How a crappy promotion led to me being a software engineer
This post expands on a recent podcast I did with Living Corporate outlining the story behind my career switch to software engineering.
Quick Background
I was born in Nigeria, but mostly grew up in Dallas, TX. My undergrad was in Nutritional Science at UT Austin, and I have a graduate business degree from Arizona State University. My parents wanted me to go to pharmacy school, but I abandoned that to pursue my real interests, business and entrepreneurship. I’m currently coming up on my two-year anniversary as a software engineer on December 19, 2018. This has all been a plot twist I didn’t think was possible.
So today we’re talking about non-conventional entries into tech. Before you got into tech, what were you doing and what spurred your interest in the tech space?
Before working as a software engineer, I was already in “tech”, just not at a startup. My first job out of college was working as an Implementation Consultant at a small tech company, helping onboard clients onto our software platform. Then I started working as a business analyst for a small health tech company in Austin, helping to design software. My job then entailed requirements gathering, wireframing, and QA testing. Though I worked closely around turning software ideas into products, I never thought being a software engineer was something I could be, not even when I jokingly said I was going to teach others how to code.
I made that comment at Div Hackathon, a yearly diversity hackathon at Huston-Tillotson University (an HBCU and the first institute of higher-education in Austin, TX), during SXSW to introduce Black and Brown kids to the technology industry. I was a volunteer at that event back in 2016 and on day two of the hackathon, I parked in front of a newly built house in the historically Black East Austin neighborhood where Huston-Tillotson was located. That house was a reminder of how gentrification, fueled by the tech boom in Austin, was driving out the majority of Black residents in the city, as they didn’t have the same opportunities to capitalize on the tech industry.
That really frustrated me and I thought a technical skill like coding could help the student’s chances of entering the industry. So, I started learning to code just to teach Black and Brown kids and help increase their chances of entering the tech industry. I created a non-profit called ROOTs Technology (now a for-profit software consultancy), to help facilitate that mission.
So, to be more specific, how’d you make the switch?
I decided to make a career switch after a crappy promotion forced me to really think about my career and financial goals. At the time, I was making $37,500/yr as a Business Analyst, and after being promoted to Senior Business Analyst, I had to fight for a raise up to $39,998/yr. That was a defining moment for me, especially since the majority of my paycheck went to my grad school loans.
That same day back in June 2016, I decided I was going to be a software engineer. I went to a tech job fair and picked up a flyer for a software engineer role at IBM. I took that flyer home and used the job requirements to update the curriculum I created for teaching ROOTs Technology. Then, I put the date “December 2016” on that job posting, and pinned it to the wall next to my desk. I was giving myself till the end of the year to become a software engineer.
With a date in mind, it was time to grind. I would get home from work around 6 PM, watch one of my tv shows while eating dinner, then study until about 1–2 AM. Wake up the next day and repeat. I sacrificed a lot of social activities and events, unless they were tech related. Furthermore, my lease was ending in October, so I decided to quit my job in July after saving up enough rent money to finish out my lease. This way, I could focus solely on studying and building web apps for my portfolio. There was no turning back at this point, I was all in.
After building a few web applications, I went to a coding bootcamp, Dev Bootcamp, thinking there were huge knowledge gaps I had to fill. Since I was already building basic CRUD apps on my own before going to the bootcamp, it just ended up being more time for me to practice. I used my lunch time during the bootcamp to work on projects for my portfolio, so the instructors could help me to quickly get unstuck.
I started seriously job searching around September 2016 and blogged about my experience and takeaways during that time. Job search Part 1. Job Search Part 2. The apps I built for my Github portfolio were all I had to vouch for my coding skills while applying and interviewing. On top of that, I was very vocal on Twitter about my coding journey, and that led to my first job offer. My first job offer was on September 29, 2016 from a stranger on Twitter that wanted to grab coffee and talk about my job search. That no-longer-stranger turned out to own a software consulting company in Austin and tentatively offered me a software developer role to start in January 2017. The offer wouldn’t be confirmed for a couple months, so I continued my job search.
My first official job offer came in mid-November to work as a Test Automation Developer for a big insurance company starting January 2017 in Arizona, for $59K/yr. That was a $19k salary increase from my previous job as a business analyst, just less than five months ago. I even scored an apprenticeship with a company in Silicon Valley for December 2016 before starting my full-time job in January. I got that apprenticeship after being rejected for the full-time role in the final stage of the interview process. They say, “desperation breeds innovation”, and that led to me asking the hiring manager if they could bring me on for an internship or an apprenticeship. To my surprise, he said yes. Sidenote: I’ve been shooting my shot in life ever since that moment.
With two jobs in hand, it was an amazing feeling to achieve my goal in November, the month before my December 2016 deadline. I didn’t think I’d have a fulltime job as a software developer AND an apprenticeship in Silicon Valley. But, if you looked at my LinkedIn, you’d see I never worked at any of those companies.
See, what had happened was…
The week before I was to fly out to Silicon Valley to start my apprenticeship, I got hired on the spot for a software engineering role in Austin at a cybersecurity startup, to start in December. That job offer was almost 2X what I was previously making as a business analyst AND it allowed me to stay in Austin with my sisters and girlfriend. I couldn’t turn it down.
Fast forward about a year and a half later, and my total income is now more than 3X my business analyst salary working as a software engineer. This career field and industry has really changed my financial standing, and I’ve been committed to helping bring as many Black and Brown people into this industry as possible since I made the switch, which is why I still continue to teach and mentor.
Talk to us about the program you’ve started to teach other folks, specifically youth, how to code.
So, I started ROOTs Technology as a non-profit to teach Black and Brown people in the Austin area the basics of building websites, HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Classes were on Saturdays from 11:30 AM to 2:30 PM at the African-American Youth Harvest Foundation (AAYHF). The first class was about 30–40 people, ranging in age from 10–65 years young. We even ran out of seating room; it was surreal. I thought only a few people would show up.
They say, “you can’t be what you can’t see,” so I would always bring in Black and Brown professionals in tech to come speak about their experience and give the students advice on how to push forward in their journey. Representation matters, and it was apparent in how the students responded to the various speakers.
Struggles outside of class made things unnecessarily hard for a lot of students. Some of the students weren’t guaranteed a meal at home, so coming to class was the only guaranteed meal they had, as lunch was sponsored by Subway. Some student’s housing situations weren’t secure, so they were constantly moving or on the verge of moving. Some students didn’t have internet at home, and even if they did, there may only be one laptop, if any, that was shared by the whole family.
All of these things made teaching so much harder than it should’ve been. Because of these issues, progress was slow for a lot of students, and I had to constantly go over previous material with them. It was really heartbreaking, as there were a lot of smart students in the class. Sidenote: our teachers, especially the teachers in underserved schools and communities, are national treasures. Really frustrating how underpaid, under-resourced, and under-appreciated they are.
I eventually stopped teaching classes in person, and opted to just have the curriculum online for anyone to follow, while using my time to be a mentor they could reach out to whenever they needed help. This freed up my schedule once I decided to pursue making the career switch to software engineering.
If you could give people, especially minorities, who don’t have a tech background but want to get into the space, 3 tips what would they be?
First tip: figure out what you want to do and see where that fits in the tech space. If you don’t already know, start going to tech meetups and asking questions to help you figure out what you’re interested in.
Second tip: find people that are where you want to be, or have been there, and reach out to them to help you come up with a plan of action towards getting there yourself.
Lastly: give yourself an aggressive timeline to achieve that goal and get to work. When it’s all said and done, you want to have given it your best effort and not look back with regrets.
Important note, working in “tech” isn’t just about coding, that’s only one aspect of the industry. There’s something in tech for everyone. And when it comes to startups, this industry literally gives people money to just “try” out their ideas. That’s mind-blowing.
This has been great — before we wrap, any shout outs?
I have to give a major shoutout to my support tribe, the people that helped point me in the right direction when learning and my family and friends that came together to be my safety net. First couple shoutouts go to Dara Oke and Sammy Mudede, they were my two engineering friends that helped me develop the curriculum. Props to Youssouph Djiba and the African American Youth Harvest Foundation for supporting my mission with ROOTs Technology. Shout out to Iheanyi Ekechukwu for being like a brother to me throughout this tech journey, even now. And most importantly, shoutout to my fiance and my sisters for offering me a place to sleep when my lease ended and I was unemployed. Just overall, a big thank you to my family and friends for always having my back and encouraging me to push forward with all the crazy ideas I always come up with.
The journey’s just beginning.
