Trucker 2 Coder: Why I am Becoming a Software Engineer

A long-distance truck driver changing careers to software engineer probably does not happen very often if at all. Truckers are paid well and have plenty of stable work so why am I switching to software engineer? Here is my story.

I have always been interested in computers since I was a kid. I remember trying to teach myself C++ and java when I was 12 just so I could make my own video games. The math and logic behind coding kind of scared me away from software development at that time. I ended up moving to New York for a few years living in a recording studio and producing mixtapes for local rappers. I started to build PCs for audio recording, and I became re-interested in coding. Again however, I ran away from it when it got too complicated.

In 2010 a friend had convinced me move to California. I had no real plan I guess; just throw everything I could fit in my car and figure it out when I get there. With no job or any idea of what I was doing I ended up spending all the money I had with nothing to show for it. After a year of doing basically nothing I decided to get my CDL and became a truck driver. It seemed like a good way to earn a living and I did not have to worry about the job being outsourced or something.

Around 2013 I finally landed a good, high paying job driving for Kroger and I moved to downtown Long Beach. Most people would probably assume life was good for me and technically it was at that point, but I was miserable. Life had become boring, repetitive and I was alone most of the time due to my 80-hour work weeks. Out of boredom and a little fear of A.I. replacing truckers, I started looking into learning coding again and that is when I heard about coding camps. It seemed too good to be true. A 3-month course that has a very high chance to get you a job in tech and is way cheaper than a computer science degree. I assumed it was a scam and ignored the e-mail.

2016 was the year I finally decided to get a college degree. Just like before, I quit my job, threw everything in my car, and drove back to New Jersey. I planned to use all the money I made to pay for school and well let’s just say it didn’t happen that way. I got lazy and again blew it all hanging out and taking expensive trips. Now in my 30’s and broke again I ended up crawling back to the trucking industry. A couple years had passed, and I spent most of the time driving and listening to audio books on philosophy and computer science. All of the newfound knowledge inspired me to give computer science another go and this time I would stick with it. I started going to school in the morning and working as a trucker at night. I figured anything is possible if you work hard enough but I soon learned will power has its limits. I did well in school but my performance at my job got worse. I was tired and would show up late to work a lot. For the first time in life I ended up having a truck accident and got fired. I stopped going to school and started bouncing around between trucking, Uber and Amazon. I still wanted to go back to college, but I felt that the computer science programs took too long. The courses were full of unnecessary and expensive classes. As an older guy who must work, I did not have flexibility to take all the classes I needed. I began looking for alternatives and found that coding camps were exactly what I was looking for. Fast-forward to 2020 and COVID has changed the lives of many. Work had dried up at my job and I sometimes spent days living in my truck unpaid waiting for loads. My priorities changed from working to school. After doing a lot of research on coding camps and if they are even useful, I decide to make another change in my life. I signed up for Flatirons fulltime online software courses and continued my journey to knowledge and purpose.