Average Developer?

Few people will proudly claim they are average at anything, let alone in a field where competition is fierce and jobs are scarce. So then, why do I?

The beginning

For some of my opinions to make sense, I need to take you back in time.

I grew up in a low socioeconomic area of Toronto and was raised by my immigrant mother. I'm not telling you this to feel bad for me. In fact, I was incredibly fortunate, and lucky to have had great mentors along the way. One of the most influential people in my life was my high school football coach. He played a large role in my development as a person, pushed me to step out of my comfort zone and gave me the confidence to tread unfamiliar waters.

Because of him, I was a nationally scouted recruit and had interest from many major universities in Canada to be a part of their football program. For a variety of reasons, I finally settled on Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario.

I'll be frank.. my first year of university did not go well, academically. Between the year-round football related activities, my job working nights as bouncer at a bar downtown, and my full course load, I did a horrendous job balancing these things. My grades were so low, the university approached me about taking a year off school and reevaluating my life choices.

I couldn't imagine not being in school, not being on some sort of track. My "life choices" had gotten me to university, and I wasn't going to let the current situation stop me. "I have to be here. I have to make it as a football player", I told myself. My mom and siblings are relying on me to provide for them. I appealed their decision, showed them my schedule (where an audible gasp was heard by members of the appeal board), and put together a plan to get back on track.

The plan

As a student, I had a fondness for math, science, and engineering classes. In high school, I took many AP science classes, and aced my computer studies courses I took. I remember even stumbling my way through coding a custom myspace and neopets profile using some basic HTML. I didn't have to think about what my career path looked like academically because I was convinced I was going to be a professional athlete. When I registered with Queen's, I took a variety of science courses and thought that would be manageable. Obviously, that wasn't the case.

When it came time to make a new academic plan, I completely switched my courses from sciences to arts. Since science classes required so much in-class time, with labs, lectures and tutorials, I could switch into arts and cut my class time in half. With arts courses, I could do the reading and writing at times that were convenient to my schedule. I didn't care what I was taking, just that I could manage it.

Again, my thoughts were glazed with the idea of playing pro sports.

The plan falls apart

Believe it or not, I figured out my academics. I clawed my GPA back into a respectable range over the course of my undergrad. I definitely didn't do this alone. As part of my appeal process I was required to meet with academic advisors regularly, and I attribute my academic resurgence to those fine people.

The plan fell apart in the place I least expected it. I was a starter in my last three years of playing football at Queen's. In my final year, my passion for the game had dried up so aggressively, I found myself checking the game clock to see how many more minutes I had to play. There were many reasons I believe my love for the game had died. I'm not going to discuss those here and all that really matters is my track that my life train was on since I was 14 years old had derailed.

My final football season ended, and I was on my way to being the proud owner of a History degree. I needed to get back on track, any track. Because of some coaching work I had done, and reflecting on how much I enjoyed it, I applied to the Faculty of Education at Queen's. A career in education would surely give my life a track to follow.

Taking control of the track

I spent four years as a teacher. I taught everything from kindergarten to grade six. I was lucky enough to have great mentors in my life, and I wanted to pass that on to the students I taught.

I was the type of teacher that would take any classroom on, no matter how busy. The school board HR department learned this quickly and would call me on a whim to jump into some crazy situations. I continued on this way, and got passed around from school to school. After my third year, I interviewed and received a permanent contract position, something teachers at the time would have waited a decade to obtain.

At this point in my career I had a bad taste in my mouth. I felt like I had no control over my career; I wanted a change. For once in my life, I was going to take control and really think about what I want.

While I was teaching, I worked at Best Buy part time. I really love tech and working at Best Buy kept me up to date and on the front-lines. The discount I received while working there might have been a big driver as well..

I eventually left Best Buy and started a small IT company called Tech Teacher. I provided a variety of services like installations, repairs and web development. My skills were just picked up along the way, either through YouTube, articles I read or my time at Best Buy.

Given my eclectic blend of work experience, I considered moving into an EdTech sales career. That is, until I learned about the Xtreme Talent Accelerator
Program (XTAP). The program has since been discontinued, but it looks like they forgot to remove the french version of the page.

Besides having a cool name, the program offered a full grant to attend a program with Lighthouse Labs (LHL). LHL offers boot camps that try and cram as much information in your brain as they can in not enough time. I ended up applying to XTAP, getting accepted, and beginning my time at LHL relatively quickly.

For the first time since high school, I was fully engaged in my education. The three hour daily classes were flying by, and the nine hours of daily coursework had me hooked. I was participating in forum discussions and actively engaging in class discussions. A week after graduating in February 2021, I was hired by a company to help build a student data management system and, at the time this post was written, continue to work there.

I had forced my train onto a different track, and I couldn't have been more happy about it.

So, why average?

You'll notice in my story that I'm not some kind of savant. I didn't skip any grades, I didn't get a computer science degree from MIT or Harvard; I didn't even get a computer science degree!

Despite all of this, I'm a major contributor now at my company, and have been gaining more responsibility as I grow in my role. I'm a firm believer that with enough resilience, determination and time, anyone can be a successful software developer.

Software development subjects can look scary, and overwhelmingly complex. The idea of the average developer blog is to document my work and my learning process to show that if someone like me can learn and build these skills, then so can you.

I will be the first to admit that I don't know everything, but I have the confidence to try, fail, and then try again; that's all it takes. Who knows, maybe someday I'll create or do something extraordinary, but for now I'm going to continue expanding my skill set using tools available to everyone. If, along the way, I can dispel software for even one person then this blog is a success.