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So, it's been a year that I accepted my first job as a full-time web developer. I have honestly never had a job that I loved more than this one. Every day there is a new problem to solve, or a new feature to build, and I can stand back and look at something that I created, or fixed, and be proud of it. I took a different path than a lot of people do to get where I am now... so here is the tale of how a salty squid grew his beard.
Right out of high school I went into college with big dreams and aspirations, but after a few years I married my high school sweet heart and started a family. I didn't have time for college anymore. I got a job as a customer service rep for a very large health insurance company and felt like everything had lined up, and I was well on my way to a healthy career. 10 years later, I was stuck. I tried applying within the company, and either because I didn't have a degree or because of corporate politics, I couldn't move up.
I had always had an interest in programming. Mr. Hankey was my favorite teacher in high school, and the first class I had with him was Turbo Pascal. He also taught me Physics as well, and let me be his teacher's aide and work on the high school website, which is where I really found my niche. When I finally decided that I was tired of talking on the phone, I picked back up where I had left off with web development.
It had been over 13 years though, since I touched HTML or CSS, and a lot had changed. Everyone I talked to, and quite a few articles I read led me towards learning full-stack JavaScript. As the husband of a teacher and a father of two wonderful, but wallet draining children, I didn't have the money or the time to take off work and do a 6 week boot-camp. But what I did have, was about 5-10 minutes between each call at work that I could watch videos, read documentation, google random things, and work through small projects and workshops. And I also had my two best friends since grade school, Zane Kellogg and Jarrod Glasgow, the entrepreneurial developers behind www.belovedrobot.com, that encouraged me every step of the way.
I quickly learned that the most important thing you need as a developer is the passion to learn. I cannot emphasize this enough. There is a plethora of information out there on the web about programming, learning different programming languages, algorithms, modules, plugins, stacks, and the list goes on to near infinity. As a person that is rather new to it all, it can be extremely confusing and hard to get started. You'll get stuck, a lot, and you'll need some strong Google-Fu to figure your way out of it. More than likely, someone else has encountered that same problem before and the answers on how to solve it are out there.
I eventually landed on www.teamtreehouse.com and www.freecodecamp.com which offered some structured paths to follow and greatly helped me get going. One of the first things they encourage you to do, is start working on a portfolio. I brainstormed a name for my budding freelance business and I bought the domain for www.beardedsquid.com. Then I took a little bit of everything I learned and created a portfolio site and started doing other small sites for friends and family. I used all this experience as a second job on my resume as well, since I was still working full-time at the call center.
After 2 years, and a few projects under my belt, I tried one more time to apply for a job within the company I was working for, a technical position within the call center. I was very quickly shot down for not having a degree. This just further motivated me to find a job doing what I loved to do. Unfortunately, there is not a lot of jobs in Birmingham for web developers unless you want to go down the Wordpress route, or do more financial sector stuff like .NET and Java. I had a few interviews locally, and sent out tons of applications and resumes, but to no avail. So I started looking on Indeed for Remote positions.
Side note: Don't be daunted by the requirements on job postings. Every listing is a lead developer's chance to describe their perfect autonomous programming life mate. They want long walks on the beach of ocean that is the internet, with eons of experience in things that have only existed for 2 years, and need you to be able to know the ins and outs of their current stack that they home-brewed themselves. But no one is perfect... and you can always learn what you need to know. If you meet a few of the requirements, and not others, apply anyway.
I found a listing that I met a few of the qualifications for but not others and the salary offered was astronomically more than I thought I was worth at the time. I applied anyway thinking, "Oh well.. who knows?" I got a call a few weeks later asking to schedule an interview with this company, the same day that we also found out my daughter got accepted to a special pre-school program that required someone to pick her up at 2:30 everyday. The interviews went well, and I expressed my willingness to learn anything I didn't know already, and that while I wasn't worth as much as they were offering at the time, I could work my way up to that. They still made me a great offer, and I accepted the job.
The first month was hell. I had an awful case of impostor syndrome. For several days I scrolled through the new app I would be working on, scared to death... frozen. Fortunately for me my Dad was a rather sage man, for a Copenhagen dipping southern man with a hearing problem. One thing he said has always stuck with me and helped me get through situations like this. When I was 16, we were both laying underneath my old '83 Dodge Dakota and he was coaching me on how to put a new starter in. I had just about given up when he said to me, "If someone has done it before, then with enough effort and willingness, you can do it, too." That advice echoed through my head that first month, and I busted my butt and worked a lot of extra hours to learn what I needed to get my work done. I regret nothing.
Maybe I took a more difficult path than necessary, but hard work and a willingness to constantly learn has paid off greatly. If you ever feel like going down this same path, I am happy to offer advice and my experiences to help you along the way. After working at home for a year, doing something that I thoroughly love, and hardly shaving at all, this old salty squid has grown the most magnificent beard.
I had always had an interest in programming. Mr. Hankey was my favorite teacher in high school, and the first class I had with him was Turbo Pascal. He also taught me Physics as well, and let me be his teacher's aide and work on the high school website, which is where I really found my niche. When I finally decided that I was tired of talking on the phone, I picked back up where I had left off with web development.
It had been over 13 years though, since I touched HTML or CSS, and a lot had changed. Everyone I talked to, and quite a few articles I read led me towards learning full-stack JavaScript. As the husband of a teacher and a father of two wonderful, but wallet draining children, I didn't have the money or the time to take off work and do a 6 week boot-camp. But what I did have, was about 5-10 minutes between each call at work that I could watch videos, read documentation, google random things, and work through small projects and workshops. And I also had my two best friends since grade school, Zane Kellogg and Jarrod Glasgow, the entrepreneurial developers behind www.belovedrobot.com, that encouraged me every step of the way.
I quickly learned that the most important thing you need as a developer is the passion to learn. I cannot emphasize this enough. There is a plethora of information out there on the web about programming, learning different programming languages, algorithms, modules, plugins, stacks, and the list goes on to near infinity. As a person that is rather new to it all, it can be extremely confusing and hard to get started. You'll get stuck, a lot, and you'll need some strong Google-Fu to figure your way out of it. More than likely, someone else has encountered that same problem before and the answers on how to solve it are out there.
I eventually landed on www.teamtreehouse.com and www.freecodecamp.com which offered some structured paths to follow and greatly helped me get going. One of the first things they encourage you to do, is start working on a portfolio. I brainstormed a name for my budding freelance business and I bought the domain for www.beardedsquid.com. Then I took a little bit of everything I learned and created a portfolio site and started doing other small sites for friends and family. I used all this experience as a second job on my resume as well, since I was still working full-time at the call center.
After 2 years, and a few projects under my belt, I tried one more time to apply for a job within the company I was working for, a technical position within the call center. I was very quickly shot down for not having a degree. This just further motivated me to find a job doing what I loved to do. Unfortunately, there is not a lot of jobs in Birmingham for web developers unless you want to go down the Wordpress route, or do more financial sector stuff like .NET and Java. I had a few interviews locally, and sent out tons of applications and resumes, but to no avail. So I started looking on Indeed for Remote positions.
Side note: Don't be daunted by the requirements on job postings. Every listing is a lead developer's chance to describe their perfect autonomous programming life mate. They want long walks on the beach of ocean that is the internet, with eons of experience in things that have only existed for 2 years, and need you to be able to know the ins and outs of their current stack that they home-brewed themselves. But no one is perfect... and you can always learn what you need to know. If you meet a few of the requirements, and not others, apply anyway.
I found a listing that I met a few of the qualifications for but not others and the salary offered was astronomically more than I thought I was worth at the time. I applied anyway thinking, "Oh well.. who knows?" I got a call a few weeks later asking to schedule an interview with this company, the same day that we also found out my daughter got accepted to a special pre-school program that required someone to pick her up at 2:30 everyday. The interviews went well, and I expressed my willingness to learn anything I didn't know already, and that while I wasn't worth as much as they were offering at the time, I could work my way up to that. They still made me a great offer, and I accepted the job.
The first month was hell. I had an awful case of impostor syndrome. For several days I scrolled through the new app I would be working on, scared to death... frozen. Fortunately for me my Dad was a rather sage man, for a Copenhagen dipping southern man with a hearing problem. One thing he said has always stuck with me and helped me get through situations like this. When I was 16, we were both laying underneath my old '83 Dodge Dakota and he was coaching me on how to put a new starter in. I had just about given up when he said to me, "If someone has done it before, then with enough effort and willingness, you can do it, too." That advice echoed through my head that first month, and I busted my butt and worked a lot of extra hours to learn what I needed to get my work done. I regret nothing.
Maybe I took a more difficult path than necessary, but hard work and a willingness to constantly learn has paid off greatly. If you ever feel like going down this same path, I am happy to offer advice and my experiences to help you along the way. After working at home for a year, doing something that I thoroughly love, and hardly shaving at all, this old salty squid has grown the most magnificent beard.