A true career change story and essential requirements
I married a mining engineer 3 years ago. Before we married, he told me he needed to work in the mining fields for several years and then he could pass to the center of the companies so, come to the city near me.
If he went to the field, we would be separated, therefore we considered another option: career change.
I was a computer engineer and home-office work just showed up itself with the pandemic on these days. I thought he could learn a programming language.
What is needed to start a career in software jobs from scratch?
He had no background in computer science, software development, or programming languages.
And I didn’t know him much in terms of his business ability.
What I know was 2 things:
First, I learned what I know by watching videos on the internet and mostly by applying it (even though I studied at a good university).
Second, there are many areas in software jobs from easy to hardest ones, and if someone strives enough, he can come to a place in this area.
So, for anyone who wants to work on a software job with no background, I thought he needs 2 things: desire and effort. (Later, I learned one more thing is needed: constant motivation)
We didn’t know if he would have a desire since he didn’t try before. But even if he doesn’t like working on a software job, to me, it was worth trying.
Because the area is developing so fast and dominating many jobs, so doesn’t matter what job you have, it is great to have an idea of what is happening in this sector.
So, we decided on a career change.
Beginning of a software career
It was not easy.
And the hard part was not what most people thought at the beginning.
He started with an expensive course but in the first lectures, I saw that the course is not for those who start from scratch. (Thank Allah, the first lessons were held online so I can listen to them.)
The instructor went so deep that most computer engineers, including me, do not know this deeply, and those who do know mostly do not use it.
The knowledge they gave was very good but not for beginners. Because it was difficult and demotivating.
No need to learn difficult things that almost have no use but demotivating. (Motivation is much more important than the knowledge at the beginning.)
So he didn’t continue this expensive course.
He started a totally free video series on YouTube. It was a Java tutorial series.
We chose Java to start because I knew Java and Python mostly. And it is not Python because I thought it would be easier to learn Python after learning Java, and vice versa is not true.
Additionally, the first programming language I learned in university was Java, so I know how to enter this world with Java.
(And I know that working in frontend with HTML and CSS could be easier but that was plan B which I didn’t mention at the beginning.)
Learning process
To me, he was pretty good with YouTube videos and learned fast, more than enough.
Even in the first weeks, I understood that we don’t need a plan B (frontend jobs with HTML, CSS, etc.).
Because he was apparently learning faster than I have learned.
But we still had a big problem: He didn’t know how good he was.
In time, I saw that it was a serious problem and was more difficult to learn than Java.
He was thinking: It was easy what he learned, everyone can do that, he knows nothing, he can do nothing from scratch, he was getting so many errors and couldn’t solve fast, etc.
The truth was that: No one was building apps from scratch, everyone was copying and pasting the codes, the errors were taking much more time than the writing code, and it was important to know how to search and where to paste the code.
That truth took a lot of time for him to learn.
He first experienced this truth with others when he joined a .NET course that was supported by the government.
He met with other people who wanted to become a software developer. There were people who graduated from the computer engineering department.
He was so relieved when he saw how other people were writing code although they had graduated from related departments.
He even saw how the instructor approached the problems and how he searched on Google.
He went to this course for 5 months and learned almost nothing technically compared to his online courses.
However, his mindset became more close to the truth of what a junior developer should know and how he should be working.
Additionally, he got a certificate for completing the course.
My role in this process
I taught him almost nothing technically.
I just kept telling the truth above.
And nothing else.
Seriously, he learned all the technical things himself (I didn’t tell more than 1 percent).
I was telling him: how much he learned in a short time, that it was enough to start a job, searching Google was part of the job and indeed it is an important ability, having errors is so normal that it is the job itself, etc.
That was it for my contribution.
But I did it all the time and it wasn’t easy. (Although I was sure everything was on the way, I was getting tired of saying everything was okay).
Starting a job
After watching several tutorial series (after Java, he also had a look at some Python tutorials) and a having course certificate, it was time to start applying for a job.
(It was almost 1 year, he kept learning.)
He applied for many jobs, sent emails to companies, and spent a lot of time on that. (I was continuing my morale-boosting job.)
Several companies returned but the jobs were not for a developer position. They were like project management positions where you can’t improve your developer skills.
So, we rejected and continued to apply for jobs.
We were gonna accept very small wages and overwork if the job was about software development.
Because we know that having 1-year experience in this area means a lot. So you just need to start and 1 year is not that important as long as you keep improving yourself.
Then, a small company accepted him as a Java developer. (It took him less than 1.5 years to start completely from scratch as a software developer.)
After working less than 1.5 years in that small company, he passed to an institutional company 1.5 months ago.
So the mission is totally complete to me and I am proud of him a lot.
Startup time
Now, it was my term to make a change.
I was working comfortably as an AI engineer in a very good company with a good environment and a good salary.
I told my own story before.
I Quit My Job 4 Months Ago to Start from Zero
Here is my story and what kept me motivated
In that story, I told that I would set up a startup soon.
I had an idea that came from my university years and it is indeed a life purpose for me.
It is a kind of chatbot project and not easy to develop.
I was thinking that I could build small projects in a short time, and get some income through them.
When I reach a constant income with them, I can start my actual project.
The plans have little changed.
I learned that I could apply my project idea as an R&D project before building the firm.
If I get accepted, that would be more beneficial for me in terms of the support they give.
Additionally, I can start directly with my actual project since they support me financially.
So I applied to a state agency (KOSGEB) in Turkey with my project idea several days ago.
It is now in the evaluation duration. I am pretty excited but very hopeful while waiting for the result.
Eventually, I know that motivation is the most important and I have it thanks to Allah.
I explained what kept me motivated in my story before. So I do not repeat the same things.
Just make sure that you have a life purpose. Do not escape this issue if you do not have one now.
Seriously, go over this issue.
When you have a life purpose, you will have direction and motivation, hence, things will get easier inshaAllah.
