This year has been a season of reflection and change. I was working as a personal banker when the coronavirus broke out. This was a job I had a held for a year and a half. I’d received praise from my superiors, and was even given a promotion. Despite that success, I was unsure of whether a future in personal banking was really what I wanted for my life. People were unapologetically rude to me on an almost daily basis, and I had been a victim in multiple robberies. Frankly, it gave me a lot of anxiety. But changing careers is hard, I felt like I was excelling in my job, and I didn’t want to jump ship on my team.
When COVID hit the US, I was considered an essential worker, and continued to go into work at the branch. My bank took all the precautions to ensure we were protected, but being on the front lines made me uneasy. I was worried I might be increasing my chances of being exposed to the virus. Also, the ever-present threat of my branch suffering another robbery loomed over me as I read about millions of people losing their jobs. During the first few months of COVID, our branch’s lobby was closed and we served customers strictly through the drive-through. So that helped to ease some of my stress. But, as if it were a sign directed at me, telling me once and for all that I needed to get out, the very same week we opened the lobby back up to our customers, my branch was robbed. In the immortal words of the Doors, “The time to hesitate [was] through.”
Software engineering was the first field that I considered that felt right, and for a variety of reasons.
• The job outlook is promising - employment for software developers is projected to grow 22 percent from 2019 to 2029, much faster than the average for all occupations.(1)
• The pay is pretty sweet - The median annual wage for software developers was $107,510 in May 2019. The lowest 10 percent earned less than $64,240, and the highest 10 percent earned more than $164,590.(2)
• Software engineers can often work remotely—and who wouldn’t want to have the freedom do go on a road trip or vacation to the Bahamas and not have to use vacation time? Also, there are some foreign employers on the other side of the world who hire engineers in the US so they can have round-the-clock IT support.
• I’ve also had an interest in coding ever since my teen years dabbling around customizing my MySpace page. That interest was deepened in my first job out of college, an accounting gig where I had to use Excel to build custom, automated financial reports for company executives.
With all these stats in mind, I began to dream about what I would do with this particular set of skills. One goal I have upon completing this program is to find a company for which I could use my creativity to design the look of their website, and then use my technical abilities to sustain the site in line with the mission of the company. I want to build user friendly, professional looking websites that create positive experiences for customers and facilitate interactions between those customers and my company.
My other goal is to begin freelancing to my friends and other entrepreneurs. I want to support those who are also following their passions. I want to work with people who uphold values similar to mine, who live and work with integrity.
I want to work for companies who improve the lives of their customers and community through creative innovations, with disciplined and passionate employees. I believe that when people of similar values collaborate, communication comes easy and the drive to succeed is apparent within the group. When everyone is working towards a goal that’s bigger than any one individual can achieve on their own, the success becomes more than a career boost, it’s about the satisfaction of having made a positive impact that comes from creating a superior product or service. We need more of this in the world today.
So here I am writing my first blog post, as a student of Flatiron School.
(1) https://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/software-developers.htm#tab-6
(2) https://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/software-developers.htm#tab-5
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