My Journey to Becoming a Software Developer: From Dreams to Reality

One of my dreams right from being a young age is to become a software developer or build robots and all that. But as I developed and grew older, I got to know more about tech, working remotely and how rewarding it is to be a software developer.

I loved the aspect that I could work remotely and do not have to spend all my hours in the workplace like most jobs may require, and also get paid handsomely. One thing I liked about having a tech job was the fact I can get to spend more time with my family and also be more present for my kids.

My dad was the travelling type of person and most of the time he is not always around. His job sometimes requires him to leave the country or travel to another state. Since I didn't like the way, my dad did not have much time to connect with me as a kid, I choose to be different for my kids.

My Journey to Software Development

I started my journey in software development 2021, and I chose to learn DevOps in an Online Bootcamps or Software institute called AltSchool. They teach quite a lot of tech careers and management courses.

I opted in to learn Cloud Engineering after reviewing different tech options from Frontend, Backend and Cloud Engineering itself. The reason why I chose it was because it was something I had not heard before and found that it was not common as the others. So, I gave it a go.

I started learning cloud engineering in AltSchool, and I was introduced to a lot of things like Ubuntu, Linux management, Networking, Bash scripting, Ansible, AWS. I was not able to learn Docker and Kubernetes yet because I later dropped out of the school because it was coinciding with my studies in the University and balancing both careers was difficult.

Before I was introduced to cloud engineering program, it was compulsory to learn frontend. Not all of frontend but at least some part of frontend. I had to learn html, CSS, Bootstrap 5 (learned it on my own), and JavaScript. Then after that we moved to the cloud engineering track.

During the period of learning frontend, I fell in love with it. I totally loved it, but I didn't want to give up my goal for cloud. So, I had to leave frontend for the cloud engineering track.

While learning DevOps, I had a friend who is into backend with go, and he was trying to let me know that it does not make sense to learn cloud or DevOps without knowing backend. His suggestion was that I should pick a language and learn backend so that I would have something to push to the cloud as a DevOps engineer.

I got to know from him that every backend engineer can refer himself as a DevOps engineer because initially DevOps is part of backend and there is no way one would learn how to build on backend and would not know how to push the software to a server.

I got confused that would I have to start learning backend again? it felt like a lot, and I kept wondering; if I learn this too, how will I remember all of these things in one head?

I ended up taking a break from everything tech.

Then I finally got to my final semester at the University, and I was given a project that required me to learn Machine learning/AI. I had no choice but to go into the field of Machine Learning and in fact, I fell in love with it. Then I chose to stick with it and let it be my career path.

I got to know that Machine Learning is a sector of data science and to be a good machine learning engineer, you have to be good at data science, know how to analyze data for building good models. After that, I got to realize that it doesn't end from building models but one needs to know how to incorporate these models in a software and also push it to a server.

These is where it gets interesting....

To be able to do this, I have to learn a backend framework and also go back to learning DevOps. What I thought I had initially skipped is now what I would end up facing. Not that I am running from it, but it is feeling overwhelming to learn all these things.

The Machine Learning and AI that I am into at the moment, I have not learned all of it in fact I have not entered into NLP (Natural Language Processing). I am presently just solidifying my foundational knowledge in programming (python and Data Science) because I noticed I have forgotten a lot in it and now so addicted to using ChatGPT to code instead of me writing most of the code myself.

This tech space is not for the weak, and before one can really make it and get a good paying Job in it, a lot of hard work in learning will be required.

I have no choice than to take the path, accept my faith, keep building projects in public and be open to learning.

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I noticed I have forgotten a lot in it and am now so addicted to using ChatGPT to code instead of me writing most of the code myself

I can relate 😅 I have gotten addicted to using ChatGPT and Gemini code assist to do most of the heavy lifting in my projects and even though that's one of the functions of these LLMs, I'm starting to see a problem where I won't be able to build things without them, especially during technical interviews.

Your journey has been amazing and you have touched a lot of fields in the tech space and figured out which path you want to follow. I initially wanted to be a cloud engineer because of all the talks about frontend being saturated but just like you, I had to learn frontend first and I fell in love with it 😅 so now, the goal is to be a fullstack engineer, maybe I might still end up in cloud later on