From Pastor to Programmer - Introduction (Part 1)

a self-taught coding journey

I’ve shared my story with a number of people and the vast majority of them respond with something akin to “that’s amazing”, “that’s so inspiring”, or “I could never do that”.

It’s becoming a more common story: someone not in the industry with little to no programming experience learns how to program on their own (or goes to a bootcamp) and then gets a 100k+ job in software engineering.

I’ve thought a lot about the journey and ways it could have gone smoother and figured that some of my reflections could help people on a similar path.

So I want to share how I learned to code in 7 months, some of the challenges I faced, how I eventually got a job in the industry, and possibly offer some encouragement or even a corrective to some who have already embarked, and even possibly inspire some to begin the journey themselves.

I don’t want this to just be about learning to code or being self-taught (as much as I enjoy those topics) so I also plan to share tips and tricks from my current every day life as I am constantly learning and growing in my craft as well as personal life.

And since this topic is much more than I can fit in a single blog post I’ll break it into multiple parts.

So whether you’re working at a church or non-profit like I was and are thinking about learning to code, already a programming and interested in tips and tricks, or something else entirely, make sure to subscribe if you want to follow along and keep me accountable to keep up my writing!

-Jesse