Last year, I found myself unexpectedly unemployed for the first time in my life. I worked for a small business in a client-centered setting, and we shut down for a period starting in mid-March before reopening in June.

It's simpler to say that spurned me to take stock of where I was and urge me forward, but the truth is closer to lighting a pile of kindling I'd been stocking for a while.

I worked for the same company for just over three years, and during that time advanced to upper management levels. My job was hard, emotionally and physically exhausting, sometimes dangerous, unpredictable. Overall, I loved it.

But, I struggled to get by mostly paycheck to paycheck, I did not have health insurance and no real plan of how to have a more secure future for myself while doing something I care about, ideally with an opportunity to participate in a larger community dedicated to sharing knowledge, learning, and growing.

I'd poked around on the job hunt, before and during quarantine. It hit me one day that I should consider investing in further training for myself. Software development started to call my name, and I Googled things like "software development skills" to get an idea of what I was getting myself into.

I personally know a few folks that have completed technical boot camps and gone on to become software developers. I spoke with them about their experiences, and whether or not they thought it was something they could see me doing. With their encouragement and my instincts, I decided to enroll.

Even though I still have a long, long way to go, I already know I made the right decision. The world of tech has allowed me opportunities to constantly learn and grow, be supported by and support others, and appreciate where I've come from and where I may go. It is challenging, but it's worth it for me.

My boot camp program came to an end in May of this year. Honestly, I felt a lot more lost, anxious, and not confident after my program was complete. I focused pretty intently on beefing up my LinkedIn profile, resume, re-doing my portfolio site, and started my job search. My boot camp's career services are available to us even after we graduate, and this opportunity was posted in the Slack dedicated for this.

I went through a three-round interview process with that company and a two-round interview process with another. I was given offers by both, and accepted the first position! It starts in less than a month and I am incredibly excited.