Starting anew as a Techie - by @lightforge13
The road from supply chain to software
After a decade working in supply chain with demand and process planning, I have decided to make a change in my professional life and move into the technology field of working environments, more specifically: software development.
Starting from scratch is never easy, especially if you have no previous experience. When I started in supply chain I at least had my studies as a baseline of what to expect, what I can do and how not to look like a complete fool. So starting again in the great unknown is not just scary, but exceptionally difficult too, especially if you consider your salary.
Now if you’re young, this is not so bad. Career changes happen all the time. If however, you’re the sole provider for your family of 4, it gets a little more complicated. You get accustomed to a certain level of living and reducing your income has a massive effect on your life. Your salary can be subsidized by odd jobs after-hours and on weekends. So, as usual, there is another door that opens.
The time you have to put into a new job, to prove yourself, is immense. When you do something for any number of years you get into a groove and a lot of what you do becomes second nature and thinking becomes less and less important. When you’re a newbie in a company, you have to prove yourself all over again, and when you know squat, that becomes exponentially more difficult.
It felt wonderful when I sent my resignation through to my line manager and I couldn’t be more excited about starting my new career. But, as I got closer to my starting date, the dread started to set in. I knew nothing….NOTHING. So trying to mitigate this stress I started to read up and look at a bunch of tutorials. The more I read, the more I stressed because I realized even more how little I knew. Objects, classes, push, pull, JavaScript, Ruby, Tortoise and git. I was bombarded by theory and I was lost in this world. I knew I was starting from scratch, but there were expectations to perform at a certain level, and the more time passed the more I started to worry about reaching those levels.
Eventually, my first day of work arrived. I met die team, the team met me, and I was given my first assignment. And it was relatively simple. I was elated. I would have time to learn, to grow, they understood my level of knowledge. This was going to be great!
So this is my blog, where I rant about whatever happened in the day. Where I try to remember and repeat what I’ve learned for the day(s). Where I blow off some STEEM
Follow me on my journey.
Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes :-)
To listen to the audio version of this article click on the play image.
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Did it not seem a bit late to get into tech? I learned to code when I was about 17 and I thought that was a bit late at the time. I still think it was late for me. I have a degree that isn't IT related and I always look for things associated with that. Even though I keep up with programming and understand it fairly well, I feel intimidated to look for any programming work.
P.S. Not trying to be discouraging, just trying to get your take. I wish you the best of luck with tech.
Thanks for the comment @rosebudds. To be honest, I'm not going to disagree with you, it is late, and the learning curve is insane. I have my doubts but I revel at the challenge. I hit the ceiling of my previous designation and the thought of moving to another job doing the same mundane things day in and day out felt like a much higher hurdle than changing professions completely. Granted, I could have made the change slowly, carefully picking jobs that will eventually get me to tech, doing diplomas and so on and honestly it would have been a lot easier. However, time moves on faster than we want it to, and tech changes rapidly, so even experienced guys are always learning. But truth be told, I was given a golden opportunity to take the dive, and if it wasn't for that, I'd probably still be bored out of my mind with the same old things. I didn't plan for this at all, but we don't have much control over our future so we go with the flow and see where it takes us.