yelling at me through the screen trying to convince me that I could "land a 6-figure job in just six months" by taking their $3,000 boot camp. So, while I may be quite gullible, it was fortunate that I already knew some software developers that could help guide me down a more productive (and cheaper) path.
My decision at this point was simple. I was going to learn how to code. First step? Automate my current job.
At that time, my job was a series of soul-draining, repetitive tasks that involved entering an exorbitant amount of numbers into excel spreadsheets every day. My goal was to automate it all so that I could do less work but still get paid the same amount, but the problem was, I didn't know where to begin. So, as any sane person would do, I googled it. Eventually, I decided to learn Python.
So, I went on youtube and searched for "Python Tutorials" and started watching the first one that popped up. It was Bro Code's 12-hour "Python Full Course for free 🐍." Then came the hard part, which was - juggling a full-time job and a social life with learning a completely new field of knowledge.
I kept reminding myself, "You're doing this so you can provide a better life for the puppies and kittens you decide to adopt."
This seemed to motivate me because from then on, I would spend no less than three hours every day studying and taking notes, absorbing as much Python as I could. I watched that whole video at least 3 times all the way through, making sure I understood every concept that Bro Code launched at my neurons. While this seems overkill in retrospect, the motivation coursing through my veins gave me more drive than I had ever experienced.
Once I felt confident enough, I decided it was time to tackle the task of automating my job, but this is also where I started to stumble. I had PyCharm installed and all of this Python knowledge, but I didn't know what to write in the empty "main.py" file. I was simply stuck staring at the cursor flickering. So again, I googled it. Within minutes I had found a perfect video that showed me exactly what I needed to do to achieve what I wanted. Perfect.
Except it wasn't perfect. This turned out to be a long, drawn-out, iterative process of googling, implementing, googling again, being frustrated, googling more, and staying up until 4 am every night pulling my hair out. But alas, after 3 full weeks of daily 5-hour coding sessions, I managed to create my first Python script that pulled stock prices from Yahoo Finance and populated an Excel Spreadsheet at the click of a button.
I'll never forget that feeling.
The feeling of having accomplished something I set my mind to sent the largest dopamine hits to my somewhat evolved monkey brain I'd ever felt. The hours spent being angry at my computer screen and exhausted from the previous night's escapades were all worth it and...I actually really enjoyed it. It was at that moment in my journey that I realized I had stumbled across something very special.
For once in my life, I had found something that I could see myself doing as a career.
This simple script saved me quite a few hours at work, but more importantly, it taught me that I could automate anything I wanted given enough time and effort. It felt like I had superpowers. I continued adding to the script, slowly at first, but as I got more comfortable with Python, the speed at which I could solve the problems I was facing increased. I had more time to myself because I had less work to do, which meant I could spend more time coding - a viciously productive cycle if you will. At this point, in January 2022, it was fair to say that I had a newfound passion.
Ensemble
Unfortunately, some unrelated life events popped up, which put a pause on coding until July 2022 and I lost a lot of progress. I came back with a vengeance, however, and at the advice of a friend, I picked up where I left off by learning Java. Having already done some Python, the learning curve this time was far shallower, although there was a lot more to learn given the verbosity of Java as a language. I went back to my "old reliable" and watched Bro Code's "Java Full Course for free ☕" to refresh myself and learned a few intermediate-level things from "Coding with John" before venturing back through the metaphorical woods to automate more of my work.
Now, I was really on a roll. I automated more of my tasks and even offered to create an API handler in Java for a colleague while also writing more Python scripts to save myself more time. I started to show my boss what I was doing and how I was able to automate a lot of things around the office not just for myself, but for my colleagues too. He was impressed and thankfully encouraged me to continue learning what I was learning. I was almost like an in-house developer, but best of all, I could now study while I was at work.
From September 2022 onwards, I started to branch out into more languages. I picked up HTML, CSS and Javascript because they seemed like fun and I figured it might be quite useful if I ever wanted to create my own website portfolio one day. It also seemed to be very popular from the multiple articles I was reading and forums I was visiting. Apparently, the easiest way to get your foot in the door as a developer was through web development, so that's what I began focusing on.
I first learned how to make simple static websites, and then progressed further until I was doing React and Next tutorials. This is where "Traversy Media" videos helped me immensely. I was learning how to create full-stack applications in Javascript which helped me get a rough understanding of project architectures. At the same time, I was doing similar things in Java with Spring boot, solidifying my understanding of the MVC model.
Ritardando
Cut forward two months to October 2022, and I now have a whole collection of websites, full-stack projects and scripts under my belt, all written in Javascript, Java and Python. It's been six months of non-stop studying and working tirelessly, and I decided that now was the time to start applying for my dream job. At the same time, I was very aware that software developer jobs were hard to come by, so I kept my expectations low. I set myself a target; to become a full-time software developer by 2024. So that's what I stuck to, nothing too ambitious.
I spent the next three weeks applying to every single job opening there was under the sun, even if the requirements didn't match my abilities. Every day I would refresh the jobs listing page and apply to all the new openings I saw.
Now, I don't know who came up with this, but for every email that started "Hi Corn, thanks for replying to [redacted]. We're thrilled that you'd consider being a part of [redacted]! Unfortunately..." a little bit of my soul was banished to the shadow realm. The joy of seeing the word "thrilled" mixed with the disappointment of seeing the next sentence begin with "Unfortunately" sent me through emotional rollercoasters that had me contemplating my life's choices for the past year.
Thankfully, however, due to what might be considered a stroke of luck, after 200 or so applications, 150 no-replies and 49 rejection emails, I was finally offered an interview. The crazy thing was, it was only November! I had set myself a goal of over 12 months to get a job and after just one month I had already bagged an interview. I was ecstatic.
The interview process itself was a long, drawn-out journey that involved several technical and behavioural interviews, things that I had never experienced before. The main reason was that I hadn't expected to get an interview so quickly which meant I hadn't had any time to prepare. The lack of preparation made me bone-chatteringly nervous and in the final interview, I felt as though I had completely ruined my chances of being selected since I was unable to answer several of the questions. I distinctly remember the interviewers asking me if I had any final questions for them, to which I replied "Umm, actually, no I don't! But thank you for considering me" because I felt that it had gone so badly.
Well, it was back to the drawing board...or so I thought.
I received a phone call from one of the references I had put down for the interview and he told me that they called him asking about me. I thought this was strange since I had done so badly. My second reference called me soon after to impart the same information. Maybe I hadn't done so badly after all. My spirits were high again and unsurprisingly, I received a phone call from the company the next day. They gave me a job offer and a salary that blew my socks off.
To say I was in shock would be a tumultuous understatement. I reasoned it out to myself; I had just received a job offer for an amount almost twice as much as what I was currently earning after just 6 months of learning how to code. It was a dopamine hit on par with when I got my first-ever code working. I told all my friends and family and while I wouldn't say I cried, I may or may not have shed a tear or two.
The 1st of December 2022 marked my first day as a full-time software developer and a completely new chapter in my life.
Postlude
Three months in and the ceiling of my career is now well out of sight, somewhere up in the stratosphere. The fulfilment I feel on a day-to-day basis keeps me motivated to continue learning, and the immense, all-consuming gratitude I feel for the opportunities I've been given continues to pile on. I'm doing something I never thought I'd be doing, and now, I even have the chance to help others feel this way too.
That is where my goals now lie. While I navigate this fickle, malleable life of mine and continue to pursue my passions, I plan to collate a vivid assortment of experiences that can act as a roadmap for others in the same position I was in a year ago.
Whether you're just beginning on this journey or you're halfway in, if I can help you in any way, shape or form, then that's more than I could ever hope for.