How I made a career change from being an Electrical Engineer to a Software Developer.
Published: 2021-05-10 10:39:39

Despite being a dedicated Electronics and Electrical student, I had been more inclined towards the Software development pursuits. The reason I believe is my obsession with computers ever since I was a kid.

But I fully realised my passion for software development when I was in my final year of engineering and I worked on a project that automates streetlight controlled by the movement of vehicles. The project aims at saving energy by detecting the vehicle movement on highways and switching on the block of streetlight ahead of it and simultaneously switching off the trailing lights. The project requires sensors to detect the vehicle movements and switches on the lights ahead of it. As soon as the vehicle moves ahead the trailing lights automatically switch off. This can be used to save a lot of energy instead of using conventional systems where the streetlights remain ON.

 Having a knack for learning interesting concepts and grasping new techniques to solve problems, I learned how to program the sensors using MC Programming Language: Embedded C to detect the movement of vehicles and that part was the most fascinating to me.

After this experience I understood that I could do more of these kinds of projects and be a part in developing technology for the future generation as well as make a better career for myself. This thought made me understand that I need to procure more knowledge and get a hold on programming languages and be able to take my passion to its full potential and to bring it to a global level.

I started to research on what the best course of action would be for me in the path of software development and I reached a conclusion that Full Stack Development was what piqued my interest the most. I made sure to make the right moves and started to self-learn Full Stack Web Development and started my journey to become a Full Stack Web Developer. I started off from scratch to learn the art of programming and product development. I wanted to utilise every resource available on the internet and ended up in tutorial purgatory. That was a hard hole to get out of, which thankfully I got out of but not before going around in circles for a long time.

I started learning HTML, CSS and JavaScript... working on basic projects such as building a tic tac toe game, One-page layout, Login authentication Product landing page, Giphy with a unique API, JavaScript quiz game, To-do list, SEO-friendly website, JavaScript drawing, etcetera. And then moved to React JS to build a GitHub clone and a BYJU's clone. My curiosity to explore what more I could do with my newly acquired skills led me to teach myself how to build an Amazon and Netflix clone by myself and deploy it using firebase.

The easiest way or rather the best approach to learning programming is to build projects. Watching tutorials after tutorials will just keep you in your comfort zone and you won't be able to do anything if you don't have all the instructions neatly laid out for you already. You need to get better at problem solving! How can I be better at problem-solving? Here's how you kill that fear :
- Take a pen & paper.
- Write down your problem.
- Divide your problem into subproblem.
- Divide subproblem into tasks.
- Start knocking off tasks.
- Code… Debug… Code…

The first two months of learning how to code will feel like climbing an insurmountable mountain. But I am here to tell you, you will get there! Just don't quit! Every single person who learned how to code has been there. Even the best of us. It gets easier and it gets a lot of fun I promise you that. So stay focused, you got this! We are all in this together! Cheers!!