Don’t you just love it when you create something with your own hands and people actually begin to use it?!
That is exactly the feeling that really draws me into this complex, invigorating yet challenging work of software development.
It took me a while to figure out what I really wanted to do with my life. Like many from the Coptic Orthodox community I initially perused a career in healthcare as a pharmacist. But from the beginning I felt unmotivated in this profession. This is software development really began to peak my interest.
Where my software development career began
During my time at university I began to work on my local church’s website. 2011 was the year where my career shift began. I was approached and asked to help develop a new site for the church I happily took the task on not realising that I would actually be spending hours on end on it and still enjoy every minute of it.
This site was built using Joomla, a content management system. Wix, Squarespace and WordPress are other content management systems that are highly recommended. Despite the fact there was no heavy coding involved, ignoring a few css alterations, my interest in web development peaked.
I wanted to learn more about how websites were made, what makes them tick and stand out among the crowd.
You learn a lot from doing. From building the church site I learnt mobile friendliness, page speed and analytics are vital. They becoming more important because of the boom in mobile usage.
Learning more about software development
Over the next few years I continued to develop my skills. Various side projects later and juggling my my pharmacy studies I have become much more comfortable coding.
At that time I focused on front end web development. I had read that learning html, css and then JavaScript was a good place to start. I bought these two html, css and JavaScript books and I dove right in. Then I started learning php and Wordpress development.
After completing my degree I made the career move official. I got a job as a junior developer through one of my contacts. I have now been working as a developer for almost 4 years at the time of writing this article and I’m enjoying every minute of it.
Looking back
If I could go back and change anything it would be to make the career jump much earlier. When I felt like pharmacy wasn’t for me I should have made the change. It would have meant that by this time in my life I would have been much more accomplished in my career as a software developer.
Lesson on learnt, today not someday.
This has been invaluable for me going forward. I know always make sure if I can do a job right now then I get it don’t. Don’t put things off till later.
If you are like me and are thinking of making a career change into software development, I cannot emphasis it enough. Just go for it.
If it doesn’t work out, you can always go back to your old career.
Get in touch
If you are at that point in a crossroads in your career and would like to discuss it with someone who has been through it, please feel free to reach out. If i can help even just one person through this blog then that would make it worth it.
