So why did I make a career change to software development?

Now that I’ve reached the job hunt stage of my journey into software development I thought it may be a good idea to put in writing just what made me decide to make the change from working in the travel and tourism industry to the unfamiliar world of tech. Also, I told myself I’d do another job application this afternoon, but after heading out on a slightly longer than planned hike this morning, I don’t really have the energy to put together a decent application. Writing this makes me feel I’ve at least been slightly productive today.

Clearly 2020 was not a good year to be working in the tourism industry. Since I moved to Chamonix-Mont-Blanc I’d worked in the operations team for a large ski tour operator in the autumn, winter and spring and had run a bed and breakfast each summer. Though I enjoyed both these jobs I knew I wasn’t really getting the opportunity to use my brain in the way I wanted, lacked any opportunities for progression and that a change was needed, I just wasn’t really sure how or what.

It was an interview I had for a sales administrator role at a tech company, just a few months before the pandemic hit, that first planted the seed of software development. One of the questions asked in the interview was what my dream job would be, I answered that I wasn’t sure exactly but that I would like something that combined some creativity (I love to draw and make things, but wouldn’t necessarily describe myself as an ideas person) with logical thinking and putting plans into action. Following that answer the interviewer joked that it sounded like I should be a software engineer. Unsurprisingly, I didn’t get the sales administrator job. At the time I thought, yeah I guess being a software engineer would have been cool if I’d done things differently, but it’ll never happen now, I wouldn’t even know where to begin.

Fast forward a few months, covid meant the bed and breakfast didn’t open for the summer and my winter job was looking less and less stable as the summer went on, I had a lot more time on my hands to think about what I wanted. I’m sure I’m one of many who has got the pandemic to thank for giving me the sharp nudge I needed to make the change I wanted to make.

I knew the change I wanted to make was a career change but I still wasn’t entirely sure on the direction, other than knowing I wanted to give myself tangible skill. After a chat with my parents, one of the many suggestions my mum came up with was ‘coding’ (she admitted that she didn’t know what it was but had heard the word lot recently). With a bit of confidence from that interview comment, I signed up to a free, week long intro to coding course. I enjoyed being able to see progress I made in just a week, literally knowing nothing to being with. The second or third day I found hard, but I found by the end I was able to repeat what I’d learnt on that day to build a recipe page and it actually made sense now. Following that I signed up to various other online courses and found that I was able to spend all day doing them, was enjoying it and enjoying learning something new. Though there were parts that really didn’t make any sense at first, I found that if I came back and repeated it the next day, and possibly the next day too, it would then begin to make sense. It was a great feeling overcoming topics that initially seemed hard and then moving on to learn the next thing. I was using my brain in a way I hadn’t for a while and was enjoying learning.

It had got to the time of year where I had to decide if I was going to hold out for my job at the ski tour operator, I decided against this and applied for Makers bootcamp. Still with relatively little idea of what being a software developer entailed, but confident that I’d enjoyed the coding I’d done so far and confident that I’d open myself up for far more opportunities in future than if I were to stick to my current career path, I began 2021 as a student at Makers. It was after starting Makers that I began to find some of the other reasons to love working in the tech industry. Mainly these centred on the openness of the industry, the willingness to knowledge share and the appreciation there’s always going to more to learn and everyone has to start somewhere. I loved working collaboratively and really enjoyed pair programming finding it a great way to learn and share knowledge.

As it happens I was offered my job back with the ski tour operator that winter, but by that time I’d already made the decision to train to become a software developer, and it felt pretty good that that decision was made on my own terms.