Michelin Chef turned Software Engineer
Tags: career, devjournal, javascript, motivation
Published: 2022-05-12 19:32:22

Hi Everyone, this is my story :)  

I was born and raised in Indonesia and moved to the US when I was 15. I attended Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts and ended up with a culinary degree. After a while, I ended up working as a lead line in a Michelin star restaurant in the Bay Area

While working in the Bay Area, one of the tasks that I was appointed to was R&D (creating new recipes). Studying chemical reactions, and trial & error are daily meals.

At that time the majority of my friends were working as software engineers in the Bay Area, some of them work in Google, Facebook(now Meta), Yahoo, etc. In daily conversation, I was listening to how awesome creating new technology is, being able to constantly learn, create and innovate. at that time, I started comparing how I created new recipes vs how they created and innovate new technology, it is a completely different in scale; they create, innovate and optimize to help human life on a significantly substantial scale.

Then, one day, two of my friends, A (Ex-Googler, now working as a CTO and got into Forbes 30 under 30) and B (Coursera) saw my interest in tech and started introducing me to how programming works. They helped me to start learning by finding the right books to read, and the right classes to take from Udacity and Coursera; I ended up taking a python class, and reading ‘Head First, Java’.

However, at that time my working hours were 60-80 hours per week(it’s quite common to have that kind of working hours in if you're working as a micromanaging supervisor in a Michelin restaurant), consequently, I was unable to complete and continue the book nor the class; I had a burnout. but it gets me to end up contemplating my future career in the restaurant industry; I was thinking of having more time for my family, a better working lifestyle, and better social life in the future. in my mind, I wouldn't be able to get those in the restaurant industry unless I moved out of the Michelin restaurant circle, which was not an option for me; I do am quite ambitious and passionate about what I do.

After a while, the restaurant offered me to apply for a green card so that I was able to continue to work there. Instead, I chose to go back to my home country Indonesia while I started reconsidering my future career. In Indonesia, I ended up trying to work in a different industry; I started to work for a public accountant company, as a business strategy manager, thinking that I could use more experience in delegating tasks, problem-solving, and communication. I got what I wanted in terms of mental and physical health; I am able to have the social life that I wanted, and not have to work 10-14 hours on the weekend while my friends were out. I have the time to learn and improve myself by reading 1-2 books per month; I love reading books. My relationships with my family and others have significantly improved. 

Since working as a business development manager, I was able to save 12%-15% of the company’s unnecessary bleeding expenses per year by creating a leaner and more efficient system and operation. I had the chance to work with some extraordinary people. I also had the chance to learn new project management tools and skills like Agile, Kanban Board, and Kaizen. I believe learning, observing, and listening is an absolute necessity; whether from the people around me, from books, or from my mentor. It is a philosophy that I learned and hold from one of my mentors in the restaurant industry. I learned that who we are going to be tomorrow, should be better than who we are today.

Even with all that, there’s a hole in me that is somehow unfulfilled. I missed the time when I was able to create, and innovate. I missed the grit that I had to solve problems through doing trial and error experiments.

in July 2021, as my working hour was significantly better compared to when I worked in the restaurant industry, I started my journey to be a software engineer. At first, I took and finished some Python, HTML, and CSS courses at Codecademy. Then, I took the JavaScript Algorithms and Data Structures curriculum at freeCodeCamp, and currently, I am at the end line of finishing a Udemy course called ‘The Web Developer Bootcamp 2022’ by Colt Steele.

From what I experienced, I gain a lot of new skill set that is more relevant to the industry rather than just theoretical.

-  a better skill set in using CSS flexbox and the usage of CSS frameworks, such as Bootstrap and Bulma. 
-  Understanding and usage of OOP.
- implementing the skills and tools that we learned into real-life projects.
-  learning JavaScript ES6 and more current syntax such as, async/await, destructuring, default, rest, spreads, reduce, map, and arrows.
- learning and implementing CRUD and RESTful API into projects
- learning full-stack tools such as Express, Mongoose, MongoDB, Node, and Postman so that we're able to build a complete web app by ourselves. 
- learning to Terminal syntaxes using Bash and Powershell.
- Other awesome tools like bcrypt, momentJS, PassportJS.
But the best thing that I got from the course is learning how to learn new programming tools; which I currently am implementing by learning tailwinds for my new dessert business that I run with my friend called Milestone Dessert. 

In the end, my need for a more balanced lifestyle bring me out of the restaurant industry, and my love for learning, creating, and innovating something impactful for humanity is what brought me into pursuing a career in software engineering. I believe my experience working in restaurant industry and as a business strategy manager does bring some value to being a software engineer. But beyond all of that, it brings me happiness that what I do will contribute to the improvement of other people’s life quality.

The amount of things that I have to learn in this industry humbles me. I would be honest with you, it’s definitely not an easy thing to do. It’s a very steep mountain. But, the thing that keeps me going is the goal and vision that I have in mind to significantly impact the lives of others in the future. 

_If you’re with me right now, walking on this journey. Sometimes it feels dark, sometimes it feels like we’re walking towards uncertainty, and sometimes it feels nice to entertain the mind that wants to just quit and give up. 

But always keep in mind that every single step that you’re making right now is a step closer to your goal, no matter how small it is. whether it’s finding your first job, getting a promotion, creating your startup or other awesome and extraordinary things that are going to happen to you in the future if you keep walking. Don’t stop, keep walking, the end of the tunnel is closer than you think.
_

I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I was writing it :)