How I Self-Started My Journey to Tech

I went from someone who used to speak at mock United Nations assemblies, to someone who pursues a career talking to computers and machines.

I would like to begin my first ever article on this platform by quoting Heraclitus, the Ancient Greek philosopher. “Change is the only constant in life.” That principle has truly been the one that applies constantly through my 22-year journey in life, and I’m sure it also applies to all of you in this “disruptive” industry 4.0.

According to US federal employment data analyzed by CompTIA, there are nearly 1 million open IT jobs and only about 400,000 computer science graduates each year, and that’s in the US, the country who produces some of the biggest and most influential startups. In Indonesia, my home country, the startup wave has also hit us hard. We have Gojek, Grab Indonesia, Tokopedia, Bukalapak, and many others as some of the most influential startups in the South East Asian tech scene. As such, living in an increasingly digitalized world brings a broad new set of career paths to pursue.

My bachelor education is in International Relations (with a sub-major in International Economy). Like many others in IR, I was and am still passionate about diplomatic strategy, state security, development incentives, game theory, and studying a lot of different languages such as the 6 official languages of the UN (English, French, Chinese, Russian, Spanish, and Arabic). During my bachelor years, I actively pursued activities that increased my IR skills, such as debating, model united nations (MUN), and economic research.

Here’s a picture of me during the Harvard Model United Nations competition, held at Boston, Massachusetts (I was acting as New Zealand for the Disarmament and International Security Committee).

However, when I got into the work scene after graduating, I was faced with several options: a) accept an internship offer as a diplomat and pursue a work that would take me far away from my family (Indonesian diplomats usually can’t choose where they will be located unless you’ve got some really good connections); or b) pivot into the economics/business side of my education. My family and I are quite tight-knitted, and none of us has an insider connection or experience in the IR world and the government. Plus, we’re considered double minority in my country. Therefore, I chose option b because my family was concerned about my chances at working for the government. They wanted me to take the safe option, so I applied at one of the biggest corporates in Indonesia.

Long story short, I was accepted at that corporate and was told to relocate to Jakarta, our capital city. Turns out I was placed at their new division — a division that manages digital services and company-wide change management to all things digital. And that was the start.

My placement at a tech-related division triggered my curiosity. I have always been a curious person, especially to all things sciences. Like many kids, I wanted to be an astronaut when I was little, then a doctor, but ultimately I wanted to be a scientific researcher, the kind that wins Nobel Laurates and makes their mark in history — though pragmatism eventually won out over idealism. I was not content being the business processor while waiting for the product to be finished — or being helpless when bugs appeared. I was not content being a person in the tech business who’s perpetually on the outside looking in. So I started researching deep into programming and tech engineering.

Before I knew it, I’ve begun to invest a minimum of 3 hours after work every day to learn programming. I started with Python, the programming language that was recommended by a data scientist at my office. I explored Anaconda and through it, NumPy and the Jupyter Notebook (this space nerd really loves the space-related name). I worked through some beginner-level projects like making data visualization and a face recognition module. Then I got interested in automation using Python. I made an email and phone number extractor (which was immensely helpful for my job), my very own scientific calculator, and a Post-It program. Eventually, I took lessons from Coursera and Udemy, as well as working through freecodecamp and hackerrank challenges, picking up some knowledge of HTML5, CSS, Javascript and C# along the way.

That went on in secret for 9 months before the next step happened. At this point, nobody knew what I was doing. There was a part of me who felt ashamed. Why am I not thankful enough for the business job that I was given? Am I sure that I will be able to understand all this stuff? Am I “betraying” my IR background? I had a big case of impostor’s syndrome (’cause a social science person shouldn’t have concerned herself with the technical part of the job right?) and a fear of being judged by my tech coworkers as the girl who tried to take on their jobs. Obviously, those are irrational fears.

The change happened when one of the leading tech universities in Indonesia opened enrollment for their master’s programs — including a master’s program for informatics engineering. On a hunch, I decided to sign up despite a voice in my head telling me that I would fail. If I fail, at least I could prepare better for next year’s enrollment, I thought, so I have nothing to lose anyway. Why did I bypass the bachelor’s degree, you ask? I would have signed up for a bachelor’s degree in computer science, but having a job means no day classes for me.

As expected, the academic counsellor called and told me to meet them. I had to pass the entrance test and an interview where I had to convince the faculty head that I have the drive and required technical skills to make it. The three-hour self-study that I did for the past 9 months scaled up —I studied and coded from 6 pm to 2 am every day. There were days when I failed and crashed, but for the most part, I stayed consistent. When the test day came, I didn’t feel ready. This is one principle that I learned: you never feel 100% ready but the first step to success is showing up. So I pushed down my insecurities and showed up — and did the coding and logic test in front of the faculty head.

The acceptance email came on a weekend. I was so overjoyed! Now, I know that there are lots of bootcamps if you want to learn programming, with a cheaper price and a much shorter time than doing a degree in computer science, but I wanted to bridge the foundational gap, especially the theoretical aspects of computer science, as opposed to the practical stuff that I had been doing.

That was around 6 months ago, and now, I’m close to finishing my second semester of my Master’s program. The journey has been rewarding, and it serves as a strong motivation for me to keep honing my skills regardless of the obstacles. Moreover, 2 months ago, I was hired as a part-time developer for a video and radio streaming service. I built the web applications using the front end libraries (HTML, CSS, JS), Python, using frameworks like Bootstrap 4 and Django. I found Django to be the best choice for me because I can integrate seamlessly a data processing pipeline (which I built using Python) for the purpose of garnering and evaluating users’ insight and displayed them on the landing page. I work with a small team of back-end engineers and designers, and it’s been a very stimulating experience learning from these industry experts.

And thus, that’s how I struggled and found a new calling in the tech industry in the span of approximately 1-year. Next, I would definitely love to take a full-time programming job and complete this journey of career pivot.

Here’s what I’m doing every day and night, especially during my leisure time — and you know what’s surprising? I love it.

Now, there are most likely more people out there whose journey is similar to mine, or who is also going to undertake a similar journey. I really wish you all the best pursuing what you want in life, regardless whether it’s related to tech or not. We only have one life to live, so let’s try to make the best of it and follow your calling.

Here are 5 tips and lessons learned to help you self-started on your tech journey:

1. Read documentations.

Documentations might be tedious for some people, but I found that they’re a great gateway for anyone who wants to start without prior background knowledge. All the resources we need to learn are actually out there on the Internet, but the question is, are you diligent enough to read? Some documentations even contain a detailed tutorial on how to build a complete program. Bless you, wonderful technical writers!

2. Join communities.

The right communities can motivate you and direct you into the right direction. Before taking night classes for my Master’s, I used to regularly scan through community-gathering sites like meetup.com and eventbrite.com, and joined tech gatherings, community sharing sessions, and conferences. They really helped me meet with similar-minded people and built networks. Plus, there are really good communities out there which are held by the field experts — which usually follow a set curriculum that makes you progress after every meeting attended (for example, a Javascript group holds meeting about JS variable scope on week 1 and JS callback functions on week 2, and so on). Moreover, a great majority of them are free/cheap!

3. Make your own projects.

What’s the best way to get hired as a developer/programmer? The answer nowadays is not only by getting a formal CS degree. I’ve met many great programmers without a formal CS education, but they have impressive portfolios. So start adding stuff to your portfolios by tackling projects. It doesn’t matter if you start small (heck, you can push a repository containing a simple “Hello World” program to GitHub if you like). What matters is that you start doing it. What uses is memorizing, let’s say, the content of a Phyton library… if you never find the applications for it? I found that the best way to learn is to experience and “get dirty” with the codes yourself.

4. Maths help your logical processes tremendously, so you can use it to train your mind.

Some developers, both formally educated and self-taught, say that programming in practice is actually about logic, and very little about math. But then, why do almost all computer science (not counting bootcamps) education teach discrete mathematics? Sure, in a practical way, you can just import an entire math library and just use the operator commands embedded in your program, and it will execute the math for you. However, before all of those automation processes, programming was built on a mathematical foundation. I found that my habit of regularly watching videos about math problems has helped me to understand the logic behind programming much easier and faster. It helps that maths and physics were two of my favorite subjects back in senior high school, so although I did not receive formal math education in the next 3 years afterward (IR doesn’t teach discrete math. We learned about economics and accounting instead), my mind was still able to catch up. In fact, my mind is hungry.

So, my advice will be to embrace maths — for it helps you on the journey to become a better and more efficient programmer, as well as helps you to keep an agile mind.

5. Remember your “why”.

The last, and perhaps the most important lesson that I learned, is to remind yourself why you want to begin this journey initially, particularly when things get really tough— and it certainly will. It could be about doing something that is intellectually-rewarding and challenging (that’s one of my reasons); or you wanted to grow your skills in a new field; or maybe you wanted a career change because you’re stuck at your old job… There are lots of reasons why some people want to make a pivot, and I’m here to tell you that as long as the reason(s) resonates strongly within you — strong enough to trigger a determined resolve — it’s worth it.

I know how intimidating making a pivot could be. But there’s a great quote about pivoting that can also apply here, besides for businesses in this disruptive era.

“…Pivots are the essence of entrepreneurship and the key to startup success. If you can’t pivot or pivot quickly, chances are you will fail.” —

Steve Blank, Sillicon Valley Serial-Entrepreneur

So…

Furthermore, be prepared to have some people around you who don’t understand what you’re doing as you’re pivoting. I’ve been at the receiving end of these words since last year: “crazy”, “stupid”, “why are you wasting so much time for that?”, “you make things difficult for yourself”, and “you have no direction in life” — which is ironic because what I’m trying to do is exactly the opposite of “having no direction”. Some people just simply will not understand you even though you have tried to explain the calculations, cost and benefit analysis and rational reasonings behind your decision — yet, do it anyway.

Remember your reason for starting this, and stay true to that vision. It will be a long and difficult road, but the satisfaction of fulfilling your vision and calling will be worth it in the end.

Bonus: Consistency is the key.

Happy practicing and mastering your craft, folks!