How I joined the tech world, is it really worth it?
What comes to your mind when you hear someone say, tech world? Of course, the first thing that pops into your mind is lots of technologies you see every day. For example, AI would probably be among the top list because of its sophistication and advancement. Technology is a very important aspect of today's world, and it isn't going anywhere soon.
Our industries, businesses, hospitals quite depend on these technologies to make a profit or at least for the hospitals, save lives. If I try to mention the benefits of technology I would probably never run out of words, but that's not the topic of today.
Software development is one of those fields in the tech world. Many times you hear someone say, I got a job as a software developer in less than six months from a different background. These kinds of stories live on Twitter. I never scroll past few posts without seeing them. Tech Twitter is amazing and if you haven't joined yet you might be missing a lot. Software development is not get kept, it's all about your skills, your hard work, and passion. A lot of developers are self-taught.
While some people go through CS, it doesn't matter which route you take, but really what you want. So, here’s a story about facebook’s youngest engineer, built an app from the ground up looking at tutorials, stack overflow, and google. These are legitimate places to get ideas, help in the daily life of any developer.
My journey to becoming a software developer has seemingly not been an easier one anyway though I have gained some achievements since joining. I have spent an incredible 1300hrs since joining microverse at the time of writing this post. Microverse is a global school where anyone can become a software developer for free. Apart from that, they help you get a job through career coaches, and that's for life unless ofcourse you decide the tech world is not for you.
How did I join the tech world? This really an interesting question. How I would really answer this question is not about the institution I am at the moment but, what resources I have used to gain some of the industry coveted stacks. For example front-end stacks, back-end stacks, etc.
My main focus is being able to build great, scalable, maintainable applications to improve the lives of others, particularly create jobs. All of these I have learned from freely available resources available online. Freecodecamp is the got to site when you want to learn and grasp concepts one at a time. But if you want to engage in building a project from scratch, I would prefer to go with the Odin project. It has many sub-resources, links to other great developer sites. They also link up some great youtube content about programming languages like JavaScript, React, Ruby, and even Rails.
A journey of a thousand miles starts with one step, and software developers have to be consistent with the latest technologies, they read, practice, and learn to stay relevant. React now in probably ten years, its codebase may seem legacy-like and hard to work with. So software developers must cultivate good life skills, be ahead of the game.
Some of the programming languages I have learned so far are ruby and javascript. I use Rails as backend and react as front end. Ruby language focus on the happiness of its users, it has English-like syntax, and it's easy to learn and right. Javascript on the other end focuses on manipulating the DOM. But it can also be used as a backend thanks to nodejs.
For the past few months, I have gained a lot of knowledge from scratch. And some of my notable achievements include building real-world projects like a Twitter clone. In the whole country, although some say commits don't really matter I have been able to create outstanding projects which are on my Github. At the moment in my country, I am at number five. Again software development is not gate kept. Anyone can be anything.
One can decide to join development because of employment opportunities. In my case, I joined the tech world because, in these times, things are changing fast, the world is evolving and I want to be able to contribute to something that will live in the coming years. For bill gates, it's a windows system, for me, it's being able to create good stuff, apps, and tech products.
Tech world is really worth it. It changes lives, promotes faster economic growth, and is in demand especially for software developers. In the whole world at the moment there are a lot of tech jobs which still need to be filled. A software developer earns a great salary. Software development is tough and if it was easy then it would be flooded hence that's why it's not for everyone.
Making a computer do what you want requires lots of hours, practice, and patience. Using new tools every day needs you to read documentation, lookup for solutions in a wide range of resources. That's why you hear people say a senior developer's difference from a junior developer is that they know how to google. Both of them know where to find solutions but not how to find effective, right solutions.
I'm glad I joined tech from different background and will look to have a great journey. If you want to find me, I'm always on Twitter. Follow me. I always follow back.
