My transition from personal trainer to software developer
Let’s Start At The Beginning
Three decades ago, when my family was in China, the possibility of coming to the U.S. was a farfetched dream. Until the year 1985, when my aunt married an American and started a family here in the states. This moment would drastically change the direction of my life. It took my father five years, but he eventually saved enough to leave Fu Zhou, China, and bring the rest of our family over.
I was three years old when we finally landed on American soil.
My parents didn’t speak English, so we mostly stayed within the community of immigrants in Woodside, Queens. I worked at the same restaurant as my father for years, until I was old enough to venture into the big city on my own.
With my experience, I was able to land a job as a busboy in Manhattan. For the first time, I was exposed to the world outside of the community I grew up around. Even with limited interaction, I saw that people had careers they enjoyed and made a good living doing them.
Growing up in my neighborhood, with no generations of family before me paving the way, the vision of possibilities was foggy.
So I began really searching for my passion in college. I knew that I liked science, math, sports and fitness — but didn’t really know what career path would satisfy these interests. So when a workout buddy recommended becoming a personal trainer, I thought “why not?” It’s worth a shot and aligns with the things I enjoy.
Years As A Personal Trainer
I was 20 years old when I landed a job working at Crunch, a popular fitness chain. I was having a blast meeting new people and building relationships. But mostly, I liked the feeling of having a positive influence in people’s lives. As a personal trainer, you are responsible for more than just the client’s physical health; you become their therapist, coach, and friend.
I quickly changed my major to Kinesiology and Nutrition, and over six years moved my way up the chain: Personal trainer → lead trainer → assistant fitness manager → fitness manager. During that time, I trained a wide range of professions including doctors, lawyers, models, unofficial princes, and politicians (but not any developers).
Eventually I wasn’t satisfied with my career anymore. For one, the role of manager was less fulfilling; I spent less time helping people and more time worrying about quotas. I wanted to get back to feeling like I was contributing, loving what I do, and being proud of myself at the end of the day.
It was a hard decision, but I ultimately took a paycut and stepped down from my managerial position. Did I want to go back to school? Should I be a lawyer? Maybe a doctor, given my interest in science and nutrition. These were careers that were respected in my community.
The idea of becoming a software developer never crossed my mind.
Until I met David Cascino, CEO and founder of Thunderclap.it. He became one of my clients around the New Year 2013, so we’d be working out and talking about life twice a week. Before founding a company he’d worked at a bunch of places: a factory in upstate NY, a shipping facility in Arizona, a tree farm in Minnesota, a salmon fishing in Alaska, etc. Eventually, he settled down as a developer when he was 25. I was 26 at this time, so his story resonated with me.
Knowing my strength in mathematics, and my personality in general, he figured I may like it and recommended looking into some beginner coding courses.
Getting to Know the Tech Industry
I was immediately drawn to tech culture. The overall progressive values of the industry were very in line with my own. I also liked the fairness of it; it’s honest work. As you improve and grow, there’s a direct correlation to how much you can contribute, and your career paths are wide open.
This was exactly what I was looking for. No bullshit. Just hard work and helping one another.
I began searching for introductory material online and came across Codecademy. It was a great way to get my feet wet — but I learn better in a classroom environment, so after establishing a strong interest I signed up for an in-person course at a popular programming school.
At the time, this felt like a huge risk. The cost of the course plus a new laptop was a substantial chunk of my savings… but I felt this was my chance to give it a legitimate shot and went all in. Classes were 3x a week for 3 hours. I also had to keep my job at Crunch to pay bills, so it was a pretty intense few months. But the way the course was presented, I would be able to apply for entry level SWE jobs as soon as it over.
This wasn’t the case. To be honest, I felt a bit cheated. I left the class with a surface understanding of various topics, and a deep understanding of nothing. But I didn’t want to stop, had to keep going so I continued working on rails in my spare time, building up my confidence to begin applying for entry level dev jobs. I would spend hours personalizing cover letters, writing essays, and going to weekly meetups with other students, hoping that a company would realize my ambition and give me a chance.
Introduction to DigitalOcean
I remember when I first came across DigitalOcean. I was at a meetup, and the group leader deployed a rails app to a Droplet (cloud server). Even for a novice developer, I was blown away by the simplicity and quickness. This was in 2013, when way less people knew about DO.
Later that same night, I decided to apply. I eventually received an email from Co-Founder Moisey Uretsky, who was doing the majority of the hiring (at the time DO was less than 40 people).
He told me DO wasn’t looking for any junior developers, but asked if I’d be interested in joining the support team. Of course a piece of me still really wanted a dev job; but a larger piece of me knew my lack of experience would be an obstacle, and that DO was a great place for me to break into tech.
You Had One Job! (Okay 3)
Moisey gave me three homework assignments to test my technical aptitude. The first two were beginner level (build a LAMP Stack & build a Wordpress Site), and the final assignment was purposefully more advanced (build a master-slave replication). I hadn’t done much server stuff and never played around with virtual machines, so the struggle was real. I worked through it and was able to complete the first two assignments…
But I completely failed on the third. I sent Moisey what I was able to finish and received no response. I was disappointed and feeling a little down about myself, thinking I just lost my one chance at a great opportunity.
For my own sake, I worked a few extra days to figure out what I was doing wrong. And then, finally, I figured it out. I sent Moisey a follow-up email with the solution and he immediately responded.
Moisey wanted to see my resilience. He didn’t expect me to have all of the answers, but he did expect me to work hard and push myself.
You can’t be overdressed for an interview, right?
Definitely wrong. I arrived with a suit to interview with Zach (Director of Support). I also mentioned that I was talking to a bank for a developer position (#truestory). These are all things that don’t particularly indicate you have an understanding of the startup culture. Needless to say, I did not make a good impression on him…
Three weeks go by, right through the winter holiday break. I emailed Moisey and Zach after the new year [2014] thanking them for the opportunity and their time, and that working in tech was still my dream and to let me know if anything else opens up. From what I’m told there was some back and forth internally, before they ultimately decided to bring me in for a trial period.
I would be the first non-technical support agent on the team — responsible for handling account and billing tickets — while the others were answering server-based questions. This actually gave the technical support staff some breathing room, improving response time and decreasing ticket volume.
You’re Hired!
For my first year at DigitalOcean, I put coding aside and focused on the task at hand: doing my job well. The company was everything I hoped for, and we were growing like crazy.
It also gave me a behind-the-scenes look at what being an developer was really like. I became friends with Joonas, one of the first developers at DO, and expressed to him that I really hoped to join his team one day.
He told me that if I really wanted to do it, I needed to completely immerse myself in a highly intensive course. The only one he could recommend personally was Turing School for Software and Design in Denver, Colorado for its quality and duration ( 27 weeks ).
There were other options; some that would even allow me to stay in NY, close to my job and family. But none of these seemed as promising. Zach, who always has everyone’s best interest at heart, encouraged me to take the leap and apply to Turing.
The application was a bit like applying to college. You needed to supply a bunch of materials, pass a logic challenge, provide a writing sample, and submit a video (posted below).
Not without some sweating, thankfully Turing accepted me. Now I had to really think about my path. My girlfriend Ellen, who knows me better than anyone, did not hesitate to encourage me to drop everything and move across the country. Her support made the decision a little easier.
Required: Live Seven Months Across Country
My focus was getting in; I hadn’t spent much time on the logistics. When it was official and I was accepted, the clock was ticking for me to find a place to live and figure out how I was going to pay for it.
Much of that anxiety was put to ease when Moisey asked to chat in private and pulled me into a conference room. This was a bit unusual. Our interactions were normally around the Street Fighter arcade game at the office…
We talked for a few minutes about how I was doing and how the move to Colorado was looking. I expressed that I was excited to finally take another step forward towards becoming a developer, but also nervous about everything coming together. Then he took out a check and pushed it across the table.
I looked at it and was overwhelmed by the gesture. He wanted to make sure that I wasn’t going to be stressed or in debt from this program.
How could I accept it? DigitalOcean had already done so much for me. But he assured me that it was fine and encouraged me to take it. I thanked him and let him know my intentions of returning to DigitalOcean and continuing to contribute the best I could. Then he said something that I will never forget.
I don’t care if you work here or somewhere else after. You did everything you needed to do here. I knew if I asked you to work late nights or weekends, you would. This is for you because you worked hard and you are a good person.
It’s easy to be inspired and work hard when you have a co-founder like Moisey. I’ve seen and heard many times where he ensures that his values, including Love and Community were a driving force in any decision.
My managers Zach and Tammy also completely believed in me. They did everything in their power to make sure I was set up for success. While at school, I was able to choose my own hours and work remote.
Back To School
In February 2014, I flew out to Colorado on a one way ticket. The program was vigorous, but from day one you could feel the community Turing was building. It was designed not just to teach you how to code, but to also work on a team, communicate with others, and realize there is a lot you do not know.
This sense of community and mentorship was immensely important, especially during those first six weeks when most of the class was barely staying above water (myself included). I needed their encouragement to just keep working at it. If you weren’t coding and practicing every day it was easy to fall behind.
I remember talking to my sisters on the phone, and they joked that if I failed, I shouldn’t come home. They weren’t being serious… but the fact that so many people were rooting for me back home made giving up out of the question. (#failureisnotanoption)
The aha! Moment
After 5 weeks things started to click. We were creating a Turing Machine — an encryption and decryption application — and I understood the architecture, the reasoning, and the logic. From this moment forward everything was easier — the workload did not lessen, but I was no longer barely treading water.
At the end of it all, I’d have to say it was one of the best experiences of my life. The instructors and alumni at Turing are truly amazing, selfless people who give so much to the students and the school. Some of my best friends are from there, and I still miss them all the time.
It was also one of my biggest accomplishments. Not just because of the difficulty or duration, but because of everything that led up to it. It was a couple of years working my ass off night after night, day after day with multiple leaps of faith to get where I am today. And I couldn’t have done it without so many of you.
My First Day as a Developer
A handful of months ago, September 1st to be exact, was my first day as a developer at DigitalOcean. My new manager, David Worth, had built an amazing team and completely set me up for success. The tasks assigned me to were playing to my strengths, at my skill level, and I was constantly learning. Anytime I was stuck, everyone on my team was there for me.
My first projects have been building tools and improving the UI for the support team. This has been especially gratifying, since I’m helping my former team with my new skills. It’s also easy for me to communicate across departments, because I understand the dynamics and intricacies of the support team at DigitalOcean.
The hard work is finally paying off, and I could not be happier.
It’s important to give back. I’ve volunteered to help other students around my neighborhood get ready for college and think about what they can achieve. I’ve also been a part of ––and will continue to be part of––panels and talks that help people that wish to make a change in their career.
I want to inspire others who want to take the next step in their lives. I also want to thank DigitalOcean, Turing, my family and friends, and everyone who supported me through this journey.
I do not think of myself as a brilliant or exceptional in any way. But I have been fortuitous enough to find exceptional people that believe in me and show me the way. My job has always been to look at the doors opening in front of me and not be afraid to walk through them.
Thinking about starting a career in the tech industry or have your own transition story? I’d love to connect! Reach me on Twitter [@BoomKenster] or via email [kenny@do.co]. And hey, if you’d like to work with me DigitalOcean is hiring more Rubyists.
