Who am I and why am I here?

Those are some pretty existential questions, which I lack the philosophical prowess to address in-depth. For now, the following will have to suffice.

I am Sandy, a 27-year-old aspiring software developer. I’ve discovered my passion for coding relatively late in life, and like many others, have now taken it upon myself to make a dent in the world via the medium of code.

I am not here to tell you that I’ve picked up coding 6 months ago and already landed a job at Google. I am also not here to tell you that I’m a natural and dream exclusively in RegEx.

Instead, I am here to blog about my normal-paced, ordinary learning experience, in the hope I will solidify the knowledge I gain along the way and maybe even help or inspire some of you. I will be honest about my successes, but aim to also be transparent about the many frustrations that will inevitably arise as I try to navigate the tech industry.

First things first: I am not a content creator by nature. Using Twitter makes me cringe, the thought of seeing my face on video sends shivers down my spine, and the mere sound of the words “digital self-marketing” makes me feel nauseous. Even simple tasks like writing a Twitter bio or embellishing it with emojis has the potential to spiral into crippling anxiety for me.

What if I offend someone? What if I come across as unprofessional? Should I reveal my political leanings? Is it virtue signalling if I do? Will I be perceived as immoral if I don’t overtly support any causes in my bio? Does anyone care? Do I even care? Are selfies okay? If so, should I start taking selfies? (I did, see above). What pronouns do I use? Can I write “here to put the ‘soft’’ into software engineering” in my bio, despite realising after having come up with what I thought to be a unique and brilliant pun that the phrase was not only already taken, but also extensively printed on sweatshirts? None of this comes naturally to me.

Despite my reservations, as a proud self-proclaimed member of the group labelled by some as ‘sheeple’, I am a devout believer in the wisdom of experts. I choose to put my faith in those who walked this road before me. And what I hear over and over again is that in order to succeed in this industry as a “late bloomer” from a non-traditional background without a CS degree, one simply must resort to creating an online presence. And so, here I am — online and present. Hi!

And so, on top of further developing my coding skills, I will begrudgingly also have to learn to balance my innate disdain for certain aspects of social media and digital self-marketing with a desire to connect with others and succeed at my coding journey — let’s see how it goes. I am approaching my decision with a hefty dose of curiosity and am excited to see where it might lead. Probably nowhere, lol. Is it okay to occasionally resort to a sole “lol” in an otherwise coherent body of text?

I am hoping to find out the answer to this and many other extremely exciting questions along the way. I will stop short of telling you to follow me, because cringe, but do so if you must. In the end, the act of sharing my road to code equates to the long overdue admission that I live in the 21st century and should probably act accordingly. Let’s do this.