Paramedic to Software Developer (interesting transition, huh?)

I want to tell my story. My story may be unique, but I’m sure many of you can relate my journey to yours. When jumping into the field of Software Development and into the tech industry itself, I looked everywhere for others’ experiences making this transition, unfortunately I could not find any. So here it is for the rest of you, this is how I went from being a 24 year old Paramedic to a 25 year old Software Developer.

In 2011 I took the plunge into public safety. I was a naive 17 year old kid, ready to “save the world” as you will. I lived a rural community near Anderson, IN, called Richland Township. I had an older cousin who I would regularly spend time with after the middle school day ended. This cousin had many friends who were volunteer firefighters and EMTs at the local fire department. Hearing their story intrigued me. They spoke of magnificent fires, incredible vehicle accidents, and stories of helping Grandma shovel snow in the winter. This was a community I wanted to join, one of valor and red lights and sirens. I drove myself up to the firehouse to meet my new friends, and to apply to become a volunteer firefighter. I became a Cadet Firefighter, which meant I was allowed carry gear, change air packs, and clean the firehouse. When I met with the Chief for the first time, he said the most important parts of public safety are “teamwork, and never stop learning”. I enjoyed every second of it, from the late nights spent in the firehouse, to the 3am calls for some pretty serious medical conditions. In August of 2011 I enrolled in EMT class at the local hospital, spending two nights a week, four hours a night, for 6 months. During this time I was getting letters from colleges that I had applied to, accepting me into various Engineering schools. After completing EMT class, I decided college wasn’t for me and that I wanted to work in public safety for the duration of my career. I applied for an entry level EMT position at Indianapolis EMS in late 2012 and accepted the position in 2013. A few years later I decided it was time to get more education and training in this field that I loved. I enrolled in Indianapolis EMS’s Paramedic Training program. This program was long, two days a week from 9 to 5, plus 12 to 24 hours a week of clinical training, either in the hospital or on the ambulance. Keep in mind, this was all while working my normal 36/48 hour weeks (alternating). This went on for one year, I graduated and became a Paramedic in January of 2017. I spent the next year working for the city, and pulling as much overtime as possible. At the end of this year, I became frustrated with the lack of compensation for such an essential role in the community and the local politics involved with this industry. It was time for me to learn something new.

He and I chatted for an hour or so and settled on “learn to code”. That phrase is tossed around a lot these days, but that is exactly what I wanted to do.

During Paramedic School, I had met my now wife, gained some new friends, and purchased a house. One of my new friends happened to work in the tech industry in Indianapolis. I had always been interested in technology, building PCs for gaming at home, using Raspberry Pi’s for retro gaming, even wiring up my 1980’s garage door to be opened with “Hey, Google”. I quit my job and began looking for a way to gain some knowledge in tech. I wanted to make it my career. I met with counselors at IUPUI for Biomedical Engineering, possibly wanting to mix the two, tech and medicine. I researched how to learn to code at home, trying to find a way into this industry. In early 2018 I met with my friend in the tech industry and asked him what I needed to do gain a career in the tech industry without going to college. He and I chatted for an hour or so and settled on “learn to code”. That phrase is tossed around a lot these days, but that is exactly what I wanted to do.

Enter Kenzie Academy. Kenzie Academy was a brand new “trade” school in downtown Indianapolis that just happened to be in the same office building as my friends office. This school promised the skills needed to become a Software Developer, while only being one year long. Myself and my 6 month old daughter went to meet with Chok Ooi, the CEO of this new educational institution. I learned that the first class was going to start in January of 2018 with a new class every three months, and that classes were Monday through Friday from 9 to 5. This sounded just as grueling as Paramedic School, but it would only last a year. The best part was, I only had to pay $1000.00 to enroll, the rest would be 17.5% of my salary for four years, only after getting a job making $40,000 or more. Those numbers have since changed to be even more enticing, now it’s only 13% of my salary, and for everyone currently enrolled (Kenzie Academy has undergone many changes since I left, but I still encourage anyone looking to learn Software Development to look in their direction). To me, this meant that Kenzie Academy had a just as much interest in my education as I did, not something you see at many traditional colleges. I went home and talked this over with my wife, we decided that exact time was not good financially, but that I could probably start in three months. In April of 2018, I began my journey in becoming a Software Developer.

I walked into class with almost no idea of what I was getting into, but was extremely excited to get started. I had a new baby and wife at home, that’s all the motivation I needed. We began day one with learning the basic concepts of HTML. At first glance, this looked like jibberish, arrow brackets, words that I didn’t know the meaning of, and colorful text on my instructor’s computer screen. My only experience with code was watching Silicon Valley on HBO. I put my head down, and began reading, writing, and understanding HTML. A few weeks later we began learning CSS, styling our brand new webpages with colors, cool fonts, and many, many GIFs. Our whole class was on top of the world, learning brand new, exciting concepts. Then came JavaScript. Ohhhh JavaScript. JavaScript made us all frustrated, excited, sad, and any other emotion you can think of. I spent many nights trying to relate this new material to Paramedicine, I finally realized that the code is just like the human body, just as complex with just as many problems to solve. For the next 6 months we completed Kata after Kata (Codewars was a pretty popular decision among our instructors, and for good reason), building games like Connect Four and Sokoban, and building full React/Node web applications. The second six months of the program was spent learning Python. We completed many Kata, built a few OS scripts for watching directories for changing files, and progressed into building full Django applications. This was the most fun I ever had in “school”. The Kenzie Academy community was entirely supportive of me, my family, and my part time work schedule as a Paramedic. In January of 2019 I was offered a full time position at Kenzie as a Facilitator. I always explain this role as a full time TA, running the day to day operations of the classroom, working closely with the instructors to keep curriculum as up to date as possible, and with students, spending one on one time with each, as well as group coding sessions. I completed my course while working full time, and received my certificate in April of 2019. I continued working as a Facilitator for the next four months, while applying to Software Developer jobs. My primary interest was and still is React, although I’m no good at design, I always had an interest in the UI, so React was a perfect fit for me.

In my humble opinion, the most important parts of Software Development are teamwork, and to never stop learning, same thing my Fire Chief said to me when I was 17 years old.

It took a few months, but I found an interesting position for myself. I worked for a Freight Logistics company, working as a Frontend Software Developer, on a B2B freight booking software. For any of you that know the freight industry, it is very fast paced, just as fast as driving emergent through downtown Indianapolis. My first few weeks at my new job were spent learning the architecture of the project, learning TypeScript, and making small contributions to the repository. I was in this position for a little over 6 months, and I learned something new every day. We had a great working team and we all learned from each other. In my humble opinion, the most important parts of Software Development are teamwork, and to never stop learning, same thing my Fire Chief said to me when I was 17 years old.

I now work as a full stack engineer for a Photography Studio Management company where we employ Ruby on Rails and React for our B2C SAAS.

I guess the moral to this story is, If you are not happy in your current position, there is always a way to make a transition, if that transition happens to be from public safety/medicine to Software Development, now you know it’s possible.