My journey and reason behind learning to becoming a Software Engineer. Bootcamp style.
It all started in 1991, i was a wee little tyke..
Ok let me save you the boring insignificant details and jump right into the thick of it.
Before i do though i want to mention that i have NO background at all in programming or computer science. So if i can do it, you …Yes you.. can do it to. I still see you… you might want to turn your webcam camera lens away from your face. Ok ok, seriously no more jokes.. let’s get to it.
I’ve been to college, tried to 2x actually. First as a criminal justice major, next as a business admin major… both times I really didn’t like it. The learning was slow and dove into details about crap no one needed to know.
I dropped out after the first time, went back 2 years later and dropped out again.
It’s now early 2016 and I’m turning 25 In a few months (in super fast forward mode here; stick with me)
I’m a personal trainer and quite entrepreneurial on the side. Personal training makes decent money.. But it is way to unpredictable with clients cancelling and changing things around.
I needed to figure out what I wanted to do for a career and I needed to figure it out fast.
It all started with a software me and a partner tried to get developed in the beginning of 2016. Like many people, I’ve read countless articles of entrepreneurs in the software industry scoring big exits and I wanted in.
So we pooled together some money and went off to hire an outsourced developer. now… while this might work for some other people.. It did not work for us. We didn’t know where to look and wound up going with a group of developers from India.
Quite a few thousand dollars and months later.. We still did not have a finished project. Not only that, but they were getting annoyed whenever I asked them to fix something they spelled poorly or looked out of place.
Long stressful story short, we fired them and hired a new group. Only to find out they needed to rewrite a majority of the code. It’s now present time and we still don’t have a finished project.
I’m impatient.
Finally I’ve decided to cut our losses and dive right into software development myself, I found a serious joy and fun time in wire framing and thinking out the layout of software products and features.
So I figured why not try to learn development myself, I’ve toyed with the idea previously for about 2 years. And if only I started for real 2 years ago…
Anyway, you need to be ready willing and able to want to do something like this.
I’m learning software development for 2 main reasons and a plethora of other small reasons that fuel the 2 main reasons, but here they are:
2 reasons why.
- I want to get a job as a software engineer because I enjoy it, and the pay is great. Even at starting salary levels.
- I’m entrepreneurial, I have a strong interest to build and develop my own softwares and grow revenues to levels at which I can either passively continue forward, or be acquired.
Learning to engineer software will undoubtedly uncuff me from a future of struggling to pay bills and will set me onto a path of financial freedom.
I’m looking forward to documenting my journey and sharing more tidbits of information regarding lessons learned and stresses and successes.
Until next time…
