I started here almost 3 years ago now and worked through so many courses and felt like I was banging my head against the wall too many times for too many months.
On my 15 min walks during the day around my office I still can’t believe I did it!
Thanks to freeCodeCamp to start the learning process and continued resource for me as I still learn in my new role.
If you are curious about my story:
I have been working in labor jobs most of my life. 15 years of work in the Federal Government and 5 years in tree work. I rewrote my resume maybe 150 times to find a way to leverage my experience into a job that is completely different in every way. My education was a big hang up for me as I do not hold a degree at all. I attended university for two years and fell into debt and left to rejoin the full-time work force. There was a year or so there where I put that I had an “Associates in Humanities” just to see if would even get a look from employers. That didn’t work btw..
When I finally landed a few interviews, I completely flailed on the technical part. Turns out application of writing code is difficult! HUGE learning experiences for me though! And instead of just learning more code or trying to build another app, I tried to read more and understand what the heck am I doing when I install random packages. What is in the package that I need? I really wanted to grasp more of how to think ‘programmatically’. I started playing a lot of chess and bought a giant chess puzzle book to help with conceptual problem solving. I now have a streak of 479 days of puzzles on Chess.com! Lets Go!
Meanwhile I got promoted to a position in my previous job that I hated and was working with people that were very difficult. The pay was the best I have ever made but I was gone 6-8 months out of the year. I have a 2 year old and a wife that’s pregnant so being away was tough on everyone. I used pretty much all of my downtime and travel time during my last job to learn and learn and learn, but burnout was always lurking. I essentially had two full time jobs and a family. DUDE…. not cool..
This past Aug is when all that would actually pay off. I just finished up a Professional Google cert and had started on another, Data Analytics. I applied to the one place I would never think would hire me but was my best shot. It’s local, I won’t be remote, I can actually work with a team, ask questions and really grow, IF I get the job. I got the interview and was promptly told, like a day or two after, that the position was filled. *insert favorite cuss word*
A new position opened up the next week at the same company, my local electric co-op. I applied and got another interview. *insert favorite cuss word, in excited context*
A month goes by and I don’t hear anything..
Another month..
Finally I get a call from their HR and I GOT THE JOB!!
The pay is a decent reduction from what I was making, and I my day to day is mostly raw data entry into excel spreadsheets. BUTTT I am fully encouraged to continue to learn and grow and there is loads of room for upward movement. Big plus is that now I have one full time job, I am home every night and I get paid to learn what I was doing in my free time for 3 years! I actually have real problems that I can point my learning towards now instead of just trying to guess based on ‘industry needs’.
If you read all that here is my 2 cents,
If this is something you actually want to do you WILL do it. Have faith and patience.
Keep all of your options open. I am not technically a software engineer by any means, but I am adjacent, and that role is now closer than I ever thought it would be.
Thanks again and I still not going anywhere, the learnin’ don’t stop!