From Petroleum Engineering to Software Eng?
Tags: career
Published: 2020-08-10 14:31:44

### Hi everyone, I hope everyone is fine in these uncertain times, today in this post I am going to explain how I changed my career path after my of graduation of B.Tech from Petroleum engineering.

* I am just a regular guy who thought of engineering is a great option after my intermediate education, but after 4 years realized that it is just a degree. So right after my graduation, I realized my interest in software, so I have started to learn the software with the help of my brother who is already a remote software developer.

* My journey in software started with learning a simple language called [Golang](https://golang.org/), which is very to pick up and understand easily it is similar to C language.After understanding the basics of the [Golang](https://golang.org/),then I am came across this best resource called [FreeCodeCamp](https://www.freecodecamp.org/) with a curriculum , so i followed the curriculum with learning the HTML,CSS,JavaScript,ReactJS with practice and reading the documentation in [MDN](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/) and official [React documentation](https://reactjs.org/).

* Learning the languages alone wouldn't help anyone so I started to build personal projects with Reactjs and Golang. My first project was to clone Github functionality as much as possible. I have used Nextjs for the frontend development, Golang for the backend API's and Postgres as a database, which is called [issue-tracker](https://github.com/sridhar02/issue-tracker) and similarly I built my second project which is Flipkart clone with the same stack with some basic functionality which is called [ecommerce](https://github.com/sridhar02/ecommerce).

* The whole process took me a minimum of 6 months of time, a serious amount to concentration and hard work, so I started applying to companies which my knowledge after a long search for a job. Finally, a first success came to me in terms of a Job in Cambridge Technologies, Hyderabad as JavaScript developer in January.

* First Job experience, I was very excited to work in the software industry as of now I am a self-learned software developer. I worked on a web application for the construction domain for a US-based Client with a great team. As everything was going good then a sudden disappointing surprise came to me as COVID hit the world and the construction domain was greatly effected, so the client was in huge losses, I was in my probation period and I have been laid off at the end of April. It was a great journey from Jan to April and 4 months of a great experience. 

* I was bit little disappointed but everyone is affected by corona, so I have to keep moving for my self, later in May and June, I have applied to a couple of jobs, I was able to clear the interviews in some companies, but they are not great and not the companies I was eager to work so rejected some offers, in the meantime, I explored technologies like Graphql, React Native and did some personal projects using them. At the end of June, I realized that I was wasting a lot of time applying to jobs and doing the test but not learning anything from them so thought of taking a break from applying to jobs and to work on any open-source which would help me to gain some experience. 
        
* In July I started to work on an open-source project called [mattermost](https://mattermost.com/). It is an alternative to slack. I started to look into the project and picked a few issues. At first, I was unable to solve the simple issue, It was harder because the codebase was huge, I was unable to understand, after many up and downs with help of matter most team and community I was able to submit my first PR and got it merged. At the end of July, I was working on 4 to 5 issues which are a bit difficult but I kept pushing my limits and some of the issues got merged. I have gained a good amount of experience working on a huge codebase. 

## Conclusion:

* My goal was to settle in a Product based company as a remote developer and to work on a modern stack. I hope to find a good job in the coming future in a month or two. In the meantime, I am going to work a lot more harder on my self and work on opens Sorce projects to gain experience.

### Things to remember:
* Keep Working Hard until you find your success and keep pushing yourself.
* Software is not Hard, anyone can learn and get a job in software but you have to work hard and practice a lot not watching __videos tutorials__.
* Learn with passion and interest, anything is possible.
* Everyone will struggle and fumble while learning but don't ever give up, keep pushing yourself. 


I think this a big article but it would be an inspiration to someone who just started to code or is struggling to learn the software. Anyone wanted to connect with me feel free to ping me by any method and feel free to comment on your views to this post.