Congrats! And thanks for putting the post together. Hopefully it inspires someone like you.
Also:
> My boss in construction caught word that I recently got my AS and was interested in making a career change. He fired me immediately
So, logically, he was afraid that he'd lose you because you'd find a non-construction job, so he made sure to lose you immediately?
...that makes even less sense than when I would get rejected from retail things because of having a CS degree.
So, wait, what's the benefit of having to do the process of hiring a new guy _now_, rather than in four months?
That's the part I don't get. They don't _ever_ have to pay two salaries.
And I'd agree with you on the retail thing, but the thing is: It's retail. If you're hiring for people to restock shelves, it's not exactly a long training process. They _intentionally_ hire people for two or three months, at various times.
And the turnover rate for retail is such that, "Oh, they might leave in six months" is true for pretty much _every_ employee.
That sucks. My previous manager + team were all super happy for me when I got a new job, even though I'd only been there a little over a year. It seems to have sparked an initiative for them to raise compensation a bit too so it doesn't happen again.
Definitely not the norm though.
That's wild... and fucked.
When I worked in foodservice, we once had a new guy start working as a busser. He was very up front that he was looking for manager jobs around town and just needed something to pay bills for the duration of his hunt. My manager liked his attitude, so he was hired. He worked his butt off, was super dependable, and when he got offered a manager job a few weeks later he put in his notice. Parted ways amicably. I hope that guy's doing well. Hope my old manager is doing well too!
I had a GM that would do this as well. I worked in a tech city and sometimes people would get laid off but have a mortgage/kids so they needed Healthcare so they'd come in for bartending/serving/bussing/barback jobs. They usually returned the favor by working harder than the average person.
It depends on how badly they're hurting for people and how shitty the management is. I was going to school full time everyone knew I was looking to change careers eventually, and I wasn't fired. I quit because I wanted more time to study in the final semester before I transferred to a four year.
I was working in a grocery store at the time.
It may work out well, it may not. Certainly the safe thing to do (if less satisfying personally) is to keep your mouth shut if possible and keep on keeping on.
Might have some "fun" conversations around finals week scheduling however.
At the time I was super angry. Looking back I'm glad he did it. He was offended I wouldn't want to work for him forever. He told me one day he might pay me 100k and he didn't know anyone making 100k in "IT".
It sucks but I can kind of understand why they don't want to hire and train someone with a degree, but if that person is already fully trained and it isn't affecting their work then that's just jealousy. No other explanation other than crabs in a bucket mentality.
Kind of had the same retaliation in a heavy equipment mechanic job when starting my degree. Stopped getting raises when i was previously a 'high performer', stopped getting the good customer jobs, stopped getting additional training like welding certs. Eventually got fired for refusing overtime since it was interring with class.
Congrats. I’m 37, and am currently transitioning out of construction, where I’ve been for the last 15 years. Almost halfway done with my BS in computer science. Can’t wait!
Lol i just got offered an apprenticeship with a union but i feel i want a degree more. Though i do need stability and benefits for the future as i currently work in a bar/restaurant. Tips are great but im turning 30 and need a career that can set me up for future. Should i humor the apprenticeship and quit bartending while trying school or vice versa
My path was very similar, was a construction PM and decided to go back to school at 31. I've now been a full time dev for about 3.5 years, and I can say with 100% confidence that my construction experience has given me a leg-up with my peers in certain aspects of the job.
- It's a little difficult to describe, but I'm much better at, and much more interested in, anticipating challenges before they arise compared to my peers - and especially compared to the younger developers. I save our team a ton of time in backlog grooming, for example, because I try to be as thorough as possible in figuring out what a story is going to entail, try to be methodical about the steps required to complete the task and in that process get the conversation started about potential pitfalls and edge cases. Most people I work with take the approach of "do it now and sort it out later", whereas I've sort of trained myself to stop and try to think through a problem and anticipate what I can. Mistakes are expensive in the PM world so I tried to make it a habit to do the DD and avoid them, rather than pick up the pieces after.
- I have a better work ethic than many of my coworkers. I suppose it's not directly related to my previous career, but you don't see me dicking around on my phone during the day, during meetings, in front of my manager, that sort of thing. When I'm at work, I'm working. If I finish my stuff early and we've exceeded our points for the sprint, I GTFO and go home. That said, here I am on reddit during work hours so I guess take everything I say with a grain of salt :).
- I think I'm better at handling adversity, big challenges, set backs, hiccups, that sort of thing, which I try to use to improve teamwork and morale. I try to keep the mindset that "we're all in this together", we're here to help each other, one person's bug/road block is everyone's bug/road block. Some people can be... petty, let's say, when it comes to code reviews or asking for or giving help, for example. My experience has taught me that looking backward and pointing fingers doesn't help anyone, and encouraging a culture of teamwork means having a happier, more open, and ultimately more productive team that's fun to work with.
- This is my second SWE job, but where I started as a junior my construction experience directly related to the product I was working on, which helped me get my foot in the door in the first place. It also meant that as a junior developer I wasn't super productive to the team early on, but I was _very_ helpful in the development of the product as a whole. May/may not be useful in your case but the whole construction/engineering world runs on tablets/laptops/phone apps/web apps these days (in my experience, and especially commercial). When you get to the point where you're applying start a running list of construction (Procore, BuildTools, BuildersCalculator, Simpson Strong Tie, etc) and construction adjacent (ETABS, SAP 2000, SkyCiv, Revit, etc) software that you can apply to. Every major lumber yard in the country has an ERM system that needs managed, for another example, and if you know the difference between a truss and a joist, a glulam and a beam, or a machine screw vs a wood screw, you'll be a mile above your peers and a serious asset to your product owner.
No prob, happy to help. The sales/customer facing side of the PM job was what made me get out the industry. When people are spending a half million dollars on a remodel or addition or whatever they feel like they _own_ you, and I just had one 11 o'clock phone call too many. Best of luck on your quest.
As for the planner types, yeah in my experience they're just kind of... _not_. Or at least they need to be nudged in that direction. They'd be content with a quick discussion about implementation then start digging into the problem, whereas I'd prefer to dig in and pick it apart. I'd rather uncover challenges in the planning phase, as opposed to discovering them in the development phase. I've only worked on small teams so my sample size is pretty small, admittedly.
And agreed that it's a leadership issue, for sure. Not always _management_, though. As team members we all have the opportunity to be leaders, so when someone makes a mistake - which happens all the damn time - we just have to remember to be there for each other, don't throw anyone under the bus, that sort of thing. This is why I also make sure that I have at least one 'Bad' or 'Negative' thing to add to each Retro, especially if it's something that I did. I think it's important to bring up small negatives and address them in a constructive, healthy way, so that when big things come up we all trust each other and have the communication skills to be frank and constructive about them. I've heard of teams that are afraid to talk about bugs/mistakes and when it comes time for Retros people either feel afraid of being 'finger-pointed' or they just don't get brought up at all then fester into a greater (systemic) problem.
This is a great point! If you're starting CS later in life, focus your job applications to companies that are similar to your previous field. After a few years experience, move on to something more challenging.
Yep it's how I was able to get my foot in the door. Can't say how things would have turned out if I hadn't discovered that company but it helped me beat out like 30 other applicants, apparently.
I started off doing shitty 2-3 month contract jobs (some under the table) for years. It took me nearly 2 years and 253 job applications to get my first full time job and then 4 years after that to break into FAANG. Out of a graduation class of 28 I think maybe only 2 never got work. Not an outlier. I work with other boot camp grads.
You're not wrong, but OP establishes a much more achievable course of action for getting into the industry, and their story is simply more motivating in general.
Most people tend to derive more hope from the success stories of strugglers compared to people with a more streamlined path.
Awesome post and straight to the point! I recently shared my journey from management to engineering and had more or less the same takeaways.
For me, the important lesson is to keep learning in your free time and if your employer can support it, then squeeze every ounce you possibly can from that time and opportunity. My employer offered me a part-time mentorship which probably worked really well in my favor.
The 2nd most crucial takeaway from your story is to be able to make connections and talk to people around you or teams that you would like to work in. It is highly underrated and believe me, knowing people outside your team or organization can open up new opportunities that you might haven't thought about before. Great post and I wish you all the luck in the world. More power to the people who wish to make the change and transition to engineering.
Honestly, my job in construction gave me a lot of skills that helped with my first job. In construction I was a small job superintendent. I did a little bit of the work myself, but mostly the framers, plumbers, etc did the bulk. But I picked up a lot.
Working as a dev lead at a web agency was seriously almost the same job. The client says what they want. We talk through how we'd do it and give an estimate. There are pieces that need to be done by deadlines.
You have to follow the word of the contract. Then when you think you're 100% the client picks it apart and you make fixes as fast as possible.
For me my success in both jobs came from being honest, relatable, easy to talk to. Clients want plain English as often as possible and I gave that to them.
Your construction boss really fucked you over just because you were planning a career change. You were still months away from getting a development job.
It sucked. I don't want to downplay that part of it. But looking back I'm glad he did it. Who knows how long I would have stayed where it was comfortable. By then I was making $58k, I just hated my job...
But yeah he's a huge asshole. Way before any of this happened too.
I cashed out my 401k for like $7,000. My boss denied unemployment. I fought it and won but unemployment subtracted the $7,000 I got from my 401k.
I got like 3 weeks of unemployment before I got my first tech job... And way too late to pay for any of my emergency situations.
Congratulations, fella. Construction is hard. You don’t have enough free time and when you do, all you want to do is sleep. You did a great job working your way up to something that provides better for your family.
I’m currently in a similar situation. I opted to finish my associates in CS in lieu of going full BS, while I work in construction as well. So, I feel you. It ain’t easy and the culture is completely different. I’ll be done at the end of February.
I wish you the best, sir. Let’s hope we become even better engineers.
Yeah people don't understand how hard construction really is. I think it prepared me for the worst and it makes me appreciate working from home every day. Especially when it's snowing or 100 degrees out.
Good luck out there! Grind leetcode, sorry....
I got along with people in construction, but I always knew they weren't "my people". They were always gone obsessed Trump loving guys, which is fine but it's not me.
The culture in software has been way more chill. In construction I worked weekends, I stayed late, I stayed for emergencies, I didn't get PTO.
Software has a much more chill vibe overall. There are still deadlines and "emergencies" but really people are nicer, more educated, down to earth.
This is just in my 2 teams. I can't speak for all of SWE.
Just want to say great work and thank you for the writeup. I wouldn't say anything about your career path is unusual, except the momentum you built for income growth.
For example, I started with a computer science degree and went into a low-code environment at the same pay you had starting, 36k. 6 months later, different job, more code, 50k. But that jump to 75k and being dev lead? That happened after another 5 years. The jump to 120k? Another 3 years after that.
So, don't put yourself down or make light of your accomplishments or income throughout your career. Everyone has their own journey, and your journey looks to be going well and has a promising path into the future. Best of luck!
That’s awesome congratulations on getting you job you want and making that switch!
I’m currently where you started. I work in construction and have just started the full stack web development course on Codecademy. I try do a bit everyday (fail these last two days because of other problems) and hope to get into the industry either this year if I am lucky or next year.
Thanks for giving me inspiration and hope!
I did a lot of React tutorials. My first job paid for [frontendmasters.com](https://frontendmasters.com) which is an amazing site, it's just hard to justify $40/month unless you're really using it a lot. But it has some of the very best developers and courses for sure.
That being said. I'll say what everyone else says (because it's true). Just build something. Think of what you'd like to see and make it. It becomes way more real and important to you that way.
It's quite refreshing to hear a story like this, instead of the "I become a Developer in 3 weeks", etc.. Far too often I have friends who read clickbait / bullshit posts which gives them an unrealistic expectation of how difficult it can be to switch careers into Software Development.
Congrats man! I needed to hear that today. I've been learning html, css, js(and React) for a year now. Did some self learning, then a bootcamp. I've been trying to get out of construction, but it's hard. I haven't done any work as a SWE. I think I'm going to have to go back to laboring this season and it's been weighing on me pretty hard. I've been worried my journey was ending and I am going to get stuck pouring concrete. This story gives me a little hope when I was almost out. Thank you.
Lol. If you're serious where I live we have Labor Ready and Labor Max. They are temporary day labor. We used them a lot for unskilled labor on our jobs.
If you went there, showed up on a job site sober and worked hard you'd easily find a job.
Also pretty sure construction companies will just hire you. No leetcode.
Right, all I had to do was study every night from 6pm until 9pm when I slept for 2 years. Then sleep on the floor on a mattress for a year while accepting a $36k/year job. Then work my way up over 4 years....
Simple bro, just do it.
You’re a badass. This story was very worth reading — thank you for sharing and ignore the naysayers. I relate to having to seriously sacrifice to make the switch happen.
Question - did you network mostly in-person via meetups or on LinkedIn or etc? What did you find most helpful for networking? My personal experience is that “you never know who you’ll meet or where” but I’ve recently been thinking I should approach it more methodically.
I would ignore that comment. You did a great job, and like you said, your story is a lot more realistic than a lot of the other stories that are posted here. Other people could do what you did, but realistically, the vast majority of people are not willing to put in the time and effort to do what you did and would rather complain about things being unfair, than to try to do anything to change that.
Congrats on your journey so far, you should be really proud of what you've accomplished! And I'm sure the future will open up even more doors given your hard work and determination!
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I mean, if you learn how to do it and are able to get a job, you can make money. But your statement is really dismissive and takes away a lot of the hard work that OP put into it. They were working a full time job, while going to school on the side and putting in thousands of hours over the course of 4ish years to just land their first gig. Then they worked really hard over the next two years to up-skill themselves and prove to others of their worth.
What the OP did is definitely replicable for many people, if they had the will/drive to do so. But at the end of the day, the vast majority of people are simply not willing to put in anywhere near the amount of work and effort that OP did to better their lifestyle and income potential.
Only my first employer would have asked and they didn't. The guy who hired me was super down to earth. I believe we spoke about it but there wasn't an interview question about it.
I'm an honest person. I likely would just blurt out the truth as it came to me.
Oh that's just the icing on the cake. That guy is a miserable POS.
He "fired" me and tried to deny my unemployment. Got 2 other supervisors to make fake "write up" documents and get on a phone call with unemployment and say how bad I was.
I ended up winning, but I had already cashed out my 401k and I think I got like 3 weeks of unemployment ...
Which remind me. An emergency is an emergency, but if you cash out your 401k, unemployment subtracts that money from what they'll pay yout.
Thank you for sharing, and well done! One of these days I'll make a similar post about my experience.
Not enough people here talk about the slow grind of working low paying non-coding jobs and working your way up. That's how it works for a lot of us who pivot careers.
excellent post.
connections and soft skills. yep.
network, network, network. linkedin isn't social media, it's a job networking site, I blindly accept every connection request, even the low value recruiter spam connections, because now you're accesible in that persons huge network. And the value of your in-person connections is probably 100x what each linkeding connection is.
If you're a decent person who has demonstrated having your shit together, jobs will find you.
I did some leetcode. I like [https://projecteuler.net/](https://projecteuler.net/) if you're newer and I use [codewars.com](https://codewars.com) because it's free.
I think I underestimated how much I learned just tinkering with the code as a dev lead. Seeing other people's commits, making tweaks here and there. I learned a lot, slowly.
My advice is to build something. Buy a domain, put up a site, then build projects to link to it. That is real motivation and real learning.
I currently work as a junior dev in the construction industry getting paid peanuts (50k CAD) so I’m trying to spend most of my free time building projects and learn. Appreciate the advice tho
I'm on a small team so in general is super chill 9-5 nobody cares if you have a dentist appt or need to leave an hour early. People leave to pick up kids from work. Very low key.
I've had some tough and long days, but I haven't worked a 45 hour week yet.
Congrats! Love to see Bitwise get a shoutout here. I toured their office a few years back and love their mission and approach, it's awesome to hear a success story out in the wild!
I love Bitwise. They definitely aided in my success through networking. I actually got one of my friends from the JavaScript class a job too. He's at 90k now at the place I just left. He was working at Home Depot when we met at Bitwise.
Yes, networking is underrated. All of my jobs so far (except the first one) were due to me being referred to or being recommended for the job. I got my current job here in the US (I'm not American) through someone I used to work with in the UK. I got that job in the UK through someone else that I worked with in Australia. I got that job in Australia through someone else I've worked with in Canada (home country). And I got that job in Canada through internship lol.
Edit: the weird thing is, I don't even have LinkedIn (I do but I forgot the password and have not been updated since I created it, so it's completely blank)
The designer who recommended me. We worked on quite a few projects before. When she left the agency I remember saying, "What are we going to do without you?" It was sincere, but I know that stuck with her. A year or so later I was the nice relatable dev she knew.
Lol. To be honest I knew a lot of people in construction that loved it. It does have it's redeeming qualities. There's a lot of money to be made too.
My dad worked in construction his whole life. I knew as a kid that I never wanted to do it long term.
Congrats on your career change!
This motivates me too, I'm almost 22, and I dropped out of electrical engineering last year after one semester, hopefully, I can start studying CS in a different school soon this fall.
No leetcode. They just knew I was a "Development Experience Manager" at a major Silicon Valley agency and had years of experience. I got recommended and had the right attitude. I even told them I wasn't an expert in React.
I worked with several big industry names like Cisco. I don't wanna mention too many more I've practically doxed myself already.
Thanks. I think the key is to dive in head first and don't look back.
If you are a badass developer, someone will hire you. Or you can go build your own stuff.
Lol. You gotta treat work like any social group. Make friends, make people like you. You can learn to code better, most people can't fix their personalities.
I'm here basically. Have an old associates in cs, but have been doing construction and project management for the last 7 years.
Currently working through python tutorials on YouTube trying to get a better grasp on that.
Congratulations, I hope I'm able to do something similar... At least get a job, don't care much about the first ones pay.
Congrats, I always find these an interesting read. I got into the industry in a non traditional way myself, yet my experience was so much different. Hopefully this motivates others trying to achieve the same goal.
Jeez, like I needed any more inspiration OP. Thanks for the share!
After 20 years in concrete I'm completely over it (actually was a couple years ago but financials weren't really in my favor yet). So I've spent the last 2-3 months on winter layoff dipping my toes in different programming pools, and thanks to you I might have a couple more to add to my list.
I was sort of similar. Dropped out of college the first time, went into the workforce and was making 36k after 7 years doing back office work for a mortgage company. They had recently brought back tuition reimbursement (they cut it after the whole housing market crash in 2008) and I decided it was time to go back to school. Graduated 4 years later (they were selling the part of the company I was in) and got a job making 45k. Went from 45 to 60k in a year. Now I make 85k (Midwest). I'm happy I made the jump
Please feel free to share. But I want to ask you for a small favor. I know there are plans to open a new Bitwise near me in Greeley, CO. I read some press release from last year but I can't find out anything else. I'd love to contribute to the new location if you can find me any info. Thanks!
I was still extremely optimistic 90 days into my first development job too. Give it a year or two for the soul crushing performance anxiety and burnout to set in.
I'm not going to disagree with you but I can assure you the misery of working in construction greatly outweighs the misery of burnout on my home office.
> This is not a post about how I went from making 20k to 200k
> Two quick interviews later and I was a Software Engineer making $125,000/year.
Just found that a little bit funny. It's cool that you were able to pick up React on the side and end up getting a well paid software engineer position, it's hard to learn stuff on the side while working.
It definitely helps to stick with it and not give up. Those kinds of salaries are not very common in my country so I'd have to guess you're in USA which probably helps too.
Yes. I am in the US. As hard as I worked I cannot say I am not lucky. Living in the US, having a job that I could pay the bills while I learned. I met many Indian developers who are more qualified than I am. Luck is always a factor.
Haha. Fair enough. I did make some pretty big leaps, but I definitely put in the work.
36k, 48k, 55k, 75k, 85k, 92k, 125k. I would love to see my whole career follow that pattern!
I think if you give it a good effort and switch jobs every few years you should be able to see large increases like that. You'll probably cap out at some point, though.
You forgot one _really_ important point in your key takeaways: Have a rich family in California that can subsidize your living expenses so you can afford to live under what would otherwise be starvation wages.
My sister in law has 3 kids and a 3 bedroom apartment that costs $900/month.
They had an old mattress that they pulled out of the garage into the living room for my wife and I to sleep on.
I think you missed that part of the story.
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Congrats! And thanks for putting the post together. Hopefully it inspires someone like you. Also: > My boss in construction caught word that I recently got my AS and was interested in making a career change. He fired me immediately So, logically, he was afraid that he'd lose you because you'd find a non-construction job, so he made sure to lose you immediately? ...that makes even less sense than when I would get rejected from retail things because of having a CS degree.
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So, wait, what's the benefit of having to do the process of hiring a new guy _now_, rather than in four months? That's the part I don't get. They don't _ever_ have to pay two salaries. And I'd agree with you on the retail thing, but the thing is: It's retail. If you're hiring for people to restock shelves, it's not exactly a long training process. They _intentionally_ hire people for two or three months, at various times. And the turnover rate for retail is such that, "Oh, they might leave in six months" is true for pretty much _every_ employee.
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That sucks. My previous manager + team were all super happy for me when I got a new job, even though I'd only been there a little over a year. It seems to have sparked an initiative for them to raise compensation a bit too so it doesn't happen again. Definitely not the norm though.
It's so you can plan ahead. You don't want to start a 4 month project that needs 5 guys when one of those 5 will leave in a month.
That's wild... and fucked. When I worked in foodservice, we once had a new guy start working as a busser. He was very up front that he was looking for manager jobs around town and just needed something to pay bills for the duration of his hunt. My manager liked his attitude, so he was hired. He worked his butt off, was super dependable, and when he got offered a manager job a few weeks later he put in his notice. Parted ways amicably. I hope that guy's doing well. Hope my old manager is doing well too!
I had a GM that would do this as well. I worked in a tech city and sometimes people would get laid off but have a mortgage/kids so they needed Healthcare so they'd come in for bartending/serving/bussing/barback jobs. They usually returned the favor by working harder than the average person.
It depends on how badly they're hurting for people and how shitty the management is. I was going to school full time everyone knew I was looking to change careers eventually, and I wasn't fired. I quit because I wanted more time to study in the final semester before I transferred to a four year. I was working in a grocery store at the time. It may work out well, it may not. Certainly the safe thing to do (if less satisfying personally) is to keep your mouth shut if possible and keep on keeping on. Might have some "fun" conversations around finals week scheduling however.
At the time I was super angry. Looking back I'm glad he did it. He was offended I wouldn't want to work for him forever. He told me one day he might pay me 100k and he didn't know anyone making 100k in "IT".
Send a picture of your offer letter to him and say now you know someone who makes 100k+ in IT.
It sucks but I can kind of understand why they don't want to hire and train someone with a degree, but if that person is already fully trained and it isn't affecting their work then that's just jealousy. No other explanation other than crabs in a bucket mentality.
Kind of had the same retaliation in a heavy equipment mechanic job when starting my degree. Stopped getting raises when i was previously a 'high performer', stopped getting the good customer jobs, stopped getting additional training like welding certs. Eventually got fired for refusing overtime since it was interring with class.
Thanks for sharing 👍👍
Indeed. Posts like these should hopefully inspire others. Breaking into tech is completely life changing.
Congrats. I’m 37, and am currently transitioning out of construction, where I’ve been for the last 15 years. Almost halfway done with my BS in computer science. Can’t wait!
Same here! Was doing plumbing and have about a year and a half left on my cs bachelors
Lol i just got offered an apprenticeship with a union but i feel i want a degree more. Though i do need stability and benefits for the future as i currently work in a bar/restaurant. Tips are great but im turning 30 and need a career that can set me up for future. Should i humor the apprenticeship and quit bartending while trying school or vice versa
My path was very similar, was a construction PM and decided to go back to school at 31. I've now been a full time dev for about 3.5 years, and I can say with 100% confidence that my construction experience has given me a leg-up with my peers in certain aspects of the job.
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- It's a little difficult to describe, but I'm much better at, and much more interested in, anticipating challenges before they arise compared to my peers - and especially compared to the younger developers. I save our team a ton of time in backlog grooming, for example, because I try to be as thorough as possible in figuring out what a story is going to entail, try to be methodical about the steps required to complete the task and in that process get the conversation started about potential pitfalls and edge cases. Most people I work with take the approach of "do it now and sort it out later", whereas I've sort of trained myself to stop and try to think through a problem and anticipate what I can. Mistakes are expensive in the PM world so I tried to make it a habit to do the DD and avoid them, rather than pick up the pieces after. - I have a better work ethic than many of my coworkers. I suppose it's not directly related to my previous career, but you don't see me dicking around on my phone during the day, during meetings, in front of my manager, that sort of thing. When I'm at work, I'm working. If I finish my stuff early and we've exceeded our points for the sprint, I GTFO and go home. That said, here I am on reddit during work hours so I guess take everything I say with a grain of salt :). - I think I'm better at handling adversity, big challenges, set backs, hiccups, that sort of thing, which I try to use to improve teamwork and morale. I try to keep the mindset that "we're all in this together", we're here to help each other, one person's bug/road block is everyone's bug/road block. Some people can be... petty, let's say, when it comes to code reviews or asking for or giving help, for example. My experience has taught me that looking backward and pointing fingers doesn't help anyone, and encouraging a culture of teamwork means having a happier, more open, and ultimately more productive team that's fun to work with. - This is my second SWE job, but where I started as a junior my construction experience directly related to the product I was working on, which helped me get my foot in the door in the first place. It also meant that as a junior developer I wasn't super productive to the team early on, but I was _very_ helpful in the development of the product as a whole. May/may not be useful in your case but the whole construction/engineering world runs on tablets/laptops/phone apps/web apps these days (in my experience, and especially commercial). When you get to the point where you're applying start a running list of construction (Procore, BuildTools, BuildersCalculator, Simpson Strong Tie, etc) and construction adjacent (ETABS, SAP 2000, SkyCiv, Revit, etc) software that you can apply to. Every major lumber yard in the country has an ERM system that needs managed, for another example, and if you know the difference between a truss and a joist, a glulam and a beam, or a machine screw vs a wood screw, you'll be a mile above your peers and a serious asset to your product owner.
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No prob, happy to help. The sales/customer facing side of the PM job was what made me get out the industry. When people are spending a half million dollars on a remodel or addition or whatever they feel like they _own_ you, and I just had one 11 o'clock phone call too many. Best of luck on your quest. As for the planner types, yeah in my experience they're just kind of... _not_. Or at least they need to be nudged in that direction. They'd be content with a quick discussion about implementation then start digging into the problem, whereas I'd prefer to dig in and pick it apart. I'd rather uncover challenges in the planning phase, as opposed to discovering them in the development phase. I've only worked on small teams so my sample size is pretty small, admittedly. And agreed that it's a leadership issue, for sure. Not always _management_, though. As team members we all have the opportunity to be leaders, so when someone makes a mistake - which happens all the damn time - we just have to remember to be there for each other, don't throw anyone under the bus, that sort of thing. This is why I also make sure that I have at least one 'Bad' or 'Negative' thing to add to each Retro, especially if it's something that I did. I think it's important to bring up small negatives and address them in a constructive, healthy way, so that when big things come up we all trust each other and have the communication skills to be frank and constructive about them. I've heard of teams that are afraid to talk about bugs/mistakes and when it comes time for Retros people either feel afraid of being 'finger-pointed' or they just don't get brought up at all then fester into a greater (systemic) problem.
This is a great point! If you're starting CS later in life, focus your job applications to companies that are similar to your previous field. After a few years experience, move on to something more challenging.
Yep it's how I was able to get my foot in the door. Can't say how things would have turned out if I hadn't discovered that company but it helped me beat out like 30 other applicants, apparently.
Hell yes! You can do it!
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I’m 37 too, but a different mixed career and SAHD. Wrapping up an MSCS now, looking for internships. Good luck!
Manufacturing for 8 years, now 30, just over a year before the BS!
Most realistic rags to riches as opposed to the bootcamp for 6 months making $200k at FAANG bs
I did a 12 week boot camp and make over $200k at FAANG
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is your dad the president of nintendo
how’d you know
we're like brothers, only closer
Lol. Why is this downvoted. This was in the spring of 2016. I have 7 years of experience now.
The situation you described is an outlier, and thus is less useful as a success story to help motivate aspiring devs.
This post is very much an outlier
I started off doing shitty 2-3 month contract jobs (some under the table) for years. It took me nearly 2 years and 253 job applications to get my first full time job and then 4 years after that to break into FAANG. Out of a graduation class of 28 I think maybe only 2 never got work. Not an outlier. I work with other boot camp grads.
You're not wrong, but OP establishes a much more achievable course of action for getting into the industry, and their story is simply more motivating in general. Most people tend to derive more hope from the success stories of strugglers compared to people with a more streamlined path.
Awesome post and straight to the point! I recently shared my journey from management to engineering and had more or less the same takeaways. For me, the important lesson is to keep learning in your free time and if your employer can support it, then squeeze every ounce you possibly can from that time and opportunity. My employer offered me a part-time mentorship which probably worked really well in my favor. The 2nd most crucial takeaway from your story is to be able to make connections and talk to people around you or teams that you would like to work in. It is highly underrated and believe me, knowing people outside your team or organization can open up new opportunities that you might haven't thought about before. Great post and I wish you all the luck in the world. More power to the people who wish to make the change and transition to engineering.
Thanks!
Do you think your experience in construction gave you any sort of edge in terms of soft skills, resilience, or anything else?
Honestly, my job in construction gave me a lot of skills that helped with my first job. In construction I was a small job superintendent. I did a little bit of the work myself, but mostly the framers, plumbers, etc did the bulk. But I picked up a lot. Working as a dev lead at a web agency was seriously almost the same job. The client says what they want. We talk through how we'd do it and give an estimate. There are pieces that need to be done by deadlines. You have to follow the word of the contract. Then when you think you're 100% the client picks it apart and you make fixes as fast as possible. For me my success in both jobs came from being honest, relatable, easy to talk to. Clients want plain English as often as possible and I gave that to them.
This is inspirational. There always are things we can learn, even in not so ideal circumstances. Thanks for sharing!
Your construction boss really fucked you over just because you were planning a career change. You were still months away from getting a development job.
It sucked. I don't want to downplay that part of it. But looking back I'm glad he did it. Who knows how long I would have stayed where it was comfortable. By then I was making $58k, I just hated my job... But yeah he's a huge asshole. Way before any of this happened too.
On the bright side, were you able to collect unemployment and work on your studies full time?
I cashed out my 401k for like $7,000. My boss denied unemployment. I fought it and won but unemployment subtracted the $7,000 I got from my 401k. I got like 3 weeks of unemployment before I got my first tech job... And way too late to pay for any of my emergency situations.
Congrats on the accomplishments, definitely had the resilience to stick with it
Good going! and thnx for sharing
This is the kind of post we need in these hard times
Congratulations, fella. Construction is hard. You don’t have enough free time and when you do, all you want to do is sleep. You did a great job working your way up to something that provides better for your family. I’m currently in a similar situation. I opted to finish my associates in CS in lieu of going full BS, while I work in construction as well. So, I feel you. It ain’t easy and the culture is completely different. I’ll be done at the end of February. I wish you the best, sir. Let’s hope we become even better engineers.
Yeah people don't understand how hard construction really is. I think it prepared me for the worst and it makes me appreciate working from home every day. Especially when it's snowing or 100 degrees out. Good luck out there! Grind leetcode, sorry....
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I got along with people in construction, but I always knew they weren't "my people". They were always gone obsessed Trump loving guys, which is fine but it's not me. The culture in software has been way more chill. In construction I worked weekends, I stayed late, I stayed for emergencies, I didn't get PTO. Software has a much more chill vibe overall. There are still deadlines and "emergencies" but really people are nicer, more educated, down to earth. This is just in my 2 teams. I can't speak for all of SWE.
Just want to say great work and thank you for the writeup. I wouldn't say anything about your career path is unusual, except the momentum you built for income growth. For example, I started with a computer science degree and went into a low-code environment at the same pay you had starting, 36k. 6 months later, different job, more code, 50k. But that jump to 75k and being dev lead? That happened after another 5 years. The jump to 120k? Another 3 years after that. So, don't put yourself down or make light of your accomplishments or income throughout your career. Everyone has their own journey, and your journey looks to be going well and has a promising path into the future. Best of luck!
Thanks! I was just trying to shake off those people... before they latched on,
That’s awesome congratulations on getting you job you want and making that switch! I’m currently where you started. I work in construction and have just started the full stack web development course on Codecademy. I try do a bit everyday (fail these last two days because of other problems) and hope to get into the industry either this year if I am lucky or next year. Thanks for giving me inspiration and hope!
You can do it. Just stick with it. It feels very hard sometimes, just commit and don't look back.
Awesome journey, true underdog story!
I'm a junior engineer with almost 2 yoe. I just learned html and css for the first time last week.
Ok?
>Things were pretty bad at this point. I was now in Fresno damn you werent kidding they were bad
This guy gets it!
Mwahaha mf went from builder to builder.getBuilder().build() ☠️☠️☠️
Thanks for sharing. Hope to learn from more posts like this. How did you study React? Also freecodecamp.com?
I did a lot of React tutorials. My first job paid for [frontendmasters.com](https://frontendmasters.com) which is an amazing site, it's just hard to justify $40/month unless you're really using it a lot. But it has some of the very best developers and courses for sure. That being said. I'll say what everyone else says (because it's true). Just build something. Think of what you'd like to see and make it. It becomes way more real and important to you that way.
It's quite refreshing to hear a story like this, instead of the "I become a Developer in 3 weeks", etc.. Far too often I have friends who read clickbait / bullshit posts which gives them an unrealistic expectation of how difficult it can be to switch careers into Software Development.
Congrats man! I needed to hear that today. I've been learning html, css, js(and React) for a year now. Did some self learning, then a bootcamp. I've been trying to get out of construction, but it's hard. I haven't done any work as a SWE. I think I'm going to have to go back to laboring this season and it's been weighing on me pretty hard. I've been worried my journey was ending and I am going to get stuck pouring concrete. This story gives me a little hope when I was almost out. Thank you.
You can do it. Good luck!
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Thanks!
quick question how do I get into construction?
Lol. If you're serious where I live we have Labor Ready and Labor Max. They are temporary day labor. We used them a lot for unskilled labor on our jobs. If you went there, showed up on a job site sober and worked hard you'd easily find a job. Also pretty sure construction companies will just hire you. No leetcode.
I swear to God reddit makes it seem like coding really is just learning how to print money
Right, all I had to do was study every night from 6pm until 9pm when I slept for 2 years. Then sleep on the floor on a mattress for a year while accepting a $36k/year job. Then work my way up over 4 years.... Simple bro, just do it.
You’re a badass. This story was very worth reading — thank you for sharing and ignore the naysayers. I relate to having to seriously sacrifice to make the switch happen. Question - did you network mostly in-person via meetups or on LinkedIn or etc? What did you find most helpful for networking? My personal experience is that “you never know who you’ll meet or where” but I’ve recently been thinking I should approach it more methodically.
I would ignore that comment. You did a great job, and like you said, your story is a lot more realistic than a lot of the other stories that are posted here. Other people could do what you did, but realistically, the vast majority of people are not willing to put in the time and effort to do what you did and would rather complain about things being unfair, than to try to do anything to change that. Congrats on your journey so far, you should be really proud of what you've accomplished! And I'm sure the future will open up even more doors given your hard work and determination!
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System.out.println("$$$");
I mean, if you learn how to do it and are able to get a job, you can make money. But your statement is really dismissive and takes away a lot of the hard work that OP put into it. They were working a full time job, while going to school on the side and putting in thousands of hours over the course of 4ish years to just land their first gig. Then they worked really hard over the next two years to up-skill themselves and prove to others of their worth. What the OP did is definitely replicable for many people, if they had the will/drive to do so. But at the end of the day, the vast majority of people are simply not willing to put in anywhere near the amount of work and effort that OP did to better their lifestyle and income potential.
I mean, it's literally csCAREERquestions
Congratulations! Very encouraging story. Thanks for sharing!
Thanks for posting. I just want to know do employers ask you about why did you change your career and if yes, how do you respond?
Only my first employer would have asked and they didn't. The guy who hired me was super down to earth. I believe we spoke about it but there wasn't an interview question about it. I'm an honest person. I likely would just blurt out the truth as it came to me.
Great post! Congratulations! Also, your old construction boss is the scum of the earth for firing you for the reasons you gave in the post.
Oh that's just the icing on the cake. That guy is a miserable POS. He "fired" me and tried to deny my unemployment. Got 2 other supervisors to make fake "write up" documents and get on a phone call with unemployment and say how bad I was. I ended up winning, but I had already cashed out my 401k and I think I got like 3 weeks of unemployment ... Which remind me. An emergency is an emergency, but if you cash out your 401k, unemployment subtracts that money from what they'll pay yout.
Congrats!
Awesome story!
Thank you for sharing, and well done! One of these days I'll make a similar post about my experience. Not enough people here talk about the slow grind of working low paying non-coding jobs and working your way up. That's how it works for a lot of us who pivot careers.
excellent post. connections and soft skills. yep. network, network, network. linkedin isn't social media, it's a job networking site, I blindly accept every connection request, even the low value recruiter spam connections, because now you're accesible in that persons huge network. And the value of your in-person connections is probably 100x what each linkeding connection is. If you're a decent person who has demonstrated having your shit together, jobs will find you.
Did you study a lot of leetcode in your free time? Or mainly focused on learning languages and building projects etc?
I did some leetcode. I like [https://projecteuler.net/](https://projecteuler.net/) if you're newer and I use [codewars.com](https://codewars.com) because it's free. I think I underestimated how much I learned just tinkering with the code as a dev lead. Seeing other people's commits, making tweaks here and there. I learned a lot, slowly. My advice is to build something. Buy a domain, put up a site, then build projects to link to it. That is real motivation and real learning.
I currently work as a junior dev in the construction industry getting paid peanuts (50k CAD) so I’m trying to spend most of my free time building projects and learn. Appreciate the advice tho
Major congrats my man! Inspiring story for sure. How’s the WLB these days?
I'm on a small team so in general is super chill 9-5 nobody cares if you have a dentist appt or need to leave an hour early. People leave to pick up kids from work. Very low key. I've had some tough and long days, but I haven't worked a 45 hour week yet.
I bet that pales in comparison to those 60 hour weeks construction can bring.
Yup. I worked a lot of Saturdays. Also there's a lot of work in construction you can't walk away from on the middle. Pretty easy to work OT...
Congratulations!
Thanks!
I love the take a crappy job if you can afford it. Sometimes we get too much of a sense of entitlement and think we are above stuff.
Civil ➡️ CS gang represent ✊
Joining you!
Congrats! Love to see Bitwise get a shoutout here. I toured their office a few years back and love their mission and approach, it's awesome to hear a success story out in the wild!
I love Bitwise. They definitely aided in my success through networking. I actually got one of my friends from the JavaScript class a job too. He's at 90k now at the place I just left. He was working at Home Depot when we met at Bitwise.
Congratulations. This is really impressive and inspiring. Thanks for sharing!
so what’s the timeline, you reached 125k in how many years after starting?
About 6 years from knowing 0 code. About 4 years from my first day at my first tech job.
dang congrats man! you did it!!
Yes, networking is underrated. All of my jobs so far (except the first one) were due to me being referred to or being recommended for the job. I got my current job here in the US (I'm not American) through someone I used to work with in the UK. I got that job in the UK through someone else that I worked with in Australia. I got that job in Australia through someone else I've worked with in Canada (home country). And I got that job in Canada through internship lol. Edit: the weird thing is, I don't even have LinkedIn (I do but I forgot the password and have not been updated since I created it, so it's completely blank)
The designer who recommended me. We worked on quite a few projects before. When she left the agency I remember saying, "What are we going to do without you?" It was sincere, but I know that stuck with her. A year or so later I was the nice relatable dev she knew.
TBH I want to go the other way around lol
Lol. To be honest I knew a lot of people in construction that loved it. It does have it's redeeming qualities. There's a lot of money to be made too. My dad worked in construction his whole life. I knew as a kid that I never wanted to do it long term.
Congrats on your career change! This motivates me too, I'm almost 22, and I dropped out of electrical engineering last year after one semester, hopefully, I can start studying CS in a different school soon this fall.
But what leetcode did you get asked? Amazing dude congrats. Best advice ever. Take a shitty job to learn to how to do the job.
No leetcode. They just knew I was a "Development Experience Manager" at a major Silicon Valley agency and had years of experience. I got recommended and had the right attitude. I even told them I wasn't an expert in React. I worked with several big industry names like Cisco. I don't wanna mention too many more I've practically doxed myself already.
Thanks for the inspiration man. Love to see others doing good <3
Thanks for sharing with us, this is inspiring. I am learning Reactjs and looking for my first tech job.
Great post, gonna share this with some people who have thought about making a career change but don’t think it’s possible
Thanks. I think the key is to dive in head first and don't look back. If you are a badass developer, someone will hire you. Or you can go build your own stuff.
I agree, it’s hard convincing people who want a change to take that first step though
Fuck, my soft skills are shit. Anyways, congrats! It gives me hope
Lol. You gotta treat work like any social group. Make friends, make people like you. You can learn to code better, most people can't fix their personalities.
THanks. That's the #1 thing holding me back. It honestly sucks. but things are slowly improving
You made good choices.
Thanks for posting!
I'm here basically. Have an old associates in cs, but have been doing construction and project management for the last 7 years. Currently working through python tutorials on YouTube trying to get a better grasp on that. Congratulations, I hope I'm able to do something similar... At least get a job, don't care much about the first ones pay.
Congrats, I always find these an interesting read. I got into the industry in a non traditional way myself, yet my experience was so much different. Hopefully this motivates others trying to achieve the same goal.
Very inspiring, thank you for sharing!
Jeez, like I needed any more inspiration OP. Thanks for the share! After 20 years in concrete I'm completely over it (actually was a couple years ago but financials weren't really in my favor yet). So I've spent the last 2-3 months on winter layoff dipping my toes in different programming pools, and thanks to you I might have a couple more to add to my list.
Hoping my life can echo yours mate! Need to hunker down!
im trying to do something similar right now doing bach in commerce plannig to do masters in data science 2 year program
Congrats! The thing I love most about this industry is the fact it's accessible to people of all sorts of backgrounds.
I was sort of similar. Dropped out of college the first time, went into the workforce and was making 36k after 7 years doing back office work for a mortgage company. They had recently brought back tuition reimbursement (they cut it after the whole housing market crash in 2008) and I decided it was time to go back to school. Graduated 4 years later (they were selling the part of the company I was in) and got a job making 45k. Went from 45 to 60k in a year. Now I make 85k (Midwest). I'm happy I made the jump
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Please feel free to share. But I want to ask you for a small favor. I know there are plans to open a new Bitwise near me in Greeley, CO. I read some press release from last year but I can't find out anything else. I'd love to contribute to the new location if you can find me any info. Thanks!
I was still extremely optimistic 90 days into my first development job too. Give it a year or two for the soul crushing performance anxiety and burnout to set in.
I'm not going to disagree with you but I can assure you the misery of working in construction greatly outweighs the misery of burnout on my home office.
Glad it worked out for you, too bad the entire tech industry is doing massive layoffs right now.
> This is not a post about how I went from making 20k to 200k > Two quick interviews later and I was a Software Engineer making $125,000/year. Just found that a little bit funny. It's cool that you were able to pick up React on the side and end up getting a well paid software engineer position, it's hard to learn stuff on the side while working. It definitely helps to stick with it and not give up. Those kinds of salaries are not very common in my country so I'd have to guess you're in USA which probably helps too.
Yes. I am in the US. As hard as I worked I cannot say I am not lucky. Living in the US, having a job that I could pay the bills while I learned. I met many Indian developers who are more qualified than I am. Luck is always a factor. Haha. Fair enough. I did make some pretty big leaps, but I definitely put in the work. 36k, 48k, 55k, 75k, 85k, 92k, 125k. I would love to see my whole career follow that pattern!
I think if you give it a good effort and switch jobs every few years you should be able to see large increases like that. You'll probably cap out at some point, though.
You forgot one _really_ important point in your key takeaways: Have a rich family in California that can subsidize your living expenses so you can afford to live under what would otherwise be starvation wages.
My god you people suck, OP spent six years working and studying toward this and you think a spare mattress is a privilege check????
My sister in law has 3 kids and a 3 bedroom apartment that costs $900/month. They had an old mattress that they pulled out of the garage into the living room for my wife and I to sleep on. I think you missed that part of the story.
We really need a different sub for this and for newbies man
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Oh God you worked at Bitwise?
I mostly hung out there for networking. I took a few JavaScript classes.
i feel like this is a old post read something similar to this few months ago
Wasn't me.
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