Interesting. I actually had the opposite experience. I majored in Economics and worked in commercial banking for a number of years, then moved to Chicago and took a job at a proprietary trading firm, mostly trading Grain contracts intra-exchange. It was incredibly fun, extremely lucrative, but also pretty stressful. That being said, it was great trading from 9:30 am to 1:15 PM, then calling it a day, heading to a ball game, taking in sun. Then of course, 2009 came along, I and a bunch of my peers were laid off by 2010, some of us (including myself) were actually profitable on the year. The firm as a whole really took it on the chin, and a few years later I found out they closed shop. Probably some errant trades in Treasuries or Eurodollars.
In any case, I'd already moved on. I started dabbling in web development in 2008, but by 2010 the Chicago startup scene was taking hold. I got involved, taught myself how to code mostly in Ruby. I had learned QBasic and VBA when I was a kid, and plenty of Matlab at the trading firm, so you could say I had some knowledge, but nothing career worthy at the time. I did the Michael Hartl tutorial for Rails. Started working on an overly ambitious startup idea that went no where. At some point I stopped applying for trading jobs. It occurred to me that I've never been so passionate about anything in my life. I could spend 24 hours straight trying to solve a problem like it was some kind of puzzle that needed to be solved. I redid my resume and quickly went from getting 1-2 hits on my resume a week for trading, to 6-7 hits a day for programming. Ruby on Rails had taken off and demand was soaring. I took a bunch of contract jobs, making $40 an hour. I still remember reporting that I worked on something for 4 hours even though it really took me 12 hours or more. I faked it until I made it. And it worked. Now, I know some 6-7 different languages quite well, and I'm respected by all of my peers.
The thrill of solving a problem still hasn't gotten old for me. Maybe some of the juvenile bro-ish culture has, but the challenges are getting more and more exciting by the day. I'm experimenting with home automation and AWS lambda on my free time, dabbling in hardware.
Now, 6+ years later I have the title of Senior Software Engineer. I've been a lead, I've mentored other developers. I work from home, have the flexibility to live and travel anywhere I please. I couldn't ask for a better career. I've made it a point to learn as much about all the little things that graduate students like to lord over us non CS wielding engineers' heads. I can hold my own and I'm proud of the choices and dumb luck that got me here. To me it is an incredibly rewarding and creative endeavor and I'm still as curious to learn as I was when I started some 6-7 years ago.
I work full-time for adhocteam.us, a government contractor. I'm active on vets.gov and we're hiring. Tag me on something you're proud of on Github and I'll take a peak, I'm saneshark on there too.
In any case, I'd already moved on. I started dabbling in web development in 2008, but by 2010 the Chicago startup scene was taking hold. I got involved, taught myself how to code mostly in Ruby. I had learned QBasic and VBA when I was a kid, and plenty of Matlab at the trading firm, so you could say I had some knowledge, but nothing career worthy at the time. I did the Michael Hartl tutorial for Rails. Started working on an overly ambitious startup idea that went no where. At some point I stopped applying for trading jobs. It occurred to me that I've never been so passionate about anything in my life. I could spend 24 hours straight trying to solve a problem like it was some kind of puzzle that needed to be solved. I redid my resume and quickly went from getting 1-2 hits on my resume a week for trading, to 6-7 hits a day for programming. Ruby on Rails had taken off and demand was soaring. I took a bunch of contract jobs, making $40 an hour. I still remember reporting that I worked on something for 4 hours even though it really took me 12 hours or more. I faked it until I made it. And it worked. Now, I know some 6-7 different languages quite well, and I'm respected by all of my peers.
The thrill of solving a problem still hasn't gotten old for me. Maybe some of the juvenile bro-ish culture has, but the challenges are getting more and more exciting by the day. I'm experimenting with home automation and AWS lambda on my free time, dabbling in hardware.
Now, 6+ years later I have the title of Senior Software Engineer. I've been a lead, I've mentored other developers. I work from home, have the flexibility to live and travel anywhere I please. I couldn't ask for a better career. I've made it a point to learn as much about all the little things that graduate students like to lord over us non CS wielding engineers' heads. I can hold my own and I'm proud of the choices and dumb luck that got me here. To me it is an incredibly rewarding and creative endeavor and I'm still as curious to learn as I was when I started some 6-7 years ago.