How I Became A Software Engineer with NO CS DEGREE!

[Music] hi everyone as the title says I'm going to talk to you guys today about how I became a software engineer without a degree I thought it was important to share my story because I noticed on a lot of other YouTube pages there's a more traditional background from a lot of people in the industry where they received a CS degree and then you know they went through the interviewing process etc etc my journey was a little bit more unique so I want to share that with you guys today and maybe give you a little bit more of a new perspective on how you could maybe break into the industry you know growing up I was always kind of introverted I always kept to myself but as a kid I was always really interested in how things worked right I I would take my toys apart my electronics and put them back together and sometimes they worked and sometimes they didn't so I would always be very interested and you know what made things work and I always carried that with me as I grew up in high school I really just did enough to get by I really wasn't you know that great at math or anything like that I did excel in English and reading and language arts and that kind of stuff so that's really what I was more like passionate about in high school that in science if anything but as far as like having a math background I really you know that wasn't my strong suit so I graduated from high school and then I spent you know a couple of years after high school just kind of hanging around my town I grew up in and you know just trying to figure out my way what I was doing I you know worked at a pizza place for her you know a number of years I managed a pizza place here locally and at some point you know I just need I figured out that I had to do something different so after a number of years of working at this pizza place and trying to find my way I said you know I got to go back to school I got to do something with my life so I ended up going to Community College here locally and even getting my a degree and you know from that point I applied to Florida State University got into there and I actually ended up majoring in English since you know I did being quite a proficient writer so I did that I graduated in 2013 and I ended up coming back home because English degrees really there really wasn't much that I could do with it I didn't really want to be a teacher but you know like I said I did have the communication skills I was able to communicate you know effectively you know writing and things of that nature so I came back home and I started managing at the pizza place that I worked at before I went to college of all I was in college and eventually I got a job as a technical recruiter for the nuclear energy industry so day in day out I was making cold calls and you know talking to these engineers and scientist and you know letting them know about job offers that we had around the country and basically just trying to you know recruit making commission I did that for about a year and then I moved into a technical recruiter position for the software industry and once I started doing that I just became really interested in the field so I was constantly interfacing with software engineers and QA testers and all these people from the industry and I would you know go to their offices and just be around you know the industry itself and see the kind of cool projects that they were working on and I really you know got me interested and you know this and like I said I was always interested in how things worked and I always loved computers love gaming all that you know kind of stuff so I just started taking it upon myself to you know study a little bit more about you know software development started picking up some books I believe I started with a Python book it was an introduction to Python actually so yeah I started with this book Python programming it's an introduction to computer science by jöns ill you know touched on Python basics but it really touched on programming basics a lot you know your stuff like for loops you know classes and object-oriented programming there's a really good book for that and I was just doing this so I could basically become more proficient at my job as a recruiter so when I was having these conversations with software engineers I didn't sound like a complete idiot I wanted to know you know be able to communicate with them and know more about their skillset communicate that effectively with them so I just started off that way and then I became more and more interested in it started writing programs at home just you know basic stuff making basic GUI applications and things like that so my friend Tyler called me up one day and I had known him for years we worked at the pizza place together you know so he's a software engineer and he let me know that the company that he was at was looking for a technical record he knew of that I had graduated with a English degree and he thought that it would be you know a good fit so of course I was excited about this opportunity he said that he had already you know recommended me for you know the position and put in a good word and you know I got to talking to him and I let him know hey I'm actually studying software engineering right now I'm really interested in that do you think that there would be a potential to where I could move into a position there you know eventually of course like I was ready to get out of my recruiting position because honestly like I had just fallen you know out of interest with it so he said that he put in a good word for me and that I should apply for the position that's exactly what I did and you know I used that as an opportunity to get my foot in the door with the skillset that I had I ended up interviewing for the position and I had studied for you know quite some time before this I studied you know Python and C++ and you know brushed up on you know a lot of those topics and you know all the core fundamentals of programming and you know my interview was you know very you know kind of informal the you know hiring manager was very laid-back they were a you know startup company so I was a very relaxed atmosphere and basically they just let me know like hey you know they were looking for a technical writer to write their users manual for their product and you know of course like I was you know excited I brought writing samples from my days at college but then I also you know let them know that I was very interested in software development and they kind of put me on the spot and they were like oh really like you're interested in software development how about a coding challenge like would you be interested in that and I said I was pretty nervous so I was like yeah sure I'll I'll do the coding challenge so right there you know on the whiteboard they ended up presenting me with this problem it was basically how to solve a problem using recursion which I had just studied at the time so I was pretty familiar with that so anyways they ended up giving me this problem and I solved it and I was very surprised that I got it right they were very excited that you know not only was I this technical writer I mean I was gonna help them you know potentially you know write user manuals for their software product but then I also had the potential to you know become a software developer as well so I ended up getting an offer letter that day I went back to my recruiting job went back to the office and I got an email with an offer letter probably within like three hours and you know I was crazy excited I was so stoked I felt like my life was turning around you know at this point I kind of felt like I was like heading down a dead-end I ended up accepting the position obviously and I you know started there I wrote the software users manual and then I eventually moved into more a QA tester position since I became so familiar with the products from writing the manual so I was doing a lot of testing manual testing and then I ended up getting into some automated testing which required me to you know write some code in C++ and also Python become familiar with that process and then eventually that moved into a DevOps engineer position so I was responsible for you know maintaining their build processes and their continuous integration continuous delivery basically making sure that all the code that the developers made was you know being source controlled and that it was being tested and that it was you know going into the proper going through the proper processes before it was integrated back into the code base and that's currently what I'm doing now and I've been doing for the last two years and I've been at my company for three years now so my journey was not you know very traditional I was very lucky and I acknowledged that I know that there's a lot of people that go through multiple interviews before they are able to you know land a position I think the one thing that I really had going for me was that I was very enthusiastic about learning and they were very impressed that I was able to self study and get spun up on these concepts you know all my own I think that goes a lot further than a lot of people you know give it credit for so for me it was just about you know getting my foot in the door and showing that hey I can prove myself and like I said I get that my experience is unique so I don't expect everybody else you know had this same kind of experience but at the same time you know I thought it was important to share my story with you guys and let you know that you can do it on your own through self-studying you don't necessarily need the cs degree in all cases in fact when I was recruiting and what I'm seeing now more in the industry is that it's more about what you can do can you solve those coding problems can you actually communicate effectively a lot of times we see that software developers are you know pretty socially awkward so like if you can just show that you're down-to-earth and you can communicate well within a team I think that goes a lot further than a lot of people like to give it credit for those soft skills are important too it's not all about you know your programming prowess and to speak it's more about how you work within a team as well but that's gonna pretty much do it for today's episode you guys if you like the video just go ahead and like and subscribe if you have you know your own experiences about the industry that you want to you know talk about please comment below if you have any questions also be sure to hit me up in the comments I'll get back to you guys as soon as I can but I'm gonna try to post content here at least a couple times a week but until next time you guys have [Music]

Channel: Brandon Does It All

Views: 9,833

Rating: 4.9179106 out of 5

Keywords: software, development, computer science, developer, software developer, software engineer, programmer, programming, coding, coder

Id: jCyAi_8ILxs

Length: 13min 55sec (835 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 27 2020