My journey to becoming a software developer was not the straight and narrow.

18 and under

When I was in my youth, I had no idea what I wanted to do as a career and never really gave it much thought. In my teens, I grew quite fond of the computer and at that time figured I would end up doing something involving technology. I wasn’t one of those nerds who was programming at the age of 12 or anything although I probably was considered a bit of a nerd because I knew about computers and wore glasses.

In high school I took Computer Science I and liked it okay. We developed in C++ but the teacher had no enthusiasm for the subject and really didn’t make it that fun so programming came and went for me. I then participated in two new courses my school was offering: Electronics I and II. Man, those classes were definitely not fun as the instructor basically did nothing but supervise us as the computer taught us everything. Sure, the few labs we did were a little fun but most of the time was spent staring at a computer screen as a program taught you about series and parallel circuits.

18 – 22

Immediately after high school I enrolled at Northlake Community College and started taking the basics and another programming course: Intro to Programming. Again, the teacher had very little enthusiasm for the subject and it was again in C++.

During my second semester, I got a job at Fry’s Electronics which had not yet opened up to the public. During those first few months at Fry’s we all worked about 70 hours a week to get the store ready to open so school pretty much went to the wayside. So that was pretty much my first brush with college. It wasn’t very satisfying and I had no real motivation to go so I just didn’t.

22-23

Years later and already married and thought to myself, man I got to get back to school. A few days later I researched career options on the internet and saw that being an X-Ray Technician only required two years of school and it paid what at that time I thought was pretty good. So I enrolled at Brookhaven Community College and really thought that was what I was going to do as a career.

Then after my first semester, my wife suggested to me that I take advantage of her employee and family discount at DeVry University where she worked as an administrative assistant. So I took a look at their degree offerings and decided on Biomedical Engineering since I already had experience with Electronics and had just finished an Anatomy I class. It took me two Calculus courses and two Electronics courses to find out that I really wasn’t going to enjoy electrical engineering.

23 – 26

So I’m still at DeVry and now looking to switch my degree program. I took another look at the different offerings and noticed that Computer Information Systems basically led to a software development career so I switched to that. The first programming class wasn’t that challenging to me but the professor made it fun and interesting. The second programming course was when we were introduced to C# and again, the professor was enthusiastic and made the class fun which made all the difference in the world for me. After that class, I was hooked.

Programming just came so natural to me while the other degree programs I had tried presented such a challenge and never really were fun. I felt with programming that I was creating something from nothing, building things with my creativity. Programming was very satisfying to me and I excelled in every programming class I took from then on.

26 – 27

Fresh out of school I began looking for a job. I spent countless hours on various websites learning ways to perfect my resume, studying Jr. Software Developer interview questions, and creating profiles on a lot of job search sites. I also spent quite a bit of time watching online training videos to stay brushed up on subjects such as ASP.NET, MVC, LINQ, SQL, etc.

Many websites mentioned taking on a hobby programming project that you could mention during an interview so I decided on creating a Mp3 to Wav converter. I researched various libraries I could use, learned about multi-threaded programming in the process and really had a good time creating that application.

A few months past by and I had only done about 4 phone interviews and had never been called in for an in person interview so I was getting a bit worried. Then I got a call from a job placement agency stating that they thought I might be a good fit for a direct to hire job. I thought it sounded great so I began the process of being vetted by the placement agency. They had me modify my resume a bit and grilled me a few times on the phone with C# questions and general programming patterns and principles. 3 Weeks later I was hired and starting my very first professional software development job!

27

My first week on the job I turned 27 and was so excited to get my feet wet. I have now been there for about 5 months and am still loving it. Everyday presents new and unique challenges but I am always learning new things and bettering myself and my skills in the process. It really is quite amazing how much I’ve learned in that small amount of time. I’ve already helped develop a MVC 3 site from the ground up, modified a WCF service, wrote a screen scraper/remote downloader, and many other smaller tasks and to think that I had done none of that 5 months before.

Again, it’s only been 5 months but I am really happy with my career choice of software development. I feel like I’ve landed the perfect job and am just hoping the fun, excitement, and new challenges continue because I’m loving it!