There aren't many people out there who grew up dreaming of writing code. I definitely didn't and didn’t knew anything more than #include<stdio.h> and #include<conio.h>. I simply love cars and wanted to design cars. Also I was pretty good at math and physics, which bonused my desire. That’s why I got into mechanical engineering for my Bachelors degree. I did well in the course, actually pretty well and I was one of the guys who can answer concepts with real-world examples and more of a practical approach. Also in the due course, I understood that to designing cars is a complex topic and one guy cannot do them all. There is concept design, aerodynamics, structural design, production, materials, and lot more, so I had to choose one particular stream.
I went ahead with Structural Design and pursued for a Masters degree. It was tough and intense, though I still enjoyed the journey. From complex math to differential equations, I’ve done and understood them all with passion. I graduated in May 2019, also I got a fulltime job in June 2019 at a world’s leading Wind Turbine brand. By this time I thought, I’m settled for life and I can live and enjoy life as my hectic learning phase of my life is over. Even at this point of time, I never knew a line of code.
And there came the twist of my life and career. At my workplace, I got introduced to 2 of my colleagues who are veterans in aerodynamics. Aerodynamics is the study of air flow around a physical object, which affects the performance of the object in motion. From rockets to aircrafts to even cars need an aerodynamic design. They used PERL, Ruby and Python for their design needs. Curiously I went and asked them, “is programming ever needed in the life of a mechanical engineer?”. They enlightened me on the power of programming, and they demonstrated how they used coding to automate repetitive tasks and save tons of time. They explained me “coding is all about teaching a machine what to do, in a language which it can understand. And its better & easy than teaching a person what to do!” That was an eye-opener moment for me and somehow it attracted me!
Got started with Python
I started learning Python on the very same day through Udemy, and in a month’s time I automated a Jira workflow which every single person in our organization were asked to do on a weekly basis. Nobody liked this task, but we had to. I demonstrated the automation to my team, and they simply loved it and were wowed! Its great to kill the pain of doing boring tasks, by delegating them to machines. That dopamine-rush made me automate lot more boring workflows that existed in our team. I started falling in love with coding day-after-day. Mechanical calculations didn’t excite me after a point, but programing excited me. Creating rules, automating stuff, fixing bugs and everything demanded creativity and I simply loved the process and getting better at it day-after-day.
I didn’t knew what to do after a certain point after automating lot of my personal works and creating simple bots, learnt data analytics, machine learning, C++, APIs and more. Its like I’m learning a lot, but didn’t know where to apply it. And finally after a lot of research and discussion, I decided my life’s calling to FullStack Web Development.
Justifying myself to switch career
Unarguably Mechanical Engineering is one of the best fields of engineering to pursue. But the taste and passion can be different for people. But every decision you take in your life may not be right. Sometimes you may end up taking courses that may not bring the best in you, because in India we choose our career path when we are 17 years old, and unlike some other countries we are not allowed to switch our major during college. At 17, I was not aware of programming and may be if I was, I’d have chosen this as my major.
It was hard though to leave my love for cars, but someone told me “if you love cars you can buy them with money, you don’t have to learn how to design and manufacture it 😄”. Which is actually true, I think I misinterpreted my love for cars with a career in making cars. That’s fine, and its fine for me to switch careers while being 3 years into mechanical domain, instead feeling guilty after 30 years. But I have to start from scratch again, but I’m ready to grind as I’ve found my real passion.
Benefits of being a Web Developer
Being creative everyday - I just love this, and programming demands it! I feel like there is no saturation, as tried and tested code can be reused and we can work on the actual problem-solving.
Definitely web development has an endless career path. The more you sharpen your skills the more you can grow in this area. The salary is very competitive compared to other industries. Even if work doesn’t suit due to mobility or other issues, freelancing is another career path web developers can take. Freelancing in mechanical engineering need software which carry huge licensing cost.
Also there is scope for entrepreneurship, when you find a problem to solve. In mechanical engineering, setting up a business simply needs a ton of money just to even start. Machineries, workforce, land, materials, buildings and lot more are needed just to manufacture even a bolt. No matter whatever you try to do, there’s always standard knowledge that had been established, researched, and tested. Creativity and problem solving starts to fade-out as years pass, and things get to saturate. But with software, all you need is a laptop and few brains to code. Servers and other stuff, you can choose the free tier for the initial days of market and they are relatively cost-effective.
Going with the flow
I’m not an expert for now, but a novice developer learning by doing and learning from my mistakes. I strongly believe that this career path gives me a lot of scope for creativity and problem solving, and I can't wait to create amazing products for the world!