My journey from teaching to software development

austinbooth — Sat, 18 Jul 2020 11:34:21 +0000

As I write this I've just finished the fourth week of a 14-week long coding bootcamp. Before the bootcamp I'd been a chemistry teacher for about 10 years. So why change at the age of 41?

For a long time I'd felt unfulfilled in my job. I worked at a great school, and I was good at my job. But it wasn't enough. I was bored and wasn't being challenged or learning anything new. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't good either, and so I tolerated it for much longer than I should have.

I'd always tinkered with programming. I started when I was about 8, programming simple games in Basic on a ZX Spectrum. I always enjoyed getting the computer to follow my commands, even if it took hours to get my code to work! But it was just a hobby which I did less of as I went through university and then into work.

Much later on I had a go at programming PHP, and I even created a simple question generator website which helped me as a teacher when I needed questions for my classes. This sparked my interest in coding again and I loved how I'd made something which was really useful (at least to me!).

After learning some Python with Dataquest and using it to analyse data and do some basic machine learning I was completely hooked! I loved solving problems with code and decided I wanted to change career.

But how do you change career when you're in your early 40s? I must have Googled this a hundred times! I decided a course would be the quickest way and started looking at coding bootcamps. There are quite a few in the UK but one that really stood out was Northcoders. After looking at the reviews and all the help they give to graduates to find a job, I decided to apply.

Straight away it was obvious they only wanted people who were serious and who would be employable as junior developers on the course. When I applied I had to do some work on freeCodeCamp (10-15 hours of basic javaScript) followed by a 45-minute tech test to see if I could apply what I'd learnt to some simple problems. After this they decide if the course would be a good fit for you. I was pretty nervous when I took the tech test but I can't have been too bad because they offered me a place! However this was just as the UK went into lockdown with the Covid-19 pandemic, and so all future courses were indefinitely postponed.

After getting a place, there is some pre-course work to do to make sure you can hit the ground running. Lockdown gave me a chance to do this pre-course work thoroughly (including coding a basic portfolio website in HTML and CSS).

Just after I'd finished all the pre-course work, Northcoders announced they were going to do a fully remote version of their full-stack developer course. Initially I was hesitant about the remote course as I'd been looking forward to relocating to Manchester or Leeds for the course. But with the ongoing uncertainties with the pandemic it was a no-brainer; by doing the remote course I wouldn't have to wait and would hopefully emerge job-ready as the lockdown was easing. Plus with remote working forced upon so many companies, showing I could work remotely would be an advantage too.

So four weeks into the bootcamp, how am I feeling? I love it! Don't get me wrong, there is a huge amount to learn, and I'm finding I've got to do some extra work in the evenings and weekends to cement my understanding, but I don't mind that at all as I'm really enjoying it.

Cover photo credit

DEV Community: austinbooth

My journey from teaching to software development