Zero to Hero : How I became a Junior Developer in 3 and a half months.
By: Jaice De Celis
Tags: Self Taught, Code, Web Development, Bootcamp, Software Development

I spent the first few years of my working life bouncing between sales jobs, learning sales tricks and getting by on small commission checks. It was certainly not a lavish lifestyle by any means but it was all that I thought I was capable of at the time and boy was I wrong.

After learning about Merchant Services in October of 2019 I switched career paths from employee to employer and founded my company. It was a rough start with a steep learning curve that forced me to better myself as a leader, a teacher and more importantly a learner.

In February of 2020, we signed our first Merchant, a monumental success in my eyes and the first dollar of revenue that I had ever generated on my own (Outside of odd jobs of course). Following that event, we grew quickly and aggressively, signing Merchants on an almost daily basis and growing a sales team of talented ex-car salesmen. Then, COVID.

Covid came at an odd time, we only really had 45 days of true road time before the lockdowns began, bringing the majority of our operations to a screeching halt and dropping our merchant processing numbers by more than 80%. Because of this, my sales teams moral started to dwindle and we needed to make a change fast.

We created systems that allowed the business to run in auto pilot and myself along with my fiance and my daughter bunkered down to avoid any outside contact and potential encounter with the pandemic. Things grew steadily and although it took a few months of hard work, we were comfortable with the pace at which things were growing so I took a step back from the physical aspects of the business. Probably not my most well thought out decision but I felt like being pent up at the house was driving me crazy so I wanted to pursue some type of self growth that could also benefit my company mission.

After some brainstorming with my fiancé, I decided that figuring out a way to generate revenue online through a custom web platform was a good next step.

Now, this had always been on my radar but I never thought that it was something I could get into without formal education or thousands of hours of practice. Fortunately I was still determined and I started following along with beginner web development courses from all over. At first I was discouraged because the concepts seemed far to abstract to digest but as time went on things started to “click”.

Hours and hours of practice later, it was obvious I had fallen in love with the process and there was no turning back. Don’t worry, I didn’t completely stop growing my company, but I did notice that even without my constant monitoring and grooming, it was still experiencing consistent enough growth. This meant that I could sustain a reasonable income and divert my efforts into following my new found passion.

In my mind, self taught could only take me so far, so I began researching what it would look like to learn computer science. The word Bootcamp seemed to be all over the search results and with enough repetition I couldn’t help but take a look.

Fast forward a week and a half and there I was, writing a check for $6,000 and enrolling in Thinkful, a software engineering bootcamp that would allow me to code on my own schedule while still working towards an “employment guarantee”. Keep in mind this is in no way a sponsored post and in no way am I saying that you should go to Thinkful yourself.

Now I wasn’t sure if I actually wanted to work for someone again, but I was certain that I wanted to have the skills to create useful technology.

Just for time frame reference, I enrolled in Thinkful in the month of July, only 6 months after the start of my company.

A month and a half and 12 modules later, I submitted my first job application. I decided that if it was something that I loved, there was no sense in not creating a second stream of income for my family and I. Over the course of 30 days I submitted nearly 400 applications, built an online portfolio site, set up dozens of profiles on job sites and built out as many flushed portfolio projects as I could possibly manage.

Then it happened. A bite. Someone asked me to interview. It was my first interview so as you could imagine, I didn’t do very well. It was my first taste at what it was really like to try to get a job in code.

I continued this way for a while, conducting interviews, failing assessments and learning algorithms. I made it through the first round a few times but never further than that. I just couldn’t get on top of all of the different data structures and algorithms that were out there. I decided that I would try something different and I emailed the interviewer and told them that I would like to try an alternate assessment to test skills that would actually be used in the job.

I told them that I was passionate about what I was doing and that I could prove my worth if they would just give me the chance. They said yes.

I created three projects in React over the course of an entire month, each one getting progressively more intricate and pushing my skills to the limit. On some occasions I was putting in 16 hour days to make sure that I would make it in time for the requested deadlines.

Then silence.

For two weeks I didn’t hear anything, I was worried that all of my efforts may have been for nothing.

DING!

A notification from Gmail lit up my phone screen, not unlike any that I had heard before but certainly one of the best notifications that I have received to date.

“Congratulations Jaice, our team has had the opportunity to review your code and we would like to extend you an offer. Give us a day or two to get some numbers together and we will be reaching out.”

I have been working full time with them since the beginning of October and I can’t stress enough how happy I am. I love the work that I do and the people that I work with and being a remote developer has offered me an immense amount of free time to build my business, spend time with my family, learn how to cook and a boat load of other phenomenal things.

Oh and it’s also a nice bonus that I am making enough to qualify as the top 10% of Americans doing something that I find fulfilling.

Keep in mind that I did all of this without the help of Thinkful’s career services team and I was able to request a refund for more than half of my tuition cost. Bootcamps are not the only key to success outside of formal education.

If you are thinking about transitioning into development, you can do it. Just keep coding, keep learning, keep trying and keep pursuing the next best version of yourself.