Should I Call Myself a Software Engineer?
By: Megan Lo
Tags: Job Search, Tech, Software Engineering, Codingbootcamp, Mental Health

Prologue

Welcome to my blog! I’ve decided to write a weekly blog about my life after coding bootcamp until I get hired (ooh this could be the title of my blog series but of course I have to shorten this).

Disclaimer: I don’t have any direction what I would write in each blog. I only write where my heart goes.

There are a few reasons behind this series of blogs.

This is one of the ways to give me a purpose, so I can be more productive and proactive in my job search journey. I enjoy writing, even I don’t consider myself a very well-written writer, but writing is a way for me to express my inner feelings and thoughts. Also, I tend to gibberish a lot of bs when I talk, so writing is another way for me to keep my thoughts more organized and more articulated. I see this as an opportunity to replace the “trendy Youtube channel thing” that I wanted to pursue previously but somehow I’m too lazy to do all the editing and i don’t know i guess filming and talking in front of the camera?? And I personally prefer reading other people’s experiences rather than watching a video with a plain (sometimes with good lighting and nice) background and one person talking for a good whole 30 min.

So, yeah here we are! You gonna read a whole lot of me talking about myself blah blah blah my journey blah blah blah and you’ll be like, “That is so inspiring!” Just kidding. I won’t force you to read EVERYTHING (but preferably yes please!)

“The Actual Content”

Should I Call Myself a Software Engineer?

Finally graduated from coding bootcamp last week, I can call myself a software engineer… I suppose. However, my humble self cannot bring to call myself a “software engineer”, just because people who graduated with computer science (CS) degree from a 4-year college also call themselves a software engineer… most likely the moment they declare themselves a CS major… and I only started this coding journey like 16 weeks ago (around 5 months). 16 weeks vs 4 years… HM... talking about experience…

I mean the bootcamp itself was quite a journey. I learned a few languages (Ruby and Rails, Javascript and React, HTML and CSS <- arguably a language amongst the developers) and faced a lot of challenges on the way, but hey! A year ago, I would not have thought that I could create a website by myself, but now thanks to this bootcamp, I have 4 websites in my Github (still got bugs in all of them) and I could not be prouder! Yet, I still have a hard time calling myself a software engineer.

You know those people that have multiple titles, like “Entrepreneur, Personal Trainer, Climber, Real Estate Agent, Doctor, Dentist, Interior Designer, Youtuber, Options Trader” these ridiculously impressive titles that cover almost all industries in this universe?? IMHO, I think having multiple impressive titles may attract a certain type of people, but when I see these titles, I’m like “are you legit?? just because you did one video and now you are calling yourself a youtuber??” These multiple titles make these people sound so arrogant and somehow diminish the value of the pride behind these titles unless they are as legit as Paris Hilton, who can call herself a “television personality, model, businesswoman, DJ, youtuber, famous for being famous.” Well, okay if I have to put titles on myself, it would be “not-sure-if-i-am-a- software engineer, recent college graduate, former competitive swimmer, blogger, netflixer/hbomaxer, yogi, wannabe solo traveller”. I don’t know, something like that. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Going back to the idea of calling myself “software engineer,” I really don’t know. I only started this journey 16 weeks ago and had 4 websites that did very minimum things, I am not sure if I am eligible to call myself a “software engineer” at this point. My experience seems very incomparable with those people with a 4-year degree dealing with tons of CS-related class and doing multiple projects over the years. I am putting myself out there regardless, because I love learning and I enjoy coding. Yet, still unsure with the title “software engineer” or “web developer.”

Imposter Syndrome and Interviews

In this country, it seems like putting yourself out there and being able to “show off” your achievements are like #1 priority. Growing up in a tight-knitted family and being born and raised in Hong Kong, I learned to be humble and put myself down to show my respect to people regardless of their status and power. Even though I graduated from the #1 public university in this country (sorry not sorry UCLA), I still could not bring my head up and be like, “Yeah right I went to Cal, so what?”

In the past two years, I had a chance to go to various interviews and I got a lot of interview advice from different people, like “be yourself” and be able to “sell” who you are to your prospective employers. I have always had a hard time to be true to myself in interviews. I noticed most of the time I felt like and spoke like a different and an unfamiliar version of me. The most unforgettable one is my interviewer literally stopped me and told me, “I want to hear more about you, like you-you. I have heard a lot of great stories from you but I still could not grasp who you are.” I know a lot of people that know how to tell great stories, be able to elevate themselves and have a high success rate in getting job offers. I tried to do the same by thinking, “Okay, Megan. You need to think of a great story, aka a 30-second elevator pitch.” But the more I get into that thought, the harder it is for me. People have told me great things about me, but I don’t think highly about myself. It could be imposter syndrome, or when I went to Cal, I have met a lot of students that had accomplished a lot at my age, and that imposter syndrome really hit me hard. So this leads me to the next topic.

First Week of Job Search

First of all, I have to say I am very lucky to have a great career coach from my coding bootcamp. We have only met twice, but I can feel that his existence and guidance has boosted my confidence in some mysterious way. I was supposed to meet him this week for a resume review and start my job search. However, I did not have the motivation to neither work on my resume, fix some bugs in my projects, nor practice algos. I even stopped practicing yoga, because I did not feel motivated to do anything. I felt guilty at the end of the day that I had done nothing productive and yet, a day had passed. And now, a week has passed. All I can think of in my head is how to be a no-brainer candidate, but I have not done anything that can prove myself.

I admit that I have gone lazier and lazier each day, even sometimes my parents would come to me with concerns and try to talk me out of my laziness. But, I have a reason for that. I know I have not set a purpose in my life. It feels like I am swimming around Alcatraz Island aimlessly and not knowing when to stop and why I have to stop. I am feeling more and more tired and more disappointed in myself each day. At some point, I even asked myself what is the point of living if I have no goal. I admire people who are so diligent and spent months looking for jobs. I am pretty sure each one of them has their ups and downs. People usually share their success on their social media platform, but they never show you how hard it was to be in the journey. I am not sure if I want to have a schedule or a daily routine. I want surprises and face different challenges every day.

I am telling you that I am scared of going into interviews and I am scared that I am not good enough to call myself a software engineer, even though I can build a functional website. When I see an algorithm problem, I got cold feet. When I see an email about a job opening, I got cold feet. I finally got my guts up and looked into some of the full-stack web developer jobs yesterday. The jobs were not as scary as they sounded, but knowing applying for jobs and going through the interviews and possibly getting rejected would be quite a nerve-wracking process. But they say, “practice makes perfect.” I guess I have to overcome my fear eventually.

Epilogue

This is the reason why I created this blog series because I am here to invite you to be on my journey. At the end of the day, I try to keep myself positive, no matter how hard the situation is. As they say, “actions matter more than words.” I write to keep myself motivated and I would like to show what I have done over the next few months and how much I have achieved when I read this blog at the end of this series.

There are only 2 weeks left till 2020 is over. I don’t know about you, but time really flew for me! Let’s make the most before our 2020 ends and stay safe!