A Step in the Write Direction : The Path to Becoming a Software Engineer

Languages are tough. Despite common roots across the vast majority of the population, cultures have had more than a thousand years to develop communication methods independent of each other, resulting in nearly 7,000 different languages trying to communicate with each other around the world. Fortunately, the rise of the World Wide Web established the means to make these intercommunications easier at least a a hundred thousand times over. At the very least, Google Translate can probably help you understand phrases of that dialect you aren’t so familiar with. But.. what about the language that built the Internet? Or the one that stitches together the functionality of Google Translate?

Every computer, phone, webpage and application needs a language to operate. Even your Tamagotchi from 1998 needed some way to understand that it was hungry and then a method of notifying you of its needs. While the physical world is supported by its social languages, the digital world is supported by a myriad of coding languages making all of its processes possible. Furthermore, while an experienced translator is responsible for accurately representing one person or group’s message to another, a software engineer is responsible for accurately representing and executing a human message to a computer/program, or vice versa.

TLDR; Software engineers are the communication medium of the digital world.

Although its pretty fuzzy, I believe my first experience with a computer was in the (very) late 90’s on my parent’s old box PC running Windows 98. I was homeschooled Pre-K and Kindergarten and my dad, being an avid pilot, was quick to cop the state-of-the-art Microsoft Flight Simulator 98 (FS98). Where he preferred practicing IFR approaches in wildly unsafe weather, I found myself hurtling into ground at 220 knots just for fun. I never really did much more on the computer during that time but it was a computer introduction nonetheless.

Fast forward 14 years and what started on Windows 98 had progressed through full-fledged videogame addiction (when I was grounded it was from videogames not friends), through a weird fingerless glove, brimmed beanie and laptop satchel “hackerman” stage and on to a passion for computer hardware and software alike. I left for college in 2013 in pursuit of an unrelated degree and, while staying at my Grandpa’s house for the summer, managed to painstakingly piece together my first custom PC. During this time, I also was dabbling in self-taught MS-DOS but only ever built basic .batch files to password lock various desktop folders.

From there, my coding world began to stagnate as I became wrapped up in changing my major and moving to Florida to pursue my college career. I’ve always heard that turning a hobby into a job essentially bricks said hobby. This was my primary motivation for staying away from computer science/software engineering. I would tell myself that I just enjoyed computers too much to want to risk ruining it. Plus, working with the natural environment would keep me outside and I really can get a wicked tan if given the chance. It wasn’t until my unceremonious completion of my Biology degree during the initial COVID-19 outbreak in early 2020 that I started exploring options for careers more inline with my immediate strengths. Of course, this led directly to software engineering; a field that is already booming and will continue to grow with the tech industry.

So, why software engineering? Aside from the potential for great pay, job security and those coveted work-from-home positions, it is clear to me now that I may very well have been unknowingly preparing myself for this career my whole life. Computers are not just a hobby, but a passion for me. Through my life experiences thus far, I have developed an affinity for the digital world and the hardware that supports it.

So that brings me to present day. I am getting paler by the hour, considering investments in blue light glasses, ergonomic chairs and stand-up desks and spending altogether way too much correcting my cat’s random keypresses as she relishes in all of the newfound attention. The thing is, I love every second of it. Sure, it gets aggravating to get stuck on the same line of code for an hour ... but that “Aha!” moment when the test runs correctly and you see the result of all your labor makes it all worth it. Software engineering wasn’t my first guess as to what I’d be pursuing in the long run. However, it makes perfect sense to me in hindsight and, at the risk of sounding exceptionally cliché, I can’t help but feel like this is what I’m meant to be doing. This is my path.