Beginning
It's still a little strange when I look at the path I took to getting into Software Engineering at FlatIron. I graduated with an Environmental Science Degree from Stephen F Austin in 2015. My first job was as a consulting utility forester for an electrical company on the east coast (half the country away from where I graduated). I wasn't making the money I wanted there so I did a complete career switch and moved back to Texas at the beginning of 2020 to try my hand in sales.
Transition
I did this for almost 3 years, but eventually I started to suffer from sever burnout. It was not fulfilling and amount of hours and stress wasn't worth the income. With some introspection I realized sales was not sustainable and no matter what dollar amount I made I would never love talking to people all day everyday. I liked using my mind to solve puzzles rather than using it to convince other people to buy things that I wouldn't even but myself.
My sister had gone through a very similar thought process more than a year before I did and I spoke to her extensively before making the switch. She had decided to change from sales to software engineering and had chosen FlatIron School as her starting point. She had already graduated and got a new coding job which she loved. Over a few months I always asked her how it was going and how she liked her new company. Her answer was always the same. She loved her company and she continued to love what she was doing. Since she continued to enjoy her job, I took it that her career switch as not just in the "honeymoon" phase.
Her path in conjunction with my own burnout was the reason I decided to switch. My wife and I were to due for a newborn at the beginning of February and I was lucky to have a job that offered extensive paid paternity leave. My upcoming child was the spark to sign up for FlatIron. I started at the beginning of January 2023 and have been loving it since then!
So Far
My career switch to software engineering is much better than being on call for an unfulfilling sales job All.Day.Every.Day. It scratches an itch I didn't even know I had and I love it. I'm only about 20% of the way through the curriculum (at the end of phase 1), but I've learned a lot more than I thought I would with the amount of time I've invested into this career path.
I've learned the basics of Javascript, HTML, and CSS. It feels like a lot, but I know I've just barely scratched the surface. To make an analogy to constructing a house:
HTML is like building the foundation and frame of the home.
CSS is creating the aesthetic of your home (color of the walls, species of landscape plants, construction materials).
Finally, Javascript is creating the functionality of the home and how it "does what it does". It's what makes the facet turn on, the toilet flush, or the AC cool your house.
Getting Laid Off
About five weeks into my paternity leave and the FlatIron curriculum my company terminated almost half of the sales positions they had. This was both negative and a positive. Although the latter vastly outweighed the former. I had never lost a job in my life before so I was concerned on how that would look on my resume and how to secure income in the future. Fortunately my old company took care of all their ex-employees they were letting go. They allowed me to finish my paternity leave and gave me a substantial severance package.
This was a blessing for me and my family. Not only will I be able to spend more time growing with my first newborn. I will have plenty of time to complete the FlatIron program AND secure a new job in the software engineering field. I was worried before because I would have to finish the program and get a new job while working at my overly stressful and demanding old sales position. Almost all the stress has been lifted. I'm not a religious person, but this definitely felt like a sign that I am currently on the right path.
Future with FlatIron
I'm looking forward with the next phases of the FlatIron curriculum. From the syllabus, we will be learning React, Python, and developing a better understanding of the full stack experience.
This is the first of seven blog posts I will be writing for the curriculum. They will be a little more indepth and technical than the intro I just wrote. There are a some topics that peaked my interest I would like to explore. The first being Undeclared Variables. I'm not 100% how they work, but my first experience with them was in the prework. The code I wrote was executing just fine, but I was certain it was supposed to give me and error because I hadn't used const, let, or var for a variable in my code. That lead me into a rabbit hole of the undeclared variables. Hopefully I'll be able to explore those in my next blog post, but no promises as they seem pretty deep.
Until next time...
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