If you weren't always a developer as a profession, what did you used to do?
Why did you change?
Looking back, do you have regrets, or do you wish you'd changed earlier in your career?
I've always worked with computers, though I went through IT support / network admin / hardware engineer roles before settling on software development. Sometimes I wish I'd done dev work from the get-go - I was a hobbyist programmer - but other times I'm grateful for having a bit more wide-ranging experience as I get older.
And I'm curious about you!
Top comments (14)
I was a customer service rep for a life insurer for nearly twelve years before I became a web developer.
The company in question was the big local employer, whose name at the time specifically referred to the city in question, and was often the default place to look for a job if you didn't have anything specific you wanted to do. I left education with no idea what I wanted to do, but needed a job, so I applied there. I wound up dealing with claims, including complaints and death claims.
In 2006 they asked for volunteers to work on a new project, and I felt like I really needed to make a change, so I volunteered and was one of the people chosen. They made it clear that we would need to find new jobs, whether that was within the company or not, when the project ended, which started me thinking again about what I wanted to do. Around the same time I got into Linux thanks to an offer on one of those Dummies books, and started messing around with Ubuntu, which reignited the interest in programming I'd had in the tail end of the 8-bit BASIC era. I wound up taking an interest in web dev, and began taking a correspondence course with the intent of moving into the field once that project ended.
In the end it took a bit longer - the project ended in 2010 and I moved to another area in said company as an interim measure while I looked for a web dev job, but in 2011 I left to start my first web dev job. As it turned out that one didn't really work out, but I didn't have trouble finding work afterwards.
In a couple of weeks it will be my 13th anniversary as a professional web developer. My current role for a large network of agencies, where I've worked for over six and a half years now, is pretty interesting, and I work with a really great team. I do find my prior experience is often useful. The biggest project I work on is for a high street bank and having worked in a similar large financial institution, I can relate better to the perspective of the rank and file employees in branches and call centres than a developer without that experience would be able to, and handling complaints wasn't hugely different to debugging - both are about solving problems.
My first software job had me working on the back office software for a supermarket chain, and it really lead to me learning what I think is a good lesson - that no matter where you are in the machine, you need to know why you're implementing a feature, who it's for and what the repercussions are. So many ideas were handed down from on high, or came from me and my "common sense", and weren't relevant to the people doing the actual work.
A really tough question to answer. I wouldn't change my art background or small business experience. But my overall health has actually improved since I've been coding. It's really weird. It's like, my brain is awake and the mental fog is gone, and I feel sharper mentally then ever. I find myself navigating life situations more easily and thinking before I open my mouth. I have gotten quieter on the outside, but on the inside I feel very much alive and well.
First I was a banker, then musician, and only then, it was 1998, I started a job as a developer. Since I started when I was 9 years old I already coded 15 years at that point.
I wish I had changed earlier. My list of ideas to implement is impossible to bring to life at this stage of my life already. But I’m really happy I did change careers eventually — software’s something I truly love and…
I feel similarly, being my age and just learning code. Like where has all this interesting stuff been all my life. Been missing out, for sure. Better late than not at all.
I feel you, I’m 47 and just starting out in this world.
Sounds like we share very similar work backgrounds. I got into developing professionally 5 years ago, and was a hobbyist before that.
Sometimes you need to try things out to know what you like. If you had gotten into developing earlier, you could be wondering today that you might have preferred doing tech support or something else, but you never really gave it a chance.
I like to embrace my past experiences, knowing that 1. it gives me a extra context and experience over peers who never worked outside of development and 2. that I love this line of work.
I was in the military for17 years before switching careers to become an android developer at the age of 35. Life is so much easier as a developer and I get to see my daughter grow up!
I worked in the food service industry (at the time, I was attempting to change my job title from "WAITER" to "WRITER" - this joke works better in capital letters) and found out an old colleague was managing an internet cafe.
I got a job there, the sysadmin gave me some web space and I built my first website in a month or so (this was in about 1998). The cafe started their own agency which got really popular then moved down to Leith. Then the agency got so busy, they didn't have time to rebuild the cafe website, so I did. Twice.
The landlord for the cafe doubled the rent so we all got the choice: be made redundant or join the agency. I joined the agency. My first job title was "HTML Author", so I guess I did make it as a writer after all.
I am not a natural programmer, but I've managed to just about keep up with this daft field in the twenty or so years since. Never studied CS. Still suffer from imposter syndrome on the regular. I feel someone like me would never make it into this job in the same way today, and that might be a shame.
Tell me, what is a "developer"?
Usually we distinguish a "programmer", a "frontend developer" and a "backend developer", but it seems, things are changing these days...
For the purposes of this question, it's whatever you do now that involves devepoping anything - kind of in line with the site being called "dev" without any more qualification than that!
I think it is important to be a bit more specific at this point to understand the answers right.
If you have been working as a programmer for a decade and start building web apps, you are still a programmer on just another platform. But if you have been working as a web designer and start building IOT-projects or large scale backend infrastructure, this is a different game and will most likely need different qualifications.
Those programmers... 😅