From Shut-In to Software Engineer
Tags: webdev, codenewbie, codingbootcamp, wecoded
Published: 2020-04-01 13:23:50

I am a dreamer. I have always been, and I always had big aspirations. One of them was to own a successful video game company, which is why four years ago  I decided to go to college for video game development. I found myself bouncing around three different colleges in  two years and realized the following: one, college is too expensive. The classes I spent money on were not a good pay-off for getting a job in the field and I would have too much debt. Two, college is too long. It wasn’t clear why I needed four more years of school to get a starting job in the video game industry. Third, video game development is risky. I wasn’t sure it would allow me to support my struggling family and help me be more independent. But, I did find something far more interesting while in school: programming! 

While creating simple conditionals to program a small game in class, my teacher stated I had a knack for programming because I quickly understood how it worked and I could break down the concept to my peers. I had already known from traversing through the internet how easy it is to learn to program, but I never considered it a career for me due to the loud and profound stereotype about programming being “difficult” and a field for “geniuses”. Someone like me, who struggled through high school and got an average score on the SATs, couldn’t possibly be a programmer. Even so, the praising compliments from my teacher made me think otherwise. I dropped out of college, got a few part-time jobs and started researching how to become a self-taught programmer. 

In the beginning, it was difficult. I didn’t have much motivation and I wasn’t very diligent. I had online training courses but spent more time working. When I got laid off from my job, it was even harder for me to stay enthusiastic in my learning. I hated having low-paying jobs with no benefits, no security, random long hours and no potential for growth. Instead of finding another job, I decided to shut-in and stay home all day. I continued to learn how to code at my own pace while occasionally helping my grandma around the house. This time of my life was tough for me, so when my cousin invited me to visit him in Japan I didn’t hesitate.
Japan had been on my bucket list since I was young, and a big cause of all my aspirations. Being there motivated me to get back into programming again. When I returned to the US, I started to see ads online about different coding bootcamps and a wonderful idea popped into my mind: a coding bootcamp will keep me accountable and persistent in learning and prepare me for a job! It sounded great in my head, but I had missed one key item for any program: money. Working low-paying jobs didn’t give me the sustainability to save enough money, and I wasn’t in love with the idea of being indebted to any institution before knowing its quality of education or their post-graduation support with the job search. I decided to do research on all the names that came across my screen: Launch Academy, General Assembly, Lambda School, Hack reactor, and many others across the country. I went to open houses and did free online-classes for a few, but they didn’t feel like a good fit for me. Then one day I saw an ad that read “Resilient Coders hackathon for women and nonbinary people. A coding program that pays you to learn.” I was in awe, and honestly, in disbelief. Resilient Coders pays a biweekly stipend that was more than what I was getting paid, such a business model must have some kind of catch! The only way to apply to the program was to attend their recruitment hackathons, and without a doubt, I signed up for the women and nonbinary hackathon.

On the day of the event, I remember feeling extremely shy. I had locked myself up in my room for months before and felt as if I didn’t know how to converse with others. However, all of that disappeared when we split into groups to build an application to solve a small problem in our community. Brainstorming and problem-solving are my favorite; it was very similar to all the video games I played and the activities I did while growing up. I was in my element. During the prototype creation, prospective students were called one by one for a short interview. They asked a few questions about my interest in coding and why Resilient Coders, I saw some satisfied head-nods, then I was back in the room brainstorming away with my teammates. In the upcoming weeks, I received an acceptance letter and was on my way to becoming a programmer.

As the daughter of Jamaican immigrants, college is often seen as the only path to success, even if it means going into debt and struggling to find a job later.To them, I was going on another wild goose chase, but I had one goal in mind: I was going to be a programmer and I was determined. Yet, on January 20th 2019, the first day, I walked into Resilient Coders 10 minutes late. 

The bootcamp kept me humble. Lateness, uncompleted projects, failure to build your network, are all ways you could get dismissed from the program. These rules I found to be the extra push I was looking for. I struggled to network but I excelled in learning and applying the material. So whenever I helped my peers get their projects done and understand the material, in return they helped me build my connections. I quickly learned that these are meant to prepare us for the realities of the job. Delivering projects on time and networking are key to being successful in the Boston tech industry. I also learned that communication is one of the most important qualities to bring to a team.

Before graduating, I received two offers and accepted Constant Contact. I love my job. Every day I learn something new and meet interesting and quirky people like myself. I’ve never had such a fulfilling  job before. It has eased my family’s mind in terms of my future and has given me a sense of independence. 

Now I have the confidence and tools to explore different topics in tech. For example, in 2019, I attended ETHBoston where I learned how to develop on Ethereum. A couple of months later, I was one of five engineers who participated and won the HubWeek Dell PolicyHack. We had to come up with a solution to a healthcare problem using modern technologies such as blockchain. This led us to visit the Dell Technologies Summit in Austin, Texas, where Micheal Dell himself gave us a shout out. 

Resilient Coders accelerated my life trajectory. The organization is more than a coding bootcamp, It’s a movement. A movement that creates a community of black and brown individuals joining a booming industry that is at the center of our growing economy. It is a community that supports one another in times of struggle and stress. Like many other alums, I’m constantly going back, whether it is by working on side projects together, returning to the classroom after work to mentor current students, or discussing JRPGs on our gaming slack channel. Most important of all, RC is an organization that symbolizes a goal: liberation for people of color. It is tackling the racial wealth gap with an equity and community mindset while producing exceptional software engineering talent. If you’re hiring and looking for fast-learning and resilient engineers, look no further than Resilient Coders.