There are so many inspiring stories of people getting into the software industry later in life - learning to code in a self-taught way and getting a job as a programmer.
There are also many people who've been in the software industry for a while (10+ years) who've felt stuck in their roles. And they are also transitioning and finding their path to roles that better suit their strengths, interests, and lifestyle. I am curious to hear more of those stories. Especially those where the goal is to still have a role that has something to do with code (i.e. didn't transition out of coding to managing or something).
I know devs who've transitioned from programmer at a company to
- freelance, consultancy
- teaching (programming courses to books to bootcamp teachers)
- bootstrapping their own internet business
- developer advocate, conference speaker, author and such
Or starting a community for developers and maintaining the open source codebase behind that :)
I transitioned from being an embedded firmware engineer programming implantable medical devices to a full-stack web developer working in a health tech startup after 8 years. (very different worlds, plan to write more about this later on)
I would love to hear your career transition story within SW. What steps did you take to navigate through the unknowns and find your way to a role that you now enjoy? How did you find the mental energy to do this? How did you learn what was even possible?
(with this thread I am hoping to illuminate paths that could perhaps inspire someone who is feeling stuck in their current role).
Top comments (8)
I have been working with React and modern Js for a year now.
Before that, I was stuck in confort zone, coding Magento stores for 7 years.
I started Udacity React Nano Degree program and after completing it, i quit my old job with money to live for 3 months. My ten years experience helps and I got a new job really fast.
So, I have working with React for a year and really enjoying so far.
If I would gave some advice for someone in same situation, I would tell you to don't get too much focused in code, trust in other skills like soft skills and teamwork, most companies are really looking for this.
Awesome! So great to hear your story! Sounds like you had a specific change in mind and you were able to make it happen by focusing your learning to a specific technology. For those that might be curious, how long did the transition that take, from the time you decided to make the change to getting the new job?
Also TIL that Magento is e-commerce platform in PHP, never knew about it :)
Thanks for sharing your story Luiz!
Took me 7 months, from start React course to start new job.
I had no experience with modern Js before and in react course was the first time I touch react
Nice! Congratulations to you on making this transition and good to hear that you're really enjoying your current role :)
I'm pretty much self taught. "Pretty much" because while I did attend a year long "intensive" programming course, it was in no, way, shape or form even close to quality education (I don't include it in my online presence and don't tend to bring it up in discussions other than sharing how to throw money away). In this case, it provides a bit of context.
I first spent a year or so at a small family run development company after which I was lucky enough to land a gig at Electronic Arts. As a purchasing assistant. I'd interviewed a there a couple times previously for engineering roles but was so far behind the curve it was laughable. The reason I took the gig though was because the manager was looking for someone with wev dev experience. I didn't have much, but just enough to land the gig.
I learned. A lot. In a short time. I spent roughly the next decade or so transitioning from a purchasing assistant to a bonafide web developer, to a front end engineer (eventually becoming the lead for a relatively large team), to contributing to game client teams (mostly gameplay with a sprinkling of rendering), to moving to popcap post acquisition to work on devops and back end server work. The entire time I was there I worked my ass off learning those academic things that I'd never touched before. Design patterns, algorithms, some math (linear algebra and a touch of calculus) and C/C++. It was an incredible learning experience and even through the crunch times, I really don't have much negative to say about it.
However, ten years or so is a looooong time. I felt totally baked into the EA way of doing things. The frameworks, the processes, the people. I had no idea how the outside world worked, and not coming from the traditional (at the time) CS background, I always felt like I was just lucky enough to be an engineer at EA, that nothing I'd learned was transferable (I mean, how many non games companies used ActionScript?!). I was overly pessimistic about external opportunities and, quite frankly, too scared to even try.
And then I had a kid.
I was already commuting an hour either way daily. So add the crunch times onto that and you really don't have much time to spend with your family. That combined with the fact that the satellite popcap studio I was then a part of was being shut down, I decided that it was finally time for a change and it gave me enough reason to get out there and start interviewing.
I interviewed with two prospective employers and was offered two great opportunities. For someone who was too scared to leave the EA nest it was a pretty big confidence booster.
I ended up taking a role at Demonware (not out of the gaming industry but far enough removed from game clients that I had much more time with my family) and spent the next two years there. It was the happiest I'd been in ages.
Then the big change came about five years ago or so when I took a leap and left the gaming industry entirely. I've been at Salesforce ever since and couldn't be happier.
If there were a few learnings I took away from it, they are:
Thank you for sharing Demian! There is so much here, and so much that resonates and so much that I have follow-on questions about.
There are so many stories like this of evolving one's sw career over time. It isn't easy though we can learn from each other. Perhaps I need to interview bunch of people and tease out insights and wisdom to share with others.
Thanks for taking the time to write this down!
Happy to share! I probably would have written more if I wasn't replying from my mobile ;) Happy to answer any follow-on questions that you may have.
Interviews to back a post seems like it'd be a great idea!
Started as trainee database developer, after almost a year, promoted to database developer. One and half a year layer promoted to database development technical lead due successful initiatives, after about two years transitioned into a technical team lead of a software engineering team. That's all within the same company.
Soon to start a Site Reliability Engineer role on a new organization 🙂