Hello, aspiring devs! 🙋🏻‍♂️

I want to share with you my experience as a career-shifter from a full-time violinist to a software engineer/developer. 🎻-> 👩🏻‍💻

As of this writing, it has been exactly 1 week and 1 day already since I started working as a Software Engineer. It has been an amazing week so far full of learning and meeting new developers.

It's crazy and amazing that last year in March 2021, I was just dreaming of shifting careers. Yeah, this was only a dream but now a year later, I finally did it! 🥰

So today, I want to share with you in this blog, all the things that happened in my first week of work as a developer to give you an idea because I know you can do this too, and soon, you'll get that sweet "YES". 🤗

Seminars

There were 3 or 4 seminars I had to attend in my first week. The topics were about the company, the infrastructure, rules, the company culture, etc., and also mandated seminars by the government.

There was a particular seminar a few days ago that lasted the whole day (9 am-6 pm) about work safety which really bothered me. They showed us really disturbing accidents at work caught by CCTVs in different parts of the world due to a lack of safety awareness in the workplace. 🤢

Yeah, you know I wish they didn't show us those because I wasn't able to eat properly after that seminar. 😅

Meetings

"Welcome to the dev life!" 👩🏻‍💻 — My mentor said when I told him about my first week working as a developer.

Doing a lot of meetings seems common in this field so expect a lot of meetings. I had meetings almost daily but the meetings were short around 30 mins - 1 hr so it's all good!

Also, because of these meetings, I was able to meet and know more amazing people working in the company and in the tech industry. This made me really happy to somehow network with them! 🤝🏻

Weekly standup

In the company where I am currently working, the tech team has a weekly standup. It's a short meeting with all the people in the technology department, where they share what they accomplished for that week. I don't know about the company you will be or you are already part of but it's good to know that there are things like these right? 🙂

A lot of studying

I think this is very common if you are a newbie 😁🌱. There's just so much I have to learn as soon as I can. It can be very overwhelming and can keep you awake at night 🌛hahaha!

For the tech stack needed, my senpais told me to learn ReactJS and Redux-Saga. I am really glad to say that fortunately, I have supportive mentors and a great team. I can't wait to learn and unlock more skills!

Mentorship

Now that I met my team leaders and other software engineers who will help, guide, and assist me, I know this will 10x my progress as a developer! Of course, my unwavering dedication to study is required too.

Mentorship for me is the shortcut to success! 😎

My violin students, friends, and those who have been following me for a while on social media know that I promote mentorship and that I always tell people that this is something very important.

If you want to become good at something, learn from someone who is already doing or is an expert the thing you want to learn right?

What's next? 🤔

I hope this is somehow helpful to you and I hope you get an idea of what to expect when you start on your new career.

Cheers to us career shifters and let's keep on doing our best! ❤❤❤

I would also love to know about your experience as a dev and as a career shifter so please do not hesitate to share it in the comment section 👇🏻. All the best guys!