So early this year I began using FCC for the first time. I’ve learned to code many times in my life, then dropped it for several months or years only to get back and don’t remember anything, the logic I tend to recall, but nothing about the syntax of the language itself.
Back in February 2017 I sat down for many hours a day probably for 2 weeks or so and got to the Wiki viewer project. It took me longer than I would have liked, other things came up in life and I dropped the momentum yet again. I tried retaking the projects and nope, pretty much all gone, when reading the code I understand what’s it doing, but writing it from scratch nothing comes to my mind, so I started all over again last week, but this time slower. Reached the Tribute page today
I’ve always enjoyed programming I initially learned C, C++, VB(before.net) even old and simple Basic back in the 90 I even tried to get into assembler when I was sort of good and trying to mess with software and managed to do very simple things like avoiding expiration on software triails and things like that, but I get into the bad habit of not continuing and when I starting getting the grasp of it I don’t continue. Learning again from scratch is a pain specially as I get older.
I had the good fortune that I landed a very good job back when I was younger with a fortune 50 company while living in a 3rd world country, due to my extensive knowledge in many IT related topics mostly Hardware and infrastructure and I’ve also been very good at my jobs.(based on my performance reviews over the years not my opinion) . This helped me grow significantly from where I initially started.
15 years or so have passed, I am currently in a very comfortable place, to comfortable I would say, where I am responsible of many countries and have folks reporting to me from various parts of the world. The job has become so easy for me that I barely have to work, everything runs smooth with my team and I have got many hours of free time on my hands. I think many people would actually like to be in a position earning a very good salary and yet don’t have to kill yourself working, but it’s not all nice and shiny.
All this comes at a cost, you become complacent and stop self-improving. I used to be the “goto guy” for any IT related stuff, showed up at work at before 6AM left at after 8PM. Even had 36 hour shift because of major projects that required everything done over 1 day or night (IT infrastructure changes) and I actually loved it. Now IF I go into work it’s not more than 4-5 hours and yet my team and all my projects do fine.
After doing what I could probably described as “Soul searching”, what I found out was although I’m doing my job good enough to get kudos from time to time, I’m extremely unmotivated. It simply doesn’t fulfill me any longer. There are many reason why this probably happened, but in the end, I believe this all comes down that I started as someone working hands on in the Tech world and early on I realized that as a Tech, at least where I live, I would never make the big bucks and moved quickly into the management branch, and turns out I was actually good at it. I really enjoyed everything that came with the roles, but I missed getting my hands into the tech stuff myself.
Initially when I started in the company I planned my path to become CTO of a major company in the next 20 years. On year 10, after starting at entry level Tech position I was in a IT Director position and VP and Sr. VP didn’t look that far away. Now that doesn’t interest me one bit regardless of the salary.
I believe I need a change and I don’t want to just go to a different company and start all over again, getting to know everyone and you being known to perform just managerial and decision-making tasks. I know I will just remain complacent and being new, regardless of your positions, doesn’t play well.
What I would love is to work in a big development company or have my own business, however I never fully got into programming to be an “expert” just learned the basic every time on many languages.
I’m getting tired of this Learn, Forget & Repeat cycle I’m in on the Development world, but this time I really want to push forward. I realize I have a great opportunity where money is not an issue as a I have a stable job, which I did work my ass off to get initially and I got the time to learn. Hopefully the 42nd time is a charm (it’s been probably more than that).
I know more than someone will be pissed that I haven’t taken advantage of the lucky situation that I’m at. I try to think how I would fell when I started in the IT world and I know younger me would be freaking pissed at present me, more like disappointed I would say, but I write all this because I’m interested in knowing if someone as gone through something similar where you are actually pretty successful in your current job/role, but you wanted to move into the development world and you did so successfully. I would love to hear the story, I enjoy so much reading people’s success story after struggling in life or not finding a good job, I’m not in that situation fortunately but it deeply inspires me. And I know my situation could change at any time.
I’m also writing this as my first post so I can remind myself of what I feel right now and what I know deep down is what I really want. Hopefully in a few years I can read this again and either hate myself for just venting and doing nothing or looking back and say, well that was my turning point and I actually did it.
Thanks in advance for anyone sharing their story, really looking forward to read some.