As most people know, sales can be an extremely rewarding career path. The ceiling is high, the floor is low, and it often requires thick skin. Having spent several years in management and customer service I eventually transitioned into full-time sales in 2017 and followed this path for 6 years before realizing a passion for software development. It was at that time I decided to initiate a career change. Here is why I decided to leave my sales career behind to pursue a career in tech.
For awhile I had been getting the "itch" to do something new. I wanted to take my career in a different direction but I just wasn't sure which direction I wanted to go in. Sales requires a certain personality type to stick with long-term and while it was something I was good at, it wasn't something I saw myself doing for years to come. I started looking at other options to see what my choices were.
Discovering Web Development
One day I was driving and listening to a podcast on careers when the host mentioned the market's need for web developers with people skills. I thought "I don't know anything about web development but my people skills are alright I suppose..". So I spent a few days researching the requirements and dove in head first. I bought a personal laptop (all I had up until this point was a work computer), and began a full-stack web development course on Udemy learning the fundamentals like HTML, CSS and JavaScript.
Programming presented a new challenge, a challenge worth conquering. The potential growth and flexibility in software development also excited me. I have never considered myself to be a tech guru. Outside of using necessary work applications and sending emails I never had a need to learn much about technology, software development, or the way my devices actually worked. I've always loved interacting with people and people were never in short supply when working in customer service or sales but I wanted a different kind of challenge and coding gave it to me. While sales is challenging it is very different from programming. Programming requires complex problem solving and forces the programmer to use a different set of skills outside of the people skills required to be a good salesman. I was in for the long haul and loved the feeling of learning a new set of skills and taking on an endeavor that I considered to be very difficult.
Another reason I wanted to become a programmer is it seemed like a better fit for my personality. While I love interacting with customers, and have no issues in social situations, I am more introverted than extroverted. I liked the idea of being able to get in the zone and work on a task without the need to constantly be exerting social energy. This allows me to interact with customers and talk with teammates when needed while also being able to recharge while working on development oriented tasks.
Landing My First Job In Tech
After a year and a half of working sales and coding on the side I was able to land a full-time role on a development team working production support and quality assurance automation. Over the past year I have had the opportunity to work with Selenium, C#, ASP.NET Core, Playwright, SQL and various other technologies and am very thankful for this opportunity to continue to grow and learn. I have still been learning consistently on my own time as well and working toward my ultimate goal of becoming a software developer. I am very happy with my decision to pursue software development and am looking forward to continuing the journey.
Happy coding!
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