How I went from mopping floors at a tanning salon to becoming a Software Developer

In 2016, I was mopping floors at a tanning salon in Houston, Texas. In 2017, I taught myself how to code and now I’m a Software Engineer in Boston’s media tech hub.

This may seem confusing and quite drastic upon initially skimming over the title, but there is a back story that provides context to a unique problem and an equally viable solution that sprouted in my life for the past year, looking back, and looking forward into 2020.

I am your typical and atypical nerd. I grew up playing video games everyday, reading sci-fi/fantasy books, illustrating, writing stories, composing music, playing horn instruments obnoxiously loud in the garage, and studying any subject I found and deemed intriguing and significant to the human experience. These were all of my intrinsic interests and no one could tell me I was passionate about “too many things”. That concept of limitation was not in my paradigm and so I was unfamiliar with the verbally passed down constraints of how to spend one’s (valuable) time. All of those activities were imperative to my existence and molded me into the ‘nerd’ that I am today and always will be. Little did I know that by 2017, I’d be catching on to a career I hadn’t realized I’d been passionate about since I’d first allowed my pencil to touch a sketchbook.

That being said…

Life has an interesting way of throwing arbitrary, unforeseen circumstances your way and you’re forced to decide on how to React(!) to them, accordingly.

In 2016,

I was in a fairly awkward position in my academic career. After attending The George Washington University to study Economics and experiencing a slew of seemingly never-ending relocation sprees, my Bachelor’s degree was on hold. I was only 20 at this point — young, but feeling all too fatigued by the inconsistencies…