Here's mine.
Everything started back in 2015 when I got to college, by then the only thing I knew is that I love tech and wanted to work with it. 2...
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I did some coding when I was younger, got more into it in college but ultimately thought it wasn't truly for me and finished my degree as a business major.
Got my first "business" job and ran quickly back to coding, which looked so much better. Still do "business" as an entrepreneur, but my trade is in software development.
That transition back into code was intense because I really wasn't confident in my skills and I had no money. But I worked my ass off and I'm glad I made the leap.
During the recession in the UK I found myself newly graduated from art school and jobless. In the spirit of being stupid I set up a business making websites and eventually hosting and maintaing them. I was a terrible CEO and within 3 years the business started to dry up. I had a baby on the way and bills to pay. After being treated terribly at a contract role, I plucked up the courage ask to work at my dream job for Dyson... There where no jobs being advertised but despite this they gave me an interview, probably out of kindness more than anything, I started as a JR, here I am 2 years later. Baby now a toddler and I am well established in my team.
stained glass maker 👉 museum geek 👉 jack of all trades in a gallery
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developer and maker 👈 inbound marketer 👈 community manager
It all comes down to that first gig: making things for a living (stained glass at the time).
This feeling at the end of the day where something stands in front of you.
I've done a lot of wandering in my professional life but development is the first job where I feel the same way. There is nothing, you have an idea, you have the know-how to do it, then there is something. ✨
Crazy Transition here 😅
I was studying Aerospace Engineering in college as I was vastly invested in Space, Mars, The Jetsons, Time-Travel, Star Wars/Trek 🚀. But when I saw the rise of Facebook, Google, Uber, etc.. and people living amazing life through their coding job and some even landing jobs at top companies without a CS degree, I was intrigued to get into the field.
At that time, I was juggling Aerospace Degree, a Part-time job (struggling to pay for college and living a miserable life) and was about to get another side gig of learning to code (Crazy time but whatever needs to be done to get life back on track, right).
Google collaborated with Udacity and was offering Scholarships to 5000 students, hoping to get more people into tech so I applied to it and got in. That was my leap into programming and after that never looked back (Absolutely fell in love with coding). The program lasted 9 months and right after a month, I got my first internship as a Software Developer at an amazing startup (Also dropped out of College, Goodbye Aerospace lol). After finishing the internship, I got a full-time position as Software Engineer at another company which is where I am now. 😄 ✨🙌
A few years back I took the leap to change careers into coding, and did it through a great bootcamp style organisation here called CodeClan.
Before that I'd sort of fallen into a pretty successful career in student immigration but wasn't feeling fulfilled by it, as I really needed a task-based job where I'd get the satisfaction of creating things.
Honestly I can't believe no-one suggested CS careers to me when I was at school - I built my school's website, and spent lots of my free time creating fanpages on Geocities (remember the days? 😂). I don't know if that was a gender bias thing or if coding career paths were still a little unknown to teachers at that time 🤷
But I'm so glad to now be working as a software engineer and doing all the things I love - I just wish I'd done it sooner!
I built my first webpage with Frontpage as a school homework in the 5th or 6th grade.
My career started in university when a local e-commerce agency was looking for a helping hand. That turned into a regular job and eventually I could specialize enough to apply for larger jobs after I graduated.
Tech background: built my first website in grade 4 on Geocities (hayyyy!) and spent the next ~six years or so playing around on Geocities and Angelfire. I fell away from computers and tech in high school, spending more time focused on band and theater. Eventually went to college for Music Industry Management while working retail jobs (which I won't really outline here, but the tl;dr is ten years of retail.)
Around this time I noticed a lot of bands I liked using the same web host, so I started keeping my eye on them. Eventually, a Customer Support job opened. I applied and somehow my email caught their eye in a sea of hundreds. I spent four years in CS, and last year moved over into QA!