As of May 1, my title will officially be Software Developer. :-) I am staying on at the company where I am doing my jr. developer internship.
If I can make it, I don't see why anyone else out there can. I started flirting with the idea of trying to become a web developer in November. I started reading some blogs from others that found jobs as jr. devs after self-studying for 6-8 months and got motivated.
There were 2 big obstacles to getting a job I saw when I started out learning to code...
- Living in another country and not speaking much of the native language. (How am I supposed to find a job or internship then?)
- No dev bootcamps nearby. (I almost considered doing an online bootcamp....)
I didn't let these worries deter me. Here's my milestones on my journey to get a developer job:
- On November 13, I successfully battled homebrew and xcode error messages and installed Ruby and Rails and a text editor.
- On November 26, I created a github account. I didn't really understand the git process at all.
- On December 16, I finished my first Rails app - One Month Rails' Pinterest clone. I kept working through every free online rails tutorial I could find online. I started the precouse work for 2 different online bootcamps - Tea leaf & Firehose project. I was considering doing one of those.
- On January 13, I applied for a couple jr developer internships. I almost didn't. Some of them were posted in Dutch. I didn't think I qualified after only doing some online tutorials for ruby and rails for the past month. And, I definitely didn't think I was qualified when I don't speak Dutch well. My husband convinced me to just apply and the worse they could say is 'No' or flat out ignore me. So I did. Caveat: There were no positions in my current city. So I applied in other cities within commuting distance. I was willing to commute ~3 hrs roundtrip from Den Haag to Amsterdam every single day. I still commute. It's freakin' tough but I've gotten used to it. If I get a decent seat on the train, I pull out the MacBook and work on code stuff for work or work on Hartl's RailsTutorial.
- On February 9, I started a jr. developer internship (lots of struggling with tasks at work and reading Hartl's Rails Tutorial during my personal time happening for the next few months).
- On April 14, I signed a contract as a full-time software developer!
So that's 5 months from the time I installed Ruby and Rails to I signed my job contract!
I still have a lot to learn. I am learning something new everyday. Some days I feel like I'm drowning and some days I feel like a coding champion. I truly enjoy coding. I'm kinda shocked sometimes that I do as much as I do. I think about coding and the coding community all the time. I never felt that way in my previous career.
I am so excited for the future. I can't wait to see where I'm at in 3-6 months from now.
