Why I'm switching to software engineering (and why I'm refusing to give up)

Sit back and relax, because here goes nothing: it's story time.

(For the record, I Think You Should Leave is the greatest skit show of all time, and I will never refuse an opportunity to utilize a .gif from it.)

I don't remember the exact year—maybe 1997?—but thanks to my parents signing up for EarthLink dial-up and their webhosting options, I fell into the world of web design. Like most people, I wasn't good at it initially. It wasn't until I switched over to Homestead and GeoCities that I fell into a groove, so to speak. Before long, I had one of the most popular Gundam Wing websites at the time. This inspired me to move from the WYSIWYG builder (which, let's be honest: the fact they made such an intuitive process is praiseworthy) to the actual HTML coding to make my websites even better.

Eventually, I lost interest, and my coding skills fell to the wayside. It might have been in tandem with my dad leaving and losing interest in almost everything but music. When Myspace became a thing, I was like everyone else, using some HTML here and there to make my profile look better than everyone else's, but apart from that? I never utilized the love for design and coding I instilled in myself. I'm not sure why, and it's a mystery to this day.

Fast-forward to 2019. I went from professional shoe shiner to property/leasing manager to car salesman. Not really a path of glory, if I can be honest. Growing up, I never saw myself selling cars. Heck, before I started selling, I barely knew the difference between a Hyundai and a Nissan. But in 2016, my wife and I mutually decided that she would stay home with our son, to give him the time and attention he deserved, which meant finding a job that could support our single income lifestyle. And at first, it was great! I was making great money, and I was good at what I did. Heck, I eventually became a sales manager for the dealership.

Of course, things change. Even before the pandemic(!), the market had been in a weird spot, and after a while, I was growing tired of selling cars. Some people can sell smartphones to the Amish, whereas I am more of a, "If it's not right for you, then it's not right for you" kind of sales person. Which, in some contexts, I'm sure it works! Just not with the automotive industry, and not with the dealerships I worked for.

Then, out of the blue, I was chatting with a childhood friend, and he asked if I ever considered looking into web development as a career. Although his degree was in city planning, he took his love for drawing and became a product designer for a local software company, which meant he was constantly working with the front end team. This reminded me of my days as a kid, designing websites, and after perusing the average salary for a software engineer, I replied:

Now, having a good idea and having the discipline to do something don't always go hand-in-hand. At the time of this conversation, I was finishing up my Masters of Arts in Theological Studies, and we had just discovered we were expecting our second kid. You would think this would inspire me to kick butt and take names, but nope. I was dealing with untreated depression, and I didn't know how to make the time for these studies. Sure, I purchased access to Colt Steele's bootcamp on Udemy, and I'd make time here and there, but I didn't stick with it. I let everything else in my life derail my aspirations, time and time again.

At this point, you might be wondering, "You're only a few months away from the coronavirus pandemic. Surely you had time to do these classes then, right?" My daughter was born on March 11th of 2020, the day the pandemic became "official," but we ended up spending 40 days in the NICU due to some severe complications at birth. I won't spend a lot of time with that part of the story, but let's just say between getting laid off and spending all of my time at the hospital, I tried doing classes, but it was hard to be fully invested. Even after we brought her home, the feeding schedule she was on kept me from really focusing much on studies...or sleeping, for that matter.

I could go on and on with minor plot points, but I want to focus on where I'm at right now. In the beginning of the pandemic, car sales actually weren't half bad. People had stimulus checks to spend, and the chip shortage hadn't really affected sales drastically. Now, however, the car market is on life support, and there doesn't seem to be an immediate end in sight. For example, as of today, I've sold four vehicles, whereas normally, I'd be at close to nine or ten, ending the month with close to fifteen. September is always a weird month, but this has been the trend for the past few, unfortunately. We have the inventory, but the prices are high, and people aren't in a huge rush to buy if they don't have to. Lot of tire kicking these days.

(How I feel every time I meet a customer who is "just looking.")

This is why I've finally committed to doing a software engineering bootcamp. After getting the medical help I needed, I finally started having a clear head, which helped me realize I couldn't keep making excuses. I couldn't sit around and wait for the market to turn around. I was tired of lying to myself and saying there weren't any other options, that I'd have to just settle and sell cars for the foreseeable future. My skills and talents aren't being fully utilized in this industry, and more importantly, if I'm unable to provide for my family properly, then what am I doing to rectify the problem?

That's also why despite hitting a wall over the weekend with the prep class, I'm still pushing through. The first few subunits were review for me: HTML and CSS. Even once I hit JavaScript, it was new, but the concepts made sense. Creating loops and working with arrays was fun! While HTML and CSS are necessary, JavaScript got me fired up the other two languages couldn't, and I felt like I was unstoppable. That is, until I hit the practice exam questions, where I'm given a prompt and required to create the correct function.

Unstoppable?

But I'm not giving up. I have a family depending on me. They believe in me. My mentor believes in me. I have given up too many times before to give up now. That's why I'm going back and reviewing the previous videos. I'm taking more notes than I did the first time. I'm breaking things down to the smallest units possible and purposefully throwing wrong loops and returns into the console, just to see what happens and learn from my mistakes. (I'm also taking up my friends on their offers to work through problems, despite my fear I'm being a pain/bother.)

I'm not sure where you're at with your process. Most likely, you're streets ahead of where I'm at. But if I've learned anything in life, if you really want something, there's a good chance the possibility to acquire it is out there. Now, there are times we want things that aren't good for us, sure. But this time around, I'm more convinced than ever this new career path is in my reach. I refuse to give up. Even if it means slowing down to speed up, I'll make it there. And I'm excited to see what comes next.