Ask HN: Entering the web development business from another technical background.

3 pointstumes14y ago3 comments

Hi HN. After about three years of working as a professional chemist I decided that while I like the work, I don't find it particularly stimulating. Consequently, about six months ago a good developer friend of mine essentially mentored me into learning a bit about Ruby and Rails. Up until that point all I had had was a teenage flirtation with web development in the late 90s and a semester of C++ in college rolled into my math minor.

Flash forward to now, six months after starting to learn and I feel I know just enough that I can work my way through just about any problem I run in to, though with a fair amount of head bumping. I'm developing a small bookkeeping app for work and I've successfully launched a silly little project (amitwitterfamous.com, currently down in the midst of the great AWS outage of '11).

My question is, where do I go from here? I'm coding and learning every day, but I don't know where or how to take the next step. Were any of you in a similar position? What were your early experiences?

3 comments

davetong14y ago

At my first professional job, the director of the company was a pathologist for 20 years. It then occurred to him that his industry could be run more efficiently so he embarked on developing his own pathology system. With no previous software background, he had his wife bootstrap his development of the system for a few years before he was able to implement it for production use. He ended up running his new software company for 12 years before he sold it for millions!

He is a prime example of someone with no software experience moving into the industry. However, I believe it worked wonderfully for him because he didn't shift from his primary industry where he held all of his domain knowledge.

Congrats if you're wanting to shift professions and industries as it is a brave move. I would suggest surrounding yourself with talented and experienced people in the software industry. There should be Ruby on Rails and web meetups in your area where you will be able to network and learn from approachable people.

All the best in your endeavours!

tumesOP14y ago

Thanks for the encouragement! I have a few friends in web development and they're huge inspirations and great mentors. I feels incredibly lucky to be entering the field when I am because the communities and tools are absolutely amazing.

jf27114y ago

Keep coding and working at learning every day.

Like the pathologist the big thing is to feel the pain well enough to know how to fix the problem that causes the pain. Don't go too far away from what you know at first.

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