I have been getting lots of emails from people telling me that this process to be a developer is just way too hard either their cs degree is way too hard , self-study is way too hard, interview prep is way too hard or their bootcamp is way too hard
Though it can be extremely hard, I am here to tell you should keep going and you should keep pushing forward.
I am writing this article to motivate you guys, and I want to let you know that you are on the right path and this journey is going to be worth it. I promise you 100% is going to be worth it. Switching career in tech has been the best decision of my entire life. It is the best decision I have ever made, and I bet you not to quit because it will be worth it soon.
Amongst many reasons that might exist out there I have few that have helped me and could eventually help you as well.
These are all of them.
1. flexibility
One of the main things I ask a recruiter or at the job interview is the flexibility. Flexibility to be able to change roles. For instance, I might get hired as a front-end developer and decide a few months later that I want to switch the role to be a backend developer, which is great and helps me improve my skills as a software engineer. Flexibility to work from home. Though most industries haven’t moved to a remote job yet, I still enjoy the peace of working at the office. Flexibility helps you archive things that you can’t really do in other industries. I remember meeting two friends on Instagram a year ago and these guys had a great idea for a startup. They hit me up and asked me if I wanted to join their team to build an entire software in six months. One was living in China and the other in Pakistan. I was living in Reston Virginia at the time, and I decided to move to Africa for five months. We started a project and communicated through zoom and hosted our source code on GitHub. Flexibility is something that helps when you are a software developer. This is one of the best careers above others careers out there.
2. creativity
Having an idea and turn it into code and helping the world use it is amazing. The main reason why I really love software engineering is the capacity to build something like people could use at all the time. I remember when I started coding a few years ago, before even working for companies, I was able to build some side hustles business, which was obviously a simple blog where I was sharing my story to the world on how I became a developer. Within that app, I was selling amazon products like books and other tech equipment along with running ads from google AdSense. I was really motivated because in just a few months, I was able to already generate passive income for myself. Also, there is lots of creativity involved in the job. For instance, I have had an experience of doing jobs that are very robotics and very routine. They just honestly suck. I’ve done jobs that all you must do is copy and paste. I remember working as a ticket counter agent for Dulles international airport where I have to check passports for travelers and the bag's weight every single day without any improvement. Few months in, I got bored and eventually quit since there was no creativity involved in the process. As a developer, you are problem solving every single day. You are given tasks that have unclear solutions, and you get to come up with creative ways to solve these problems. Not only are you constantly tackling difficult tasks, but you are also getting to learn new things. I think that being a software engineer is the ability not only to be creative at your job but to do problem solving every day regardless.
3. High salary and amazing benefits
Software development pays well. It may take sometimes to get where you want to get but ultimately once you have x amount of experience underneath your belt, You are going to make a really good salary, not only six figures but even more. I mean, let’s be honest, who is paying 22 years old or 23 years six figures salary like this? Well, very few industries are doing that. I used to work as a civil engineer, and the salary wasn’t that great though I was working on designing houses using software like AutoCAD, ArchiCAD and so on. I think if you are someone who cares a lot about financial stability and is concerned about your finances and wants to fight against or want a very stable life financially, being a software engineer can be a good way to kind of guarantee financially independence and to guarantee financial stability. In the USA, according to Glassdoor, the average salary for software developers is $92395/year as entry level. Of course, depending on where you live. I think that being a software engineer, you have access to awesome benefits. In addition, some companies provide you with free lunch, you have access to good healthcare, you have unlimited access to unlimited vacation time. You have access to a wide array of benefits that lots of other industries don’t offer. I remember working as a civil engineer, we almost never got free lunch unless there was an executive meeting. Just an idea of having free lunch is a game changer in addition to a good salary.
4. High demand
There are lots of opportunities available for people with the skills set of programming. Lots of industries are extremely difficult to break into. I remember when I graduated with a bachelor degree in civil engineering, and I was looking for my first job before waiting to be a software developer, it took me almost a year before I could even get companies to look at my resume or even call me in for an interview. This is not so far from reality for lots of other industries. Lots of industries can be very tough to get a job when starting off and in certain industries, they might not even look at your resume or consider your resume unless you went to a certain school or have a certain background. I feel like in tech, there are opportunities and there's lots of rooms for people from untraditional backgrounds because of the high demand and the high need for developers. I will say passing the technical interviews is very tough but getting the opportunity to interview is not as difficult as you might think. So, without a cs degree, I was able to get interviewed at the big tech companies easily literally because there is so much demand for developers. It means that there are opportunities for you if you are interested in software engineering. There are statistics that also show the demand for software developers is going to grow by 21% from year 2018 to year 2028. That is something to consider when you are choosing a career. It is a career that is growing quickly. Because of those things, it means there will be more opportunities for you
5. Freelance work
The skills that you gain can be used for entrepreneurship or to do freelance work. Not lots of industries have skills that can transfer to you working for yourself. I think it is a huge superpower that you have a skill. You can say I want to build x products and you have a skill to be able to build those products, then you can easily do it yourself. You have a choice of building SaaS (software as service) , start a freelance git or build your own company. You have an option of a variety of choices. Software engineering provides lots of flexibility and lots of opportunities for you as a developer. I don't know a lot of other industries where it is easy to take their skills that you acquire from your job to build an entirely new company. I think it is very important to note that the skills you are developing during this period of time can be used to help you launch your own thing and allow you to be more entrepreneurial.
6. community
We have an open-source community which is an amazing way to innovate collectively through code. We have so many organizations that invest people’s ideas to make dreams come true. We also have amazing creators on YouTube and other platforms where they share their experiences. for example, we have people who constantly create courses on YouTube and give us tips and tricks on how to become a better developer to help us brush up on some skills set or just to improve the current skills sets that you have. To be honest software engineering is a best career choice now moving forward. If I had to start all over again, I wouldn't major in civil engineering, but I would instead major in computer science, however, civil engineering has helped me to understand programming better due to lots of math, logics and so on. In general, civil engineering helps me understand other industries. I really have no regret. Something I would’ve done more if I had to start all over again while taking a computer science class could be to build more side projects in order to improve my skills to become a great developer. In addition, I would’ve also focused on learning SEO, which is a great course when it comes to making a passive income while learning to code.
I hope this article very motivated you and gave you some other reasons why you should keep pushing. You should keep trying towards this path because I promise you it will be worth it.
All your sweat, all your hard work will be worth it at the end and I am speaking for the first personal experience that it was worth it for me. Please don't quit. We all know it is not easy, but it will definitely pay off at the end.
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