How I Became a Software Engineer Without a Degree Pt. 2

I just dropped out of college I was one semester into pursuing a computer science degree at Butler and then I had the bright idea to sign up for a six year enlistment for the Air Force three years into that enlistment I was really enjoying it until I deployed and I didn't I wasn't enjoying it as much I was working 12 hour shifts seven days a week and it was 115 degrees out there I just wasn't really having a good time I hated everything about my environment and I just felt so stuck like I made a wrong decision I took all that frustration that I had and I just like funneled it into figuring out how I was going to make a change in my life but at this point in my life I didn't know much else besides working in the military I didn't know what I wanted to do so before I dropped out of college I knew I liked that like computer science class I took it was a C plus plus class I didn't pay attention but I was really proud of the few lines of code that I wrote and I had a brother that was working in Tech Expedia and he had a really cool interesting life I think so I thought to myself this could be a career your chain let me look into the software engineering thing so I cracked open my laptop and I started looking up software engineering data Life as a software engineer what do software Engineers do I would just like enthrall like I saw the lifestyle I saw the salary I saw the things that I got to do at work and I was like this this looks amazing but I don't want to go back to college I don't want to do another three to four years of college I just I can't see myself doing that I tried it and it wasn't for me so I opened my laptop once more and what I found was just pure gold and where do you find gold these days you you Google it so I Googled how to become a software engineer without a degree and if you could believe it videos popped up people popped up there were people who have become software engineers and they didn't go to college and I was like yes I want to do that so the YouTuber that I found specifically who became a software engineer without going to college he goes by the name of Chris Sean so I was hooked I just completely binged his content I watched every single one of his videos so I could dissect and understand what he did because if he can do it I can definitely do it so what I did next is what I recommend to everyone who's trying to learn a new skill who's trying to learn how to code you got to realize that your mom is lying to you you're not that special and that's good for you in this case there's already someone ahead of you who has achieved what you're trying to achieve they went through all the hurdles and if they're lucky they documented that process and most likely those steps that they took are the same steps that you're going to need to take to achieve what they achieved so finding someone's strategy in their plan and recreating it takes away a lot of the guesswork which saves you a lot of time and kind of ensures that you're on the right path to success so after hours and hours of just binging Christian content I think I figured out his whole plan he took a course online he practiced and applied everything he learned and then he tried his hardest to get his foot in the door anywhere he could that sounds pretty doable but this whole time that I'm watching this Christian content I'm in the desert I'm in the Middle East I didn't know my Internet situation so I brought this book out with me which is head first Python and I use this book to understand the like ins and outs and the basics of programming languages and it was in this book that I realized that I don't like books like I just I can't it's like such dry content I'm falling asleep while I'm trying to read it and it was just this learning style wasn't for me but at the time this is all I had I was literally writing lines of code like on paper and trying to figure out if I understand how to code if I understand the concepts in this book so while this book was like amazing at teaching me the basics of like strings and loops and whatnot I would just I couldn't really connect with that content it didn't really get me excited so now I thought well just coding is not for me because I tried the college thing I Tried reading from books and teaching myself and it's just it's not clicking but after talking to some folks out there I realized we did have some internet hubs so we could connect to the Internet is going to be really slow like one megabit per second but we could connect to the Internet so I tried one more thing let me try learning like Christian did with this online video course style so I searched best online courses and a course popped up it was 30 at the time and I bought it I took it the instructor's name was Colt steel and he was amazing I really connected and respected his teaching style and I was like leaning forward and engaged throughout like all of his coursework and that was like a huge Monumental thing that I learned about myself I don't like learning in classrooms I don't really like self-teaching from books but if I have like an online instructor I think I can rock with that all right quick break in the story because obviously when I was getting started I didn't know all of the different ways people could go on to become a software engineer which is why I'm super excited that this portion of the video sponsored by coding Dojo coding Dojo is a boot camp with a ton of course offerings and provided flexibility for both full-time and part-time students they have courses in cyber security data science and of course software development coding Dojo has been a sponsor on this channel for two years running and during that time I gotten the chance to sit in on a few weeks of their software development cohort and whilst sitting in I was thoroughly impressed because the students in the cohort learn Three Stacks instead of one that's full stack python full stack Java and of course the merge stack and the students in that cohort get to take a Hands-On approach to learning so they're not just reading out of textbooks and reading out of documentation they actually get to practice and Implement what they learned that day so it sticks up in the brain it's no secret that deciding to go to a boot camp is a huge investment into yourself but if you want to test the waters and see if coding is actually something that you enjoy coding Dojo actually has a free beginner friend Workshop that takes you through the basics of web development so if you want to take that workshop for the free you can find the link for it in my description below so thank you coding dojo for sponsoring this video and let's get back to the story so after working my 12 hour shifts I would come home to my shipping container and this would be my station this is where I would practice day in and day out HTML CSS and JavaScript and just try to be a sponge and learn as much as possible I practice I learned and I studied every single day for four months straight and it even got to the point where I figured out I could practice coding at work I just had to open up a browser head to the console and I could practice some of the algorithms that I had learned the night before so after months and months and months of grinding day in and day out and just immersing myself in a life of code and programming it was time to head back to the States so when I got back to my life in Florida and I was going through all of the emails that I just completely missed I noticed that there was a team in my office that was looking for people that knew HTML CSS and JavaScript and at this point I only had four months of XP and I I didn't feel ready for any type of job but remembering back what Chris Sean did he got his foot in the door as soon as possible and I thought this could be my way of getting my foot in the door so I applied for this front and developer position and I got it so I made an internal transfer and I started working as a software developer working might be a stretch I was just sitting down at my computer and just like staring at lines of code trying my hardest to be helpful and it wasn't until the senior engineer who worked there Greg like sat me down and was like yo what's going on how can I help you and I just had to admit like yo I don't know how I can be helpful I don't know what I'm doing I don't know how to grow and he just was like oh let me take you out of my wing and let me show you everything that I know and this moment right here of just finding a mentor just took me Leaps and Bounds in anything I could have ever hoped to achieve by just taking online courses like working with someone that has already done the thing skyrocketed my career so after about eight months of working day in and day out with this amazing senior software engineer I was feeling pretty confident I could navigate my way around code debug solve problems add new features I was feeling good this is great I'm like a real developer at this point I was just getting over my imposter syndrome for my first job when my mentor looked at me and was like yo you trying to go to La and work with VMware and space force and I was like of course what I need to do that sounded great so I applied I interviewed and I somehow landed this apprenticeship in Santa Monica so I packed my bags and I moved to Los Angeles to figure out how to become a full stack software engineer and let me tell you I've never felt so defeated so much like an imposter so dumb than when I was at this apprenticeship dummy you bean headed burrito do we get using 40 word per minute type in Brute Force looping yuck mouth so within my first weeks of starting my new apprenticeship I quickly realized that I knew how to program but I didn't know how to be a software engineer I didn't know how to right test I didn't know how to use Version Control I didn't know what to say in stand up I didn't know a lot of these other skills that are required other than just coding but once again someone on my team by the name of Austin knew that I like really wanted to dive into this world and become better in he took me under his wing so for the next six months for eight hours a day we just pair programmed I would write a test and he would write the code he would write the code and I'd write the test and I just learned so much just working right next to someone who has already been a software engineer for years and years this was just an incredibly valuable experience so at the end of that apprenticeship I was feeling good about my skills as a software engineer I knew react my sequel kotlin cicd I was feeling great and I was feeling confident but it was time to head back to Florida so I did and I I wanted to share everything I learned with other soldiers other people so I created a free boot camp I hired new software Engineers on my team and it was through this that I realized that I like like training and teaching and helping other developers achieve what they're trying to accomplish a lot more than create new features which is why recently I made a slight career pivot and now I'm a developer Advocate full-time thanks so much for watching and listening to my story and I'll see you on the next one

Channel: Jeremiah Peoples

Views: 121,733

Keywords: Jeremiah peoples, black in tech, software engineer, self taught software engineer, how i became a software engineer, software engineer no college, how i became a software developer, software developer, software engineering, computer science, learning to code, how to learn code, software engineer career, how i became a software developer without a degree, teach yourself programming, self-taught programmer, coding bootcamp, coding dojo, verteran, air force, army

Id: omtWllkTvPk

Length: 9min 34sec (574 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 02 2023