My untraditional path to software engineering
At the time of looking for a position in year 2015 - I was a wreck mentally, when I came out of a medical school. Sure I graduated but I had nothing to show for it. I kept failing a really important board exam that I needed called Step 2 CK and CS. My colleagues continued onwards to residencies, while my unconsciousness - even during the depth of depression I was in - kept making my career choices into something related to healthcare and tech. So I looked for getting into another grad school in the health informatics. I was a med school grad, failed to get into residency. I perceived myself as a failure. To this day I don’t know why I can’t rote memorize - like there was a mental block in me. But that’s another story.
I was a comp. sci in undergrad. Well, computer science and engineering to be exact. Tech always a part of my life, and even during medical school I kept programming - …when I should have been studying, I created a series of python scripts that would use an OCR to read off of screenshots of notes, and then pipe it into memorization software called Anki. I created an Arduino based ECG from the ground up - with op-amps and the whole shebang, all the way to a Cordova based graph that showed the ECG graphs on my Android tablet.
So after grad school - between studying to take the board exam again - I applied to a genetic testing startup, because I knew Python and they were using it. The CTO there took a chance on me, and I got to be their junior developer. First month was just learning Angular 1, and then learning Angular 2 - by that time I became their de facto Angular person. At the same time I worked closely with a Python super senior who had a knack for calmly teaching me concepts, showing the complete SDLC by just his work ethics. So with his teachings, I was able to make endpoints, write SQLAlchemy layer, write unit tests both in Python and in Karma/Mocha (frontend tests).
The genetic startup took a round of unfortunate turns, and had to close down. After a month of furlough I was on the applying phase - applying about close to 100 positions, and this one video surveillance startup was another of those potential positions.
When I interviewed with them, they were actually looking for seniors. However luckily the CTO (later CEO) wanted to have as diverse as a dev team - both in experience and academic background, and took a chance on me. I was the fourth hire in that company, and a launch party happened a month later. After two years in the genetic healthcare startup, I now got hired as a mid-level software engineer. Again, sole frontend developer, learning React based on a populate Udemy course, paid by the company. Since I was working closely with backend developers, I learned a few Golang skills here and there. Again - I got a sense that I was going to be at that border of two worlds, facilitating both aspects of our product. By that time I did realize I really like that position - to know frontend and how backend works.
At the time we were working inside WeWork (yeah remember that coworking lifestyle? Pre Covid19? haha). Since we had a lot to code up we looked across the hallway and got a contracted developer from a really cool software development company called Vincit. The super senior there became my mentor, and it was a start of a long collaboration with that company - every one of them being my mentors, getting nuggets of gold everytime we had them on for crunch time/greenfield work.
So through him I was able to learn a deeper understanding of React and frontend trends at the time.
Well since this post is getting long, my next post will be of how my responsibility to “lead” a team.