How I became a software engineer in Silicon Valley in 12 months

Photo credit: Robert Gourley.

A year ago, I was working part-time as a route setter at a rock climbing gym in Tennessee. Today, I’m working as a software engineer at a cybersecurity startup in San Francisco.

My journey to this point has been unforgettable and life-changing. And even if everything was challenging, I think any sufficiently motivated person could do the same.

Knowledge has become democratized. All you need to be competitive in your field is time and dedication, and this is especially true for software engineering.

My life was falling apart

When I started learning to code in 2016, I guess you could say that my life was falling apart.

I went to college as a pre-med student, with degrees in biochemistry and anthropology. But I quickly became disenchanted with science and medicine and left college with no clear path.

I started working as a route setter at rock climbing gyms for almost two years, but things were not going so well. I knew I was in need of a big change.

I had been putting off learning to code for a long time but I knew this was what I wanted to do. Finally, on my birthday in 2016, I committed to learn to code. I didn’t look back since.

At this point in time, I was vaguely familiar with the coding bootcamps that have become quite ubiquitous over the last few years. Luckily, I quickly discovered Free Code Camp. When I realized that finishing the curriculum entailed writing software for nonprofit organizations, I promptly joined and resolved that I would finish the open source curriculum before even considering a bootcamp.

Learning to code

Free Code Camp rapidly became the core of my education. I supplemented it with many other resources such as podcasts, tutorials, open courseware, and healthy doses of documentation and Stack Overflow when needed.

My typical days involved me working through the curriculum’s challenges and projects, which allowed me to progressively improve my skills. When sitting and writing code became unproductive, I would absorb material through other channels—audio, video, and so on. I moved back and forth between different learning methods, which was very useful in maintaining a strong level of engagement and focus. This was basically my process and it allowed me to dedicate many hours to learning.

Here it is by the numbers (roughly estimated):

• Total duration learning: less than 12 months
• Total hours: approximately 2,500 hours
• Total projects completed: more than 70
• Total CS courses watched: approximately 10
• Total GitHub commits: over 1,500
• Total lines of JavaScript written: more than 20,000

Most of this learning took place in Knoxville, Tennessee, where I was living at the time. I had a strong desire to move to one of the major tech cities, so one day I woke up and naturally decided it was time to drive to San Francisco. That’s about exactly how it happened.

Arriving in San Francisco for my first real job search

My triumphant return to San Francisco

Lessons I learned over the past 12 months