Successful Mech E Career Switch to SWE! My Journey.

Heya all, just thought I'd post a bit about my career switch to add a story to the pool. When I was looking for what to do next, this sub was helpful to me--hoping to return the favor. I'm sure this i

Heya all, just thought I'd post a bit about my career switch to add a story to the pool. When I was looking for what to do next, this sub was helpful to me--hoping to return the favor. I'm sure this isn't the typical story, but if it helps anyone else at all, then there's something going for it. I'm going to not dive super deep into details to avoid doxxing myself too hard. -- Background -- I graduated from a well known university with a degree in mech e, but I was pretty lost after graduation and wasn't sure what I wanted to do. Fell into depression for a solid few months, started taking some classes locally in random, non-technical topics I found interesting and revitalizing to try to pull myself out of it. Two years pass doing this and a bit of tutoring work on the side to make some income. About a year and half ago, I decided to give coding and cs a go again. I had taken a single class in college, liked it quite a bit but wasn't mature enough to follow through, and worked with some simple scripts but hadn't since touched it. The take away there during college would've been to see it through and take more, but there I was with forgotten cs knowledge, without internship experience, with a slightly related/adjacent degree but not enough so to easily make the transition (e.g. Apple had some positions looking for Mathematics, EE, CS background; got a survey email before even a phone screen). -- The Work -- I decided to give myself about two years to see where I could take it. Reverse engineering the process, it seemed that data structures and algorithms would be pretty important, so I worked through a Coursera series on it. Took about half a year to do that. Chose to work in Python to keep things simple, ended up loving the language quite a bit, even if it's a little slow. In parallel, I enrolled in a C++ course at a local college to get some of the lower level concepts. This course felt a little slower, but was helpful to expose me to OOP and pointers and such. I think part of learning is moving topics from the unknown unknown region into the known unknown region; exploration time is necessary for this. After this, decided to work on a web project using a modern stack of React, Node.js, Express, saving to Postgres. Took about four months on this because setting up the environment, simple database design, UI/UX, CSS (RIP centering a button), Git, REST endpoints were all new to me. Also read Eloquent JavaScript and YDKJS during this period. At the end, I had something I was proud enough of and felt like it was a good time to ramp up toward interviewing. LeetCode was still pretty rough week 1 despite all the DS&A prep, but I ended up getting the hang of it quickly afterward. At the end of this, I did about 50 mediums, 25 easy, and maybe 1-2 hards using curated lists to hit most topics. I would've done more, but there were a surprising number of web questions at the places I ended up applying to. Making quick endpoints was not something I was comfortable with, so I ended up prepping more for that as I found out about onsites. -- Application Process -- I tried AngelList; they rejected me saying there weren't any opportunities. I ended up mostly using TripleByte and miraculously passed their phone screen. Definitely a very tough one, was shaking a bit by the middle of it, but made it work somehow. Thought I had failed, but that turned out to be anxiety speaking. They had very good, actionable feedback for me (e.g. well-spent time reading up on system design). Not paid by them at all to write this, had a genuinely fine time working with them. Things moved pretty quickly after that, and I asked some friends for referrals too. Ended up with a few onsites and offers with start ups. They took well to the teaching/tutoring experience, and it seemed to help talking through thought processes and what I was trying to do. Was pretty open and transparent about having previously seen interview questions and not knowing stuff during interviews but that I'd work it out the best I could (e.g. how would you design a shared document service). Tried negotiating (with the help of these resources) since I had just a bit of leverage with competing offers. Figured it's rare to have the opportunity to practice this skill, and it pays dividends down the road. That was terrifying but ongoing therapy helped. Wasn't punished for it at all. Didn't apply to any FAANG, didn't really care for that, felt I'd be happier working on a larger product surface area. Comp was competitive enough and more than good enough to live on. Just happy to have something solid, feel the ground beneath my feet again, and the start of a career. -- General Tips -- Managing my confidence throughout this was probably the most difficult part of it all, and this comes with self-care. Therapy helps if you can get access to that--would highly encourage it. I didn't know I had depression or anxiety for the longest time; thought it was just how things were. Specifically with interviews, there's a lot on talk on this sub about LeetCode prep and other technical topics. I also made sure to be as prepared as possible on the non-technical stuff. This involved reading any news on the company, a few company blogs (if available), dissecting the language used on their job posting and website to get a sense of values (i.e. tailor how you speak about your experience with this in mind), reviewing their competitors and how their competitors differ, asking questions to the recruiter about the interview to best prep for your time there, and taking a look at the backgrounds of your interviewers via LinkedIn to ask good questions specific to their experience. People want to know you're interested in their company, and doing your homework is the easiest way to show this. It's also easier to feel and show genuinely interest in something when you've cast a wide net and see what they have to offer as an opportunity. You ask better questions as a result and questions themselves can be a form of communication about how you think. -- End -- Hope someone finds this helpful, and whoever's reading this and needs it, I wish you the best of luck in your journey too. Keep fighting that good fight!