sawadee!
What’s up, my name is at the top of the page in case you’re wondering. Below you’ll find my handsome mugshot and a bit of my coding origin story.
TL;DR
I am a web developer with experience in Ruby, JavaScript, the dynamic duo HTML/CSS, Test Driven Development, version control à la Git, and MVC frameworks like Ruby on Rails.
By no means an exhaustive list, there will always be something new to pack into my brain, and that’s only one aspect of this career field that excites me the most. I know full well that software engineering is a craft that takes time to sharpen; I’m just enjoying the ride.
Viam supervadet vadens => The path will be overcome by the person walking it
I want a few things:
- To leave code in better shape than I found it
- To surround myself with people and challenges that enrich what I know already so I can level-up
- To mentor anyone on their own coding journey whenever, and however I can.
Le Coding Origin
I suppose it all started when I was in the womb. Instead of floating around for nine months doing nothing, I decided to take action. In order to stave off boredom, I made a computer with spare parts I found floating around the amniotic fluid. It wasn’t much, but I was able to MacGyver a decent laptop with 1GB of RAM. I powered it mainly through oxygen I got from my umbilical cord (tutorial video coming soon). Self-teaching and a lot of all-nighters made me proficient in placenta.js and zygoteDB. Lol.
All joking aside, my origin story doesn’t paint me as someone who got started in programming at an early age.
Three years ago, one of my best friends was finishing up a stint @ Hack Reactor in San Francisco and had a lot of amazing stories about his coding journey and experience. A few of us got together and began to have a serious dialogue about technology and where our place could be in this gargantuan and evolving field.
We shared a lot. I noticed a reoccuring theme: how unsatisfied we were with our current careers. 20-somethings still trying to figure stuff out.
We talked about being able to build intangible wonders used and loved by people. Our eyes widened at the sheer demand for programmers, and how San Francisco is a mecca for newcomers to get their careers started. All we had to do was learn “how to code”, and we could craft something that brings immense value to people. Whoa.
I had a ton (which is about 2,000lbs) of questions and seeking the answers led me to to a few revelations:
Someone like me, with nothing but retail experience and an insatiable appetite for learning, can make a career change into tech and fundamentally change not only my quality of life, but give it real challenge and excitement.
I want to write code that has use. Every time I hear someone say “How did I ever live life without X, Y, or Z technologies” it makes my synapses fire off. I’ve said this countless times myself. I want to have a hand in creating something sensational that instills similar feelings in others.
It became clear that this was a path I definitely wanted to embark on. Although I didn’t fully grasp the Sisyphean task learning to code was going to be, I relished the moment where I can add software engineer to my job title. That’s the goal I set for myself. A goal without a plan though, is just a wish.
I had to enter the labyrinth that is learning to code:
I chose Ruby as my starting language; it’s built for programmer happiness and has a rock solid community of developers more than willing to offer their expertise free of charge.
I threw myself at every tutorial I could find. I read TONS of blogs from developers about their hurdles on their coding journey. I listened to podcasts. I watched YouTube vids. I kept a notebook of methods, definitions, code snippets, design patterns. The good ole’ shotgun approach. I was all over the place.
I wasn’t alone in this coding journey, my other friends got involved as well. We decided to meet everyday and study together. We went over coding challenges, language syntax and best practices, white boarding, object-oriented construction of games. We struggled a hell of a lot and were extremely lucky we had someone who could mentor us through difficult hurdles that came up.
As a milestone project, we got together and decided to build our very first Rails application from start to finish and deploy it to production. Learning about version control with Git was an absolute must. From concept to execution, we collaborated and struggled together for the next few months.
After many errors and frustrations, we had a shiny Rails web application that addressed the needs of the online gaming community. It connected players who wanted to play the same game, together. A lot of the time, the matchmaking that comes built in doesn’t cut the mustard.
Such a bitter sweet learning experience, but I knew I needed to fast-track my learning. My amigos and I researched around for a well rounded Ruby/Rails full-stack program in San Francisco and decided to apply and see where it took us. Some Skype interviews and a few coding challenges later, I got accepted! The program required my undivided attention for the next 3 months.
With an absurd amount of fear that I was somehow making the wrong choice, I quit my comfortable job @ Apple and put myself through a rigorous 1,000 hour rollercoaster ride of learning what I needed to be a successful software engineer.
The pace of the program and immense amount of learning was crushing at times. I felt like I didn’t belong next to my peers who came in with PhDs in mathematics or who already has prior programming experience!
Stress! Stress! Stress! The program challenged the hell out of me and brought me to the brink of madness many times. I reflected and wrote about my experiences after every day.
After the program, I felt changed; not only as a person but a developer too.
Imagine living your whole life with a pair of binoculars to see the world around you. Then, you’re shown and given a powerful telescope to see the universe. Thats exactly what it felt like for me on my developer journey.
That goal that long ago seemed so far away, is now within my grasp. Out of gratitude for the countless people who have helped me through my hurdles, I felt it only right that I give back to the coding community as much as I possible can (one of the big reasons for getting a blog going).
I’ve never been so close to achieving something I’ve wanted so badly. Getting hired to develop and write code that others will find useful and enjoy seemed impossible 3 years ago. Now, it’s all I think about.
Thanks for taking the time to read this mini novel. Stay golden