I started one year ago and just landed my first job as a Software Engineer!

I can’t believe I am typing this right now. I put the title in and got one of the best rushes of my life. I lost my job as a graphic designer and was almost sick of the industry and decided to look at other options. I couldn’t go back to college (I dropped out my first year to help my mother and family), and I was 27 last year. I couldn’t find the time nor money to go back, but I didn’t have a degree. I looked into EMS, then Firefighter, or operating a power plant, anything to get me into a field to get paid and support my family and get my life back together. I pooled up all my money, sold things I had, and came across coding as an option without a degree. Freecodecamp someone mentioned and I thought it sounded neat. I began to study for 3 months on FCC for at least 5 hours a day and struggled like hell with Javascript (really, really struggled).

During the 3rd month I found out about bootcamps, and enrolled in a 6mo. program. I hadn’t any idea what to expect, but I was surrounded by newbies like me and others who had CS degrees. It was such a tough course (I got in at 6:30a.m. and left at 5p.m. M - F and coded at nights and on weekends.)

I believe being surrounded by people who have the same goal is an incredible asset to have, but I also believe I could have learned everything I learned in that bootcamp, on my own. I learned a ton, but after doing so, I have realized there is SO much more to learn.

I have terrible impostor syndrome and don’t feel like I am cut out for this, but hard work seriously pays off. I thought it sounded too good to be true with these types of posts, but I had a fire under my ass to help more people other than just myself. I can’t thank this community enough, especially @camperextraordinaire, he is INCREDIBLE and has the most patience out of anyone I have met. This community is a godsend and many of you had so much to do with changing my life.

This next part is not to show you that this stuff comes easy, as I am not a genius and I worked my ass off to get this position as a Software Engineer:

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Congrats man! Good luck in your new position!

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Congratulations! Your github timeline looks amazing :slight_smile:

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Congratulations! That’s an impressive looking heat map:+1: Care to share your portfolio and/or your general location? Would love to check out what might have worked for you as I’m beginning looking for a job as well.

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Very impressive! Congratulations and good luck, keep it going! I hope one day I will post a similar message here. Currently I work at SVAYA and it has nothing to do with programmings (still a nice place anyway) and I keep working on it and this site helps a lot. Such posts motivate as hell.

Congrats, hard work pays of

Congratulations ! Good Luck

Congratulations! The doors have been opened. Things can only go up from here. Keep us up to date with your progress!

Congrats. It is really good news. Your Hard works makes you happy. Contribute in the team and Go ahead for Big scope. Best Of Luck.

Congratulations! Just reading your story makes me want to work 10 times harder to reach my ultimate career goal. I hope I can follow in your footsteps!

Congratulations, that’s a lot of commits, very impressive!

Your post is extremely Motivating, thanks for sharing…
In what did you contribute in github? Thanks in advance.

Very well done it looks like you’ve worked really hard and it finally paid off, a really motivating story.

Re javaScript, do you have any tips? You said you really, really struggled, are you able to outline what you did overcome that (or was it just your time in the boot camp that did it) I’d be really interested to know?

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Beyond the bootcamp, the genius classmates I had, the udemy courses I took on the side, all of it was combined into just hard work. I can’t emphasize enough to build things, then google what you are struggling with. Understanding algorithms was one thing (ex: basic things like reverse a string), but it didn’t fully click until I built projects that it all came together. I believe everyone struggles, but it is persistence overall and becoming familiar. I made a mistake in getting frustrated with myself in something I had never done, which is silly. I know that I have gone through the journey in other aspects of my life, being a newbie, but eventually learning and gaining a newfound skill. Coding is just another skill you must chip away at. Although cliché, the quote will always ring true in my head:

“If you know the way broadly, you will see it in all things.” ~Musashi

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I have two sites I did for freelance:
https://www.chizetteart.com - My current project. Done with React Node, Express, & PostgreSQL. I created the API, made calls to it, fully authenticated (hashed password - bcrypt & salts) for the artist to CRUD the data. There are things I coded from scratch, like the slideshow parallax on the main page, the animated name in the navbar, and the animated crystal at the bottom, that I could’ve used a library for. Although this has been a project where I have learned a TON. I am currently in the process of integrating the Stripe API & Printful API for selling of the art.

https://www.gabeecoffee.com - Done with JAM stack (Javascript - (React), API, & Markup), it was interesting to do this, but it was done with new technologies and GraphQL as a backend.

My Github, not the cleanest, some repos are private, but it shows things I worked on during the bootcamp and out of it.

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Thanks, I appreciate your response, sometimes i think i’ll never get it but responses such as yours help me stay motivated

Congratulations, thats pretty fast to complete the full course at FCC in a year’s time …wow…I I started 4 months ago and have only covered till OOP. I am only doing from FCC not from any other bootcamp, do you think that I will do well? After seeing your speed, I am feeling inspired yet shaky.

Congratulations man…

Wow Congrats man. I really motivated your speech. But I have an question for you. Are you a native English speaker?

I go to Bootcamp in Hamburg. But I struggled with my English. I am good on coding side. I understand the lessons clearly. But I can’t speak English. How can I improve my part of speaking?

I need an advice man :frowning:

Wow! That’s such great inspiration and really lights the fire in me. Hard work really pays off!