Where it started

I’ve hopped from a diploma in Music and Audio Technology to a college degree in Business Management, then landing a job in IT engineering most recently. I’ve read about many self-taught individuals getting into the software industry over the past few years and I’ve started on this journey halfway through completing my business degree. It’s surreal to think how far I’ve come and still have the privilege to have a hand in the things I love like music.

My past 5 years:

2019 - Got a diploma and worked as a freelance audio engineer

2020 - Got into Uni because Covid killed my freelance work

2021 - Took a coding elective and started learning about the programming world

2022 - Absorbed like a sponge from dev meetups, communities and learned about programming ecosystems

2023 - Landed an IT internship that led to a huge upgrade to full-time

However, I’m still incredibly new to the tech industry especially only being in it professionally for less than a year. It’s sometimes overwhelming to think about the stacks and stacks of tools and techniques to learn, but the satisfaction of fixing the smallest bug and finally printing “hello world” to the console is so worth it. Maybe it’s me and my addiction to dopamine and doing things that make me feel good or maybe tech itself just seems way too promising.

Looking ahead

I’m still really far from the things I want to achieve and breaking them down into an ideal world and unrealistic 5-year plan, this is pretty much what it looks like:

2025 - Land a job in a startup doing either fullstack development / software engineering

2026 - Do such a good job that job upgrades are in order

2027 - Build a SaaS and get at least 500 customers

2028 - Scale the SaaS and build a team

2029 - Become a software rockstar or willfully unemployed

My ingenious plan to make it work

What I’ve learnt with my short time being in tech is that the ability to learn is more important than anything. The ability to absorb like a sponge and apply everything in a completely different situation regardless of how difficult it may seem. Everything has a pattern and some form of consistency, and one iteration to improve a program even by a little bit is more valuable than building multiple projects. Quality over quantity.

I’ve learnt from my years in the music industry that quality comes from experience too, good habits, and a ton of muscle memory. So for the rest of this year I’m going to try and build these habits one day at a time!

With a webdev starting point in NodeJS, I’ve recently picked up Go and any advice on mastering the high-level language itself is welcome!

Let me know how your journey into tech was, and if it was as random and abrupt as mine! :)