To The Self Taught

Are you a self-taught developer in the tech industry looking to level up? Or even someone just interested in the field, but feeling held back by lack of professional experience? This Substack is likely for you! I’ll be going over the journey from learning coding to managing teams and sharing the lessons I’ve learned along the way in the hopes of helping others progress in their own careers.

I’m currently an Engineering Manager at a tech startup called Wellthy. It’s quite a leap from my beginnings, especially considering that I did not formally study computer science - the typical path; I am a self-taught coder.

My coding journey began in high school, driven not by academic ambition but by my love of video games (shout out to Second Life and eRepublik). After college, where I studied a field that essentially boiled down to project management for the design industry, I found myself at Interbrand working mostly on back-office tasks. It was there that I discovered how much large companies’ processes could be automated or were generally inefficient.

I started by automating my own tasks using Google Apps and small Python scripts. During a couple of rounds of layoffs, my ability to automate away rote tasks caught my manager’s eye. I gradually automated the arduous process of onboarding freelancers, eventually creating a system that allowed Resource Managers to request freelancers, receive approval from Finance, send the necessary paperwork for signature automatically, and let freelancers track their time on their projects. As layoffs continued, my role morphed into full time Business Operations Analyst, I expanded that system further and took on a project to reduce licensing liability in stock image usage by developing an internal system for approved assets and licensing others, among other projects.

It took a long time for me to gain the courage to transfer industries, but looking back, I’m thrilled I eventually did. From mid-level to Senior, and then from Tech Lead to Manager, I’ve learned a lot about working in fast-paced growth environments, managing larger teams, and navigating the pitfalls of juggling multiple projects. Most importantly, I’ve learned the value of sharing knowledge and relying on a team to lift each other up on the path to excellence and continuous learning.

I want to kick off this blog with some helpful (hopefully) tips on how someone from outside the tech industry can enter the field. Whether you’re looking to transition careers or simply interested in learning more about programming, I hope to provide some insights that will help you on the path.

Try to keep in mind that being a developer isn’t just knowing a programming language. Most people can handle following a tutorial - being a developer is being able to take a concept you haven’t seen before and turn that into something real.

Think of it like building a lego set: Nearly everyone can follow the instruction book to build out what’s on the box image. Asked to take those same blocks and build something new, that’s where you see a drop off in ability; because it requires creativity and curiosity to see how all of those same pieces can fit together in a new way.

When picking up something new in programming, the documentation is always the first step. To really get an understanding of the language or framework though, you need to build something. How does package management work? What’s the ideal project structure? These are questions best answered by approaching a true project.

There is a lot of brute force and frustration in building something in brand new territory, but if you hold out to reach the light at the end of the tunnel - you can experience the joy that comes from having a new skill in your tool belt. You don’t need to come up with a magnificent new product idea to get started: build something you can already reference. An email client perhaps? A personal version of a tool you already use today maybe? It may not meet your UI standards for products you use, but set realistic goals for yourself and choose a single aspect of what you’re trying to learn so that cutting corners on what’s out of scope doesn’t feel like a setback, but rather a strengthening of the skill restraint from taking on too much and seeing something balloon into an unachievable project.

My go-to starter project and top recommendation is building an API wrapper for a service that offers one. You get the basics of a language down, learn how manage dependencies, make HTTP requests, handle formatting data, etc. Is there already an SDK available? Make your own! Remember, the goal is learning :)

One of my first open-source projects was pyOutlook, an API wrapper for Outlook that offered a simple Pythonic interface for working with the Outlook API. It got some actual traction on Github with 28 stars - contributing to the open-source community and helping others is a great way to keep your motivation going.

I’m a bit biased here, because of my experience. A great way to gain more knowledge and come up with new project ideas is by looking at your present job. Are there pieces you can automate? Even if not used in production, could you build a tool that replicates or automates something at your current workplace?

You’ll have to do this on your own time even if it’s work related - I put in most of my weekends for a couple years to improving my programming chops, and started by introducing very small improvements to the team (incremental change is always easier than suggesting a huge shift in process). Following that hard work, keeping that discipline, and learning how to break a larger idea into digestible components for rollout in a large corporation brought me to where I am today.

Even if you drop a project or two half-way, or something never gets used by anyone other than yourself - you’re learning to learn. Where to find the right resources, when to reach out for help, and how to get unstuck when you encounter a roadblock. Being a programmer is knowing a language, being a good developer requires a set of “soft-skills” though. Persistence and Curiosity set a solid foundation for the rest.

If you’re self-taught as well and have any additional insight, I’d love to hear what you have to share as well!