How I Stayed Motivated as a Self-taught Programmer
November 7 — I went from Salesman to Software Engineer.
Since 2014, I lived the mantra of ABC (Always Be Closing). That’s right, I was in sales. In fact, I was pretty good. At my most recent sales job, I was nominated by my Regional Manager, the boss of my boss, to be apart of the company’s first leadership program. I was 1 of 4 selected to be apart of the program out of 300+ employees across the U.S. & Canada. While I enjoyed it, something was missing. Even though this was good, I wanted great. I wanted to code.
About 19 months ago, I started learning Swift for iOS. I spent my nights honing my skills in the privacy of my home, after putting my two young sons to bed. While Swift was not my first programming language, it was the language I confidently said to myself, “This is the language I will be great at.” The confidence part was important because it was connected to the feelings of imposter syndrome I’ve had since 2009. But, that story will be for another time! :)
So back to November 7th. This was the day I accepted a position as a Software Engineer at Yelp. Crazy, right? I couldn’t believe it! Was I dreaming? This really didn’t happen… did it? Finally? It was so surreal to me; I didn’t let the world know till 5 days later!
