terra-rizor

[terra-rizor]

Sometimes, you just need an anonymous place to unload. This is that place.

A word of caution: this post is part meandering rant and part redemption tale of a lost adult struggling to let go of youth. Read at your own risk.

I work in tech, and I’ve been thinking a lot about the toxic gate keeping in this industry. I started programming when I was 12 years old, but didn’t go straight into a tech job - out of high school I applied to both major state schools, and got into both schools - one for computer science and one for business. My father really pushed me to study business. Suffice to say I fucking hated it, and ended up majoring in math.

What I really wanted to do at the time was to work as a sound designer - I interned at a recording studio in college - so I moved to Los Angeles to work at a big time studio. I moved back home a year later after my father was diagnosed with lymphocytic leukemia and went through chemo therapy. Throughout my life I’ve been accused of being cold, distant and unattached - but watching someone you care about go through that kind of hell is a real shit sandwich to choke down.

I then spent the next 8 years trying to hack the music industry in my city (with very little success). I worked restaurant jobs to scrape by and pay rent. Eventually this life gets exhausting - especially for an introvert - and I knew I needed a big change. My sister introduced me to a friend of hers who works at a top tech company, and he told me his story of breaking into tech. He suggested I check out some free courses online, and I was once again hooked on what I’d discovered about computers as a kid.

At that very moment I decided to pivot. I spent literally every single waking second outside of my restaurant job (where I worked until 3 AM, 5 days a week) learning how to program again. I created a GitHub account, a Medium blog, and started pushing code daily and blogging weekly. I made every simple app I could think of - a tarot card app, a calculator, a meme generator. Every morning I read posts from FreeCodeCamp and from life hackers on Medium. I knew that there was another world out there, but every night I went in to work and was surrounded by the same bored and uninspired souls who were secretly just as crushed on the inside as I was. The life of success and freedom I desired seemed so far away. I no longer connected with my peers - I was frustrated with the way in which everyone around me just accepted their fate.

6 months later, I approached my family for support and told them I wanted to do this crazy thing called a bootcamp. I made the case that if they could help me stay afloat financially - I would quit my job and spend 15 weeks learning to professionally program and launch a career out of it. They agreed to help. I then put in 10+ hour days, 7 days a week, for 15 weeks. I put in extra work outside of the curriculum learning algorithms and building projects and blogging. People love to shit on bootcamp grads (and I’ve certainly met my share of incompetent bootcampers who came from privilege and rode that shit to the bank on daddy’s money) but going through a program like that is truly one of the best things I’ve ever had the opportunity to do in life and I took full advantage of it.

My girlfriend at the time pretended to be supportive (she would drive me to campus every morning), but on the inside she was seething with rage and jealousy - that I had a way out from the grind while she still felt stuck. The shitty thing was that in my mind, I knew at that point our relationship was already over, and I think she knew it too. We would sit in awkward silence most nights - her watching mind numbing shows on Netflix, me hunched over my laptop hacking away at an idea. We coexisted that way for a few months. 2 weeks after I finished the bootcamp we broke up. Her words still haunt me: the day we broke up she told me, “you’ll never truly be satisfied with anything or anyone. You’ll land a good job, and then after you realize how empty you still feel, you’ll chase the next thing.” Which kind of brings me to a later point.

The next couple of months trying to find a job were difficult, to say the least. Not only was there a lot of pressure financially for this whole plan to work out, but I also had to do it alone.

Back to gate keeping: not only did I discover that there is a *lot* of unfavorable bias towards bootcamp grads - but my lack of “career advancement” in my previous field also hurt me. On top of that, I was told that my “look” would make it harder for me to get hired.

Let’s talk about that for a second, because that shit makes my blood boil (and as it turns out, is completely not true - I just live in a traditionally conservative part of my country). The fact that I (or anyone else for that matter) has piercings /tattoos / body modification/ dresses a certain way has literally nothing to do with the value you can provide a company through code. I’m glad to see a shift away from that mentality, because you can literally work from your underwear at home as a programmer (which I now do frequently). I digress.

I made it to several final round interviews with top tech companies in my area. None of them panned out. “You seem smart and capable but don’t have any experience”. “Your work history isn’t exactly impressive”. It’s this sort of elitist bull shit that ultimately drove me insane, because I would have honestly out hustled and out performed anyone they chose to fill those positions with. Again, I digress.

I ended up taking a job with a startup. At first I was just thrilled to get a shiny maxed out 15” MacBook Pro on day one, and when I got my first paycheck it was more money than I’d ever seen. And then the boredom started to settle in. The project I was assigned to got put on code freeze, and I had to keep coming up with excuses to write code at work. I started to think I could be making more money and working on something more fulfilling at another company.

... and this is the hamster wheel that devs get shoved onto after landing that first job, right? The boredom sets in. Recruiters start to approach you with promises of higher pay, better perks and more exciting tech stacks. Hacking on projects outside of work is the only thing that makes it fun anymore.

Maybe my ex was right. Maybe I’ll never truly be happy, because I will always want something more. I’ll always chase that next level, because it’s the only high that placates me, even for just a short period of time. And at the end of the day, although I make more money and have more freedom - did I really win? Or is it just golden handcuffs?