The Formula For Success that Brought Me From Coding Bootcamp To Silicon Valley In Less Than Two Years
A few years ago, I was broke and frustrated. At the time I enrolled in coding bootcamp, I was crashing in my brother’s basement bedroom in the frozen Midwest, the depressing tableau complete with a mattress on the floor, and an overturned box for a nightstand.
Exactly two years to the day after graduating coding bootcamp, I was on a rooftop in San Francisco, looking out in awe at the glittering skyline, surrounded by tech people talking about synthesizers and science fiction. I was a few months into my new dream job, still astounded by having made it to that point.
In the two years between those moments, I had to step it up big time to change my life. I went to bootcamp, got my first engineering job, and one year later, landed my dream job in Silicon Valley.
I’ve learned a lot from the last two years, and if I can do it, I’m sure many people can. Maybe you can gain something from my experience. Here’s the hard work that went on behind the scenes at bootcamp and beyond. There might not be a magic formula, but here’s what I did:
1. Got Straightedge for Laser Focus
If you want to save time, think faster and more clearly, have better focus, and feel more in control of your life, you could do worse than go straightedge. That’s why I refused to touch a drop of alcohol (or any mind-altering substance) for the months leading up to, during, and after bootcamp. Friday nights looked different, but I figured I wanted my whole life to look different, so why not start with Friday nights?
It’s not easy, but if you want to put yourself light-years ahead in life in a short amount of time, total sobriety and regular meditation can transform your ability to work hard, think clearly, and remain calm under pressure. Within days, you’ll feel more in control, and over the longer term, those miniature wins lead to a giant, unstoppable snowball effect of success.
2. Had a Vision
If you were going to set out on a journey, you’d want to know where you were going, wouldn’t you? One of the main causes of my lack of success earlier in my career was because I didn’t have a single direction to focus my energy on.
I wanted bootcamp to be different. Before I even began classes, I wrote a goals list. It had a need-to-have column and a nice-to-have column for my imaginary new job after graduation.
Writing a list before you begin is important. Going to coding bootcamp is stressful. Applying to jobs is stressful. Interviewing is also stressful. Changing your life is stressful. It can be really hard to make good decisions when you are stressed, tired, and trying to make it through the week. Taking time to set clear goals or a guiding vision before you dive in allows you to stay strong when the obstacles start to be overwhelming. When I was job-seeking, my early vision helped guide the roles I applied to. Those decisions helped me land the role I’m in now, at a company I had listed by name in my “nice-to-have” column. Having a direction is powerful stuff.
3. Started Networking and Found Peer Support
I used to cringe when people talked about networking. “Sure,” I used to think, “that’s great for people who HAVE networks, but I basically only know three people.” Well, when you find a community, it can make all the difference. That’s one of the main reasons coding bootcamp works. Everyone there has drive, and everyone there has something to prove. The administrators, instructors, and career advisors need to prove that their system works. The students need to prove that they have what it takes. They all want the same thing — high placement rates in good jobs. When everyone is doing what they need to do to reach the common goal, a really great community can spring up.
My networking consisted of meeting people on campus, joining a study group of five friends, joining an informal meditation group, cold-applying to jobs, and posting about code on social media. My friend groups and my social media posts eventually led to job offers. I’ve had three jobs in tech since graduating (one was a contract), and all of them came through my network.
Even if you think you don’t have a network, you might be surprised. Just throw a small update on social media, and see if other people might be interested in working with you. If you feel you want to meet more people in real life, taking classes that are really community-based will help. Personally, I found meet-up groups to be too impersonal, and I preferred more get-to-know-you settings. You just have to get out there, any way that feels right to you.
4. Ignored the Haters
Being one of five women in the coding bootcamp cohort wasn’t easy. I was also the only woman in my study group. Later, I became the only woman in the office at the company where I worked my first engineering job. Along the way, I faced a lot of anti-woman aggression.
Quotes like “women are the enemy,” and “women are less logical than men”, were part of the early challenges at bootcamp. Sexual harrassment from an erratic supervisor was another struggle early in my first software engineering role. Other times, I just faced gate-keepers who told me I wasn’t a “real engineer” because I worked with JavaScript (I’m full stack these days, but they can always find something to neg you for).
I just used it to dig deeper into code. Code itself doesn’t discriminate. Yes, an application can be built to be racist or sexist, but the lines of code themselves do not discriminate. They will run correctly or incorrectly based on the way it is written, not based on whether it was written by a woman or a man.
There are always haters when you’re doing something great. Sometimes the best way to shut them up is with your own success. Keep on pushing through, and one day maybe they’ll be in your inbox asking if you could shed some light on the interview process you went through to land that dream job.
5. Worked Super, Super Hard
I’m not going to belabor this point. When you’re working hard, you know it. Working hard isn’t enough by itself, but without it, nothing else can save you.
For me, working hard meant really long days, studying all day both days of the weekend, and pushing myself to take on bonus work. It was a six-month sprint of that lifestyle, and that was enough to push me way ahead in life. Grinding 60–80 hours a week endlessly might not be right for most of us, but in short bursts, that can really make a big difference.
6. Believed in Myself
They say success is almost never linear. There are always setbacks. I’ve hit a few already. The first was when it took way longer than I expected to land my first job. The second was when I was laid off a year and change into my first role when the startup failed to become profitable.
Both times, I bided my time with the confidence that I would be prepared when the right opportunity presented itself. I used the time to study, build projects, network, and most importantly, to take care of my mental health — by meditating, going outside, and taking it easy. Setbacks happen, you just have to breathe and have faith that things will work out if you keep putting one foot in front of the other.
7. Saved Money in Case of Emergency
If you become a software engineer or make any similar move from not having cash to having a sudden surplus of cash — you are in a great position to save some serious dollars. Having things is nice, and you can decide what level is appropriate and sustainable for you personally. For me, socking away a lot of cash was a high priority, because I was really eager to put space between myself and the proposition of ever having to move back home with my parents.
Hopefully, a layoff won’t happen to you. But if it does, having a cash surplus will make life way easier. It never hurts to be prepared for the worst. Because I was prepared when I was laid off, I was able to smile and hold out for the best possible fit for my next role. The cash surplus from aggressively saving during my first year of work was the thing that allowed me to take time to study and apply and network until I secured a job offer in Silicon Valley. Although many companies do offer relocation packages, they often are reimbursed weeks after your move, so it’s easiest if you’re prepared with cash of your own.
8. Said Yes to Every Interview
Say yes to every interview you are offered. You may feel underqualified, or you may feel uninterested in the company. Take the interview anyway. I have had two separate experiences now where one interviewer liked me, and although they didn’t offer me a role, they referred me to another friend of theirs at a different company that did offer me a job.
Recruiting in tech is expensive and difficult. Often, if you are a good candidate, an interviewer doesn’t want to let you get away even if they can’t hire you. They might be interested in helping out a friend or colleague at another company, in the hopes of that friend returning the favor someday.
Don’t be afraid to network just by going through the interview process. At the very least you gain valuable experience in a variety of interview formats — a great frame of reference as you decide what companies might suit you best.
Some Final Thoughts
That’s a pretty high-level list of some of the things that can help you ascend the climb toward your first big career goals in software or in your chosen field. And while those are the ones that probably got me the farthest in my transition from being under-employed in Minnesota to thriving in Silicon Valley, I want to leave you with just one more thought: when you achieve some success, stay humble.
I’m competitive, so I have to remind myself there’s no real way to “win” at life. Life isn’t a competition, and working in Silicon Valley or New York City or any cool spot is a blessing, but it’s not a trophy. While I have worked hard to reach success, there are many other people who have been denied the privileges and opportunities I’ve had, who may do a lot better than me if given the chance. Not only that, but after spending a few years working in education in a boots-on-the-ground sense, I see how unevenly hard work is rewarded. While being a software engineer is well-paid and respected, it certainly doesn’t make me a better person than anyone else, or even a better person than I was before, when I was so underpaid I could barely afford new winter boots.
A satisfying career that pays well is a great goal, but it’s only a slice of what makes a good life. Staying humble just helps you remember that.
Good luck out there, and drop me your thoughts if anything in this article struck you! Thank you for reading.
