Channeling my inner coder: the pursuit of my programming dream
I had never dreamt of a career in technology. It’s been an exciting journey as I’ve explored the world of software development, from zero skills to a full time developer at ITV.
Taking my first steps into tech
Technology had never been talked about as a career possibility when I was growing up. Like most young adults fresh out of uni, I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. I had an Economics degree but I knew I didn’t want to be an economist. It was only after working in a bar and a couple of admin jobs, I landed a role at ITV in the Broadcast Operations Connectivity team. My role was responsible for managing the delivery of live programmes, ensuring certain technical standards are met and helping keep ITV on air. This was a pivotal time, I learnt so much about the television industry, plus I absolutely loved my job and team I worked with.
A couple of years later a friend introduced me to the world of software development and I thought it sounded cool to try out. I began a couple of online courses and found I really enjoyed them. Despite just how integral technology and the internet are to our everyday lives, I realised it’s something we all take for granted and most of us have no idea how it works. It opened my eyes and made me want to find out more.
Can I call myself a developer yet?
On the grapevine I heard about an evening course, Get into Tech, hosted by Sky. It’s an initiative aimed at providing women with software development skills. I wasn’t successful the first year I applied, in hindsight this was a blessing in disguise. Following this first set back, I spent the next year teaching myself basic coding skills.
In the 2019 intake I was lucky enough to be selected as one of 16 women. We gained so much from learning as a group, it was without doubt a rewarding experience. As a team, we tended to learn quickly, getting different perspectives on a problem whilst complementing each other’s strengths. It was an intense four month course, the extra year to prepare definitely worked in my favour and it really boosted my passion for development.
Every night I would finish work, get home and open my laptop to start coding our latest project. I would look up at the clock and realise it was midnight and I hadn’t moved from the sofa in six hours. It never felt like a chore despite working double days, it made me realise I needed to pursue this as a career as I loved getting lost in the code!
Once Get into Tech was over, I didn’t want my developer dream to die. I reached out to the ITV engineering teams in Leeds and, with the blessing of my super supportive boss, spent half a day a week learning from some of our best engineers. I would come away from our afternoon sessions equipped with new knowledge, spending my evenings and weekends building on what I’d learnt that week. After a couple of months, they finally let me loose on some real code, it was awesome to be working on things that went live.
Landing my first full-time dev role
Towards the end of 2019, a new technology based secondment was announced. It was a pilot scheme and I knew straight away I wanted to apply. I was selected as one of three secondees into the Leeds engineering teams. Unfortunately my first day on the job our entire business moved to working from home due to Covid-19. Despite the adjustment to remote working and loss of Friday work beers, I’ve loved every second of it, I’ve never been so frustrated yet fulfilled in life.
The secondment has been a build-your-own experience, we can choose the areas of tech we want to explore. I’ve chosen the software engineering route, but I’ve been exposed to so many other cool roles in the tech sphere too. Every day brings new challenges and, working in a full stack team with a greenfield project in the pipeline, there are so many opportunities for me to learn about all sorts of new technologies. I’m grateful for the opportunity ITV has given me to broaden my skills. It’s such an exciting place to be at the start of my tech career.
What have I learned?
My main takeaway so far is to be ‘okay’ with feeling out of my depth sometimes and not knowing it all, it’s a mental barrier to break through and once through it makes you stronger. The world of technology is huge, there’s so much to understand you can’t possibly learn it all and it’s hard to know where to start. Take baby steps tackling one thing at a time and throw yourself into the areas you don’t understand.
Finding a mentor has been so important to my progress, having someone to turn to for some direction in this crazy complex world and who you feel comfortable asking those daft little questions to. I’ve been incredibly lucky to have such knowledgeable and patient mentors take me under their wing, I credit them for my achievements in the past year and it’ll be great to give back to the team.
You may feel like you’re moving slowly, and some days I wonder if I’m up to it, but when I take a step back and realise how far I’ve come, even in the past few months all the hard work has been 100% worth it!
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