Nadia Zhuk - Crossing the Rubycon: How to Learn to Code and Build a Programming Career

T his is the story of how I went from being completely non-technical to a full-time software engineering job in 9 months.

Before I started teaching myself to code at 25, I had worked as an English tutor, a translator, a journalist, and an editor. Throughout my life I had always focused on humanities and felt intimidated by math and other sciences. I had no idea what coding was and what programmers did for a living.

Also, I didnt care about any of that. I was helpless with tech. I belonged to that annoying category of people who are afraid to change a setting on Windows because they might break the computer.

So when I say I was non-technical, I am not being modest. I mean it.

Despite all that, I managed to teach myself to code and found a full-time programming job in less than a year. A year and a half after I started working as a programmer, I got hired by Zendesk, one of the leading customer service software companies in the world. Since joining the company I have mostly been writing code for payment processing and subscription management for one of Zendesk products.

This may sound very complicated and technical, and thats the whole point of mentioning it. If you had told me I would be doing something like that for a living just a few years ago, I would have laughed in your face.

To say that my decision to learn to code has influenced my life would be a gross understatement. It has completely transformed it and turned me into a whole new person. Ive become more resourceful, independent, resilient, and confident in my abilities. Ive learned that I am capable of much more than I previously believed. Ive stopped being so afraid of tough challenges. Being able to code also helped me find a decent job abroad and made moving from my home in Belarus to Poland much easier.

Its also worth noting that my income has almost quadrupled in the last two years. There is little reason to believe that it wont continue to increase in the years to come, albeit likely not at the same speed. Having a sense of financial security has not only eased my perennial fear of being broke, but it has also freed up a lot of creative energy that I didnt even know I had. Proof of this creative impulse is the book you are reading.

My mission in writing this book has been to show that this career path is not closed off to you, no matter what your background is. You are not too old or too stupid to do this, and, despite what industry gatekeepers might say, there is a place in tech for you. Getting your foot in the door of this industry is not easy, but it can be done. This book shows you how.

Chapter I tells the story of my non-technical background and how I stumbled into coding when I was 25: the age when it is supposedly too late to learn to code. In this personal chapter, I will show that you are in a much better position to become a programmer than you might think.

Chapter II is where I go over and disprove the most common excuses people make for not becoming programmers. I used to make a lot of those excuses myself, and in this chapter I will show you why they make no sense.

Chapter III provides you with the basic information you need to start your journey of becoming a programmer. Here I describe and compare different ways to learn how to code. I also talk about what kind of a programmer you can become and how you can choose which programming language to learn first.

Chapter IV describes the way I taught myself to code along with the resources I used to do it. Here you will get a step-by-step guide of how you can learn to code on your own, along with a list of books and tutorials that helped me become a programmer. Although most of the resources mentioned in this chapter are specific to Ruby, you can apply my learning approach to other programming languages.

Chapter V is where I share everything I have learned about finding your first job as a self-taught programmer with no commercial experience. It took me only 1.5 months to find my first job, and by applying the tips from this chapter you can make your job search process much less painful than it usually is. I share advice on building a personal website, writing a resume and a cover letter, applying to jobs, and acing your interviews.

Chapter VI talks about what my first jobs in tech were like and the lessons I learned while working there. In this chapter I talk about the importance of being proactive and courageous, standing up for yourself, knowing what you want, and taking care of your mental health.

In Chapter VII I share some tips for new coders struggling with the psychological burden of learning tech skills and working as a programmer. Although this chapter contains certain thoughts and observations particularly relevant for female readers, all readers can benefit from it, especially the ones in a position to bring forth positive changes.

Chapter VIII is the one where I talk about how this bumpy road has led me to a fulfilling engineering job at Zendesk. It took me almost 1.5 years of trial and error to get there, and I hope that this chapter will give you strength and motivation to keep looking for the right place for yourself in this industry.

Chapter One

I . My Non-technical Background