
How I left a 4 year career in finance and became a software engineer in 5 months - davj
http://gulnara.svbtle.com/switching-careers
======
pekk
Meanwhile, people with years of experience might have trouble getting hired at
all. Resume directly in garbage, among other reasons, for not using the word
"engineer." It's not about skill or merit, it's about image and connections.

~~~
kyro
Yes, welcome to the world.

------
AshFurrow
Here in Canada, you need to write an exam in order to legally call yourself an
"engineer" – it's a protected term.

~~~
jonny_eh
It's just an exam? What the hell did I do for 4 years to get an engineering
degree?

~~~
DougWebb
In most/all of the US states, you have to take an exam in order to call
yourself a Professional Engineer, which is required for a lot of engineering
professions and/or positions within an engineering organization.

Your four years of schooling to get an engineering degree had plenty of exams,
spread over the four years. At most you only had to study for one or two of
them at a time. The Professional Engineering exam covers _everything_ you were
supposed to learn during those four years, all at once. You can't cram for a
test like that; you have to actually know things. That's the whole point: did
you absorb the knowledge completely, or did you just get by from test to test?

It's done this way because, for most Professional Engineers, decisions have to
be made which can cost people their lives if mistakes are made. You gotta know
what you're doing before you're allowed to make those decisions.

For most software engineering mistakes aren't nearly that critical, plus for
most organizations doing software development preventing bugs to the same
degree that a Civil Engineer prevents bridges from failing is too expensive
and not worth it.

------
kyro
Damn good job. Genuinely happy for you, I think more so because I can relate
so closely.

I've made the very tough decision to not pursue a residency after medical
school and to finally commit to jumping into the startup world. It's both
really frightening and exciting to go in a completely different direction
after dedicating 4 years of my life to rigorous education. I graduate in May,
so I've been trying to absorb as much information and to develop as many
skills as possible in preparation for the leap. I'm hoping to perhaps find
some good opportunities during Startup School weekend.

So I really commend you for making the jump. And thanks for writing about it.
It's encouraging and reassuring, especially since I've been told I'll end up
homeless if I take this risk.

~~~
jasonz
kyro - I want to congratulate you on your decision! I went through the same
thing (graduated in 2011) and it was indeed very difficult at the time. Over
time your friends and family will come around and realize you made the best
decision for yourself. Work hard, find a great mentor, and enjoy the ride !

~~~
lucidrains
Oh wow there's a couple of us? Are u in the bay area? We should get in touch
as well and share stories and our ambitions!

------
welcomebrand
While I commend the drive to switch to career it is a little scary that it's
apparently so easy to become a $100k engineer in 5 months in SF.

Reading HN from the other side of the pond in UK sometimes I get the feeling
that there's more money than sense flying around the startup world and that
this sort of switch to work in this startup ecosystem is why there are so many
dreadfully poor app ideas that should never see the light of day being funded
with millions of dollars of VC cash.

I may just have a slightly distorted view of startup world but is it really
that easy to score a highly paid job with so little experience because they're
so desperate for bodies who can write some code or is OP someone very talented
who's just rolled with it and got very lucky?

------
davidbrear
Just enough to be dangerous...

~~~
jonny_eh
What are you saying? We should stop training and hiring new programmers?

~~~
noir_lord
I think in his condescending way he is implying that 5 months is just enough
time to teach someone enough programming to be dangerous.

The hard part is I think he might have a point, there is a lot more to been a
professional software engineer than I think can reasonably be taught in 5
months (even if you spend that 5 months learning 20 hours a day 7 days a
week).

Of course this is all entirely my own opinion, I've seen evidence neither one
way or the other to back it up but if I where hiring a software engineer (lets
say a web developer because that's mostly what I do these days so the most
likely hire I'd make in the near time).

This is _at least what I 'd expect_ of someone calling themselves a software
engineer :-

At least two programming languages (I don't really care what they are a good
programmer can be competent in any of the major web languages fairly quickly).

A solid grasp of HTML, CSS and Javascript (I don't care if you have to google
some of this stuff but you should understand the DOM, the CSS selector model
and enough Javascript to write a jQuery plugin)

A solid of grasp of relational databases including the following (primary
keys, normalization, key constraints, indexes - I'd also expect but not
require they'd understand some of the internals and how a query planner works)
and a solid grasp of SQL.

A solid understanding of DBAL's, ORM's.

Solid grasp of common design patters (active record, repositories/entity, unit
of work)

Solid grasp of MVC and the pro's and cons

Good understanding of either Windows or Linux.

Good understanding of source control.

Good understanding of why comments are important.

Good understanding of unit testing/integration testing.

To use an analogy (I deal with lots of business people, analogies help) You
could teach someone to lay bricks to a good standard in 5 months, You could
_not_ teach them to be a safe civil engineer.

~~~
oijaf888
Your list seems very targeted towards website development and not so much
towards a lot of other parts of software engineering. I doubt many software
engineers who focus on embedded systems would know much JS or those who focus
on trading software, etc.

~~~
noir_lord
I specifically say in my post "lets say a web developer".

That is where my area is, I've no idea what I'd want for an embedded developer
but I suspect the list is no less complex.

~~~
DerpDerpDerp
You'd need to know a lot more about data structures, memory management,
hardware in general, and probably be at least passingly familiar with the
concepts of verified software and the mathematics underpinning computer
science to work on embedded systems.

------
henrik_w
Congratulations! It is nice to find your calling (if that's what it is for
you). I've been programming professionally for over 20 years, and I still love
it for a lot of reasons. Mostly because I get to create every day, and the
programs I create provide real value to lots of people. Still quite a thrill!
I've listed more reasons in "Why I Love Coding"
[http://henrikwarne.com/2012/06/02/why-i-love-
coding/](http://henrikwarne.com/2012/06/02/why-i-love-coding/)

------
tenpoundhammer
This is interesting, I immediately thought wow this couldn't possibly give you
enough training to be a software developer. However, now I'm wondering if most
of my college education was worthless.

Seriously maybe this program condensed all the necessary experience into 5
months, while the traditional academic path is poor at creating career coders
in 4 years. I would totally believe it. There should be some head to head
competitions.

------
jonmb
My fiancee and I are both studying computer science at a large university.
She's graduating in late 2014, I'll be in early 2015.

In terms of employment as a developer, sometimes I wonder if we would have
been better off attending one of these San Fran developer schools. I wonder
though how much of the fundamentals do they learn? Do they ever hear the words
"Big-Oh"? Do they know what a binary tree is?

And then I wonder -- does it matter? They're getting $90k offers. Perhaps
these things don't matter as much, at least for web development.

So I suppose this is one of the benefits of a traditional path: you're well
prepared for many types of development, not just web. The web is pretty cool
though. :)

\--

Question: if one wanted to teach themselves at home, is there an online
curriculum that covers the same topics as these schools do?

~~~
kyro
There is no shortage of online classes for teaching how to code, from Udacity
to Coursera to Codecademy to OCW, but what these lack, which I believe to be
the most important part of learning effectively, is interaction with teachers,
mentors, and other classmates. At times I'm surprised no one seems to be
attacking that part of online education.

~~~
jonmb
Right, I know of Udacity and Treehouse and those other services, but I don't
believe (just from checking them out) that they go into the same kind of
hands-on training that a 10 week, in-person 12 hour/day course would.

------
kingnight
My initial reaction to this was to pick it apart, but really, that would be
stupid of me since it doesn't deserve it. There is value in the piece and it
was a nice story. Congrats as well.

~~~
avenger123
Agreed. Do what makes you happy (or at least the least unhappy :) ). Lucky for
the OP he found out what that was.

------
joshanthony
There's a lot of comments here that are like "you can't be an Engineer, I
spent years getting there. It's not that simple. Grumble grumble grumble...
etc..."

We should be welcoming him into our field! But instead we're too focused on
the terminology he used.

I think it's fantastic that the author is now in software and programming.
Software development is one of the most affordable ways to change the world.
All you need is a laptop and an internet connection :D

~~~
md2be
The he is a she

------
swayvil
Congratulations on the new job. I'm sure that sitting in front of a computer
all day like some kind of fleshy office appliance was getting really old - oh,
wait.

~~~
jmduke
When your biggest complaint about your full-time employment is that you are
too sedentary, you are in a much better place than millions of other people.

~~~
Apocryphon
Not to mention that we are living in an age of rapid innovation, including
standing desks.

~~~
rafski
Benedictine Monks used standing desks for their tedious book rewriting.

------
late2part
I got news for you son. 4 years is not a career.

I'm happy you're doing something worthwhile now, and glad you made the switch.

~~~
md2be
Son is a daughter

------
kiddz
Nice post Gulnara :) As one of the first people you interviewed back when you
had the webcast, I think it's also clear that you have an infectious
personality that now pairs well with your new skills. Quite brave too, to not
stay in SF and come back to DC when your transitioning into a cs career.
Kudos, some more.

------
ninjakeyboard
I did the same thing - I moved from international business into technology on
transportation systems overnight actually - I learned on the job in big
enterprise. Now I'm a full on scala/akka developer and don't regret the change
one bit.

To me the greatest joy is actually working on my own projects.

------
myk7
Are there any other good in-person programs like this around SF that anyone
could recommend? This one sounds great, except that I am a male which is not
allowed apparently.

------
marincounty
Why is the $12,000 "Coder" school only for females? It does remind me of the
store keepers who sold miners overpriced goods for their dream? I have a
feeling, if these women are hired; it has more to do with companies wanting
the hidden benefits of a female's presence in the office?

This term Coder has always irritated me. I'm surprised it's not on Tee Shirts
yet? "I'm a Coder", or better yet, "I'm a Koder". All very cute.

Right now--I guess in San Francisco--you can go to one if these schools, and
land a cute job as a Coder--at 90K?

I wonder if these people will be employed when the bubble ends though?

------
kcbanner
In Canada, you can't call yourself an Engineer unless you are a professional
engineer.

~~~
md2be
Good point

------
truthteller
must be nice to live in a country with such a strong demand for new
programmers. interest from 20 companies and a 90k starting salary. even when
you adjust for the cost of living that seems crazily high...

------
ausjke
sounds like a good article for hackbright, is there something similar existing
for guys?

------
curiouslearn
Really nice story.

------
a3voices
>Once I realized that I enjoy staring at hundreds lines of code trying to
figure out where the bug is

I agree it's fun at first, but once you do it for a few years on a daily
basis, it gets old. I suppose most things in life are like this though.
Maintaining enthusiasm about work is difficult, for me at least.

~~~
javajosh
Enjoying the myriad little mysteries we call "bugs" is key to being a good
programmer. Bugs that we create are opportunities to understand the system
better - it's a signal that there is behavior we don't understand.

~~~
tieTYT
> Enjoying the myriad little mysteries we call "bugs" is key to being a good
> programmer.

I disagree. I hate bugs and I do everything I can to prevent them from ever
occurring. To me I find it fun to get better and better at preventing bugs.

~~~
Danieru
I do not think javajosh would disagree with you on that. I think he was
suggesting treating bugs as opportunities for learning, in fact I think this
feeds into your point.

~~~
henrik_w
Absolutely agree - bugs are definitely learning opportunities. I wrote a whole
blog post about this - "4 Reasons Why Bugs Are Good For You":

1\. Each bug can teach you something

2\. You start to write code that is easier to debug if you have done a lot of
debugging, because you know what you want to see to help the debugging effort.

3\. Both you and the customer are happy when you find and fix a bug.

4\. Solving problems is fun.

[http://henrikwarne.com/2012/10/21/4-reasons-why-bugs-are-
goo...](http://henrikwarne.com/2012/10/21/4-reasons-why-bugs-are-good-for-
you/)

