Before I fell in love with programming, I was a professional cook. I spent two years in culinary school, and worked in a lot of different restauran...
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Great post Jeremy! I was a chef after high school for over a decade and so much of what you write about resonates with me. I wrote a piece last year based around my decision to leave the kitchen and return to my original love of programming. Reading your story has reminded that I need to write a follow up! Thanks 👌
medium.com/kitchen-to-keyboard/i-w...
I just finished reading that, and I really connected with your experience. Definitely looking forward to a follow-up!
I appreciate the article, as a fellow nontraditional programmer; a lot of good stuff here.
I would offer a bit of caution with Passion Is The Differential. I like programming a lot, but I’m not all that passionate about it. I got into the field because it is secure and lucrative, which I think is the primary reason why a lot of us switch careers to it. For those that are passionate about it, and can spend a lot of their own time working on OSS, developing tutorials, etc. I applaud you and I’m even a little envious. That said, if you were simply putting in your 40 and making an effort to modestly improve your skills every day, there is no shame in that.
I think being more pragmatic approach to the concept would be Grit Is The Differential. As you aptly pointed out, there are going to be days where the going is tough and you have to simply do it. Getting stuck, troubleshooting bugs all day, and the endless frustration of mismatched APIs is part of the gig. This job, like any other job, is going to have days where it sucks. Part of being successful in this field, IME, is having the tenacity to push through.
Thoughts?
I think that's a really excellent point, and I'm glad you brought that up. I can only ever write about my own experience, and so when I wrote that I was thinking of my own feeling that if I loved cooking more, I would have felt more motivated improve, thus becoming successful. But just because my own lack of passion was a de-motivator, doesn't mean that I wouldn't have been able to find another source of motivation. The same holds true for anyone.
I don't think that being absolutely in love with a job is a prerequisite for anybody. I think that if someone wants to program for a living, they should do it, regardless of whether or not they live and breathe code. Even passion doesn't make up for being scrappy and working hard.
I've been searching for something I love and am good at my entire life. I feel lucky that I've found it in programming, but I don't want anyone to think that they would be somehow unable to be great at programming because they lack passion for it. All I'm pointing out is that I've noticed that the most successful people I've seen tend to have a passion for their work. But I'm limited by my own experience because that's all I can write about.
All our stories are different, and we are on our own journeys.
Certainly, and your experience is as relevant as mine. I mention it because I think there can be this “over-exhuberance” in our field. “Passion” becomes code for “working long hours and weekends”, which I feel can contribute to the stigma and ageism that is already plaguing the industry.
I enjoyed reading this. I came across your post while googling stress comparison between chefs and programmers. I was a chef for 20 plus years including being a head chef and chef de cuisine. I was always able to handle the stress until I wasn’t. There were certain jobs that were just too much. It wasn’t the hours necessarily. Although, working months of 16 hours a day for 6 days a week will take a toll. I was not passionate about being a chef for most of the time and the pay was also horrible. I was able to outwork people often and most of the time be the eye of the storm. I gave it up for good last year when the pandemic created a vacuum even after I had just landed a fancy new job as a private chef at a bio tech startup. At that point, I was already a “dead chef” as my fiancé likes to call me now. Although, I do still make her dinner almost every night. After being furloughed and taking a few months to mentally recuperate, I decided to begin learning how to code. Now, that’s the path I’m on. I find myself extremely fascinated with it and have found some good mentors to help me through the process. But I am not sure I will ever be as passionate about it as I am about music. I am a musician as well. I’ve been one since before I even had my first cooking job. Even went to college for it. But like the culinary path, it does not pay unless you are a combination of gifted and lucky. So, I decided to keep this as a passion and not ruin it by trying to force a career out of it. I have played professionally. More recently in fact. Effectively retired from restaurants 7 years ago. Was a self-employed private chef after that. This allowed me more time to work on music. I have written and produced a bit of music and a music video. I have tons of unfinished demos. All this is to say that I think it’s hard to make a career out of passions and can also suck that passion right out of us. Especially, if the pay does not equal the energy output. But what I have gained throughout my professional career is that a good ole fashioned hard work ethic is enough to be successful professionally. Out working others can be a good goal to have and competitiveness is motivating. But no matter what one does for a professional living, I do not think it’s imperative to be passionate about one’s job. It certainly helps. But it’s completely possible to be really good at what you do professionally and also have an appropriate work/life balance and protect their true passions. Hopefully, I will be gainfully employed as a full stack developer within a year. That is my expectation. I set my goals high. Thanks for reading my thoughts and opinion and I appreciate the post you made. Please excuse my fatigued ramblings and grammatical errors or typos. ~ Cheers!
Thank for your thoughts! I agree with you completely that our careers don't necessarily need to be our foremost passions, but can help us live a lifestyle that allows us to pursue our passions. Best of luck on your journey and let me know if I can help in any way!
Hi! Thanks for replying. I could actually use some guidance. Mostly, I am beginning to work on my portfolio and some projects for it. Wondering what the best frameworks and libraries are to use for it and also what the best projects are for it. Although, I was a chef I have always been a musician and would love to work for some sort of music company as a self-taught “entry level” web developer. But, of course I would also take any entry level web development job. Anyway, any insight is appreciated. Thanks again for this article and your reply.
I would say that the best frameworks and projects to use are the ones that excite you. It would be good to have projects that showcase your evolution as a programmer.
My most recent portfolio had a CLI program that connected to the Google Books API and let users put together reading lists, a Ruby on Rails web app that was a wine-lovers' social media page, another Rails app that was a job search organizer, and a small webpage I made that tells you dad jokes when you click a button. All of my projects were written in Ruby, Ruby on Rails, and JavaScript.
CLI programs are really nice to have because they show proficiency with a language. Full-stack web apps are good to include because that's what we work on most of the time, so it's good to be familiar with how they work. Whatever you include, be sure you deploy it to Heroku or some other cloud provider.
Once you start working professionally, all of your learning projects can be replaced with examples of your real-world work, which is a great feeling.
I hope this helps! Let me know if I can give you any more information. I'll try to respond sooner next time.
Thanks for this reply. I actually missed it somehow. As one might assume, progress was a little halted due to life's little twists and turns. Been doing a lot of personal chef work since about the time you responded, but I am now a little more balanced and back on the coding path. Thanks again for all that information. Very much appreciated!
I never comment on stories, but felt compelled to do so here. The article is well written and your advice is spot on. I personally think passion is the most important element. Passion drives you to work hard, show up and learn as much as possible. Your passion for programming shows through the article. Thanks for sharing
Glad to know I am not the only one who has followed this path. I've felt the same things as you, just never put it down before. About the only thing I use my culinary skills for now is make my family restaurant-quality dinners, and teach my kids how to get around the kitchen.
Hello, I googled chef to programmer, and this came up :) I was a corporate chef for the last 11 years at a large software company near Madison, but now I am going to school for web development. I felt exactly the same as you described about the profession, I didn't LOVE it, I knew I could never be a head chef, and I was surrounded by people who were more passionate about it. I'm in my second semester now, but I'm wondering if i can find a way to be truly passionate about work in this field.
Great article, thank you for your perspective!
I can only speak from my own experience. I currently work for a small software company in Madison, and I'm truly passionate about the work we do. Give it a shot. You never know until you try.
So far I really like ui/ux, do you think there is enough of a market for that around here?
Thanks for sharing this! I've always admired chefs' ability to keep their station clean and organized while serving dinner rush. I share that obsession and it's very much reflected on the software tools I choose to use and how I organize them. Great post!
Thanks, everybody. Writing is fun as it is, but when it connects with people, it's the greatest feeling in the world. I was going off of a hunch that because tech and cooking are two insanely competitive industries, the same principles for success could apply to both. I am both happy and relieved that I was on to something.
Thank you for writing this article. I enjoy cooking at home as a hobby and I think your comparisons are on point. I love your point, "We owe it to everybody who helped us learn...". It really makes a difference helping others.
I think something to go along with "Be Organized" is "use the right tool for the job". Sure you could chop an onion using a butter knife, but there are other tools for the job that will make it a helluva lot easier. The same thing can be applied in practice with programming. This could be adding another tool to your tool-belt that will assist you such as add-ons or extensions, or it could be switching to an entirely different IDE. If you do your research and talk to others in the field, you may learn that there are better ways to tackle the everyday problems you encounter.
That's a great point! Thank you
Great post Jeremy!
You're right, we need to just do it. Stop thinking about it and find our way in, on and around any problems that try to stop us.
I still have both feet in the food service world right now, working my way through Flatiron part-time. Every time I get stuck on a problem and it damages my motivation, my foodservice job is there to haunt me. I need people like you to get me to work harder and go all in. Thanks for the motivation and positivity!
I am really humbled and grateful for the positive response this thing of mine has gotten over the past three months. Based on that response, and without rewriting the whole thing, I do want to clarify some things for the good of the community, and whoever might read this in the future.
By 'work harder than the person next to you', I am not advocating for any kind of unhealthy work environment or lifestyle that involves working long hours, weekends, or giving no room for self-care.
What I am advocating is the idea that programming is a craft in the same way that cooking is, and that being a successful programmer isn't just about your job title or salary, but proficiency at your craft, and the best, if not only way to gain proficiency is to work hard at it.
So by 'work harder than the person next to you', I'm talking about a healthy concept of competition where a person who is striving for mastery of their craft motivates themselves by trying to work harder at it then the person next to them, who, in kitchens, is often better at it.
I am by no means saying that engineering teams should function like professional kitchens. The toxic environment of the kitchen was one of the reasons I decided to move from cooking to programming. But there are principles of success I took with me and find applicable.
But it's what I find applicable. I'm not saying this is the one and only way to be a successful programmer. I'm hoping it helps me and anybody who thinks like me to be better, but there is more than one way to program, more than one way to work, more than one way to be successful.
I love this -- awesome, awesome advice. I feel like the second to last paragraph says everything that I stand for 100x better than I could say it! Thanks for writing this.
Hey Jeremy
Just wanted to say as a recent bootcamp grad and a former chef this post is spot on. I have shared it with friends and it has inspired two other beyond myself brave the career change waters. I can't stress enough how much the lesson I learned in the kitchen have helped me in my journey into development and I know when I land a job the interpersonal skills and work ethic my years in the BOH instilled in me will prove to be priceless. Thanks for the post!
Ha, thought this article was about Chef and was ready to tell everyone why it sucks...instead it actually turned out to be about a chef.
I guess, I need to clean my room now!