Faye Bridge
writes on December 22, 2016
Brian had been a professional hairstylist for 10 years when he joined Treehouse. He had first started programming in his teens and dabbled with freelance projects. However, when he’d chosen to focus on his career as a hairstylist, he put programming on hold. A decade later Brian found his career had plateaued and was ready for a change. However, he needed to continue working while preparing to transition industries.
With Treehouse, Brian was able to learn a wide variety of valuable coding skills in his free time, from front end web development to iOS, Java and Python development. Since then, Brian has accomplished a great deal with his new skills: he’s worked on freelance projects, built and launched several apps, is now a Python QA engineer at Twist Home, and even co-organizes a popular tech meetup, React Native NYC.
We asked Brian to share his awesome story and experience with us, as well as his advice for aspiring developers looking to make a career change.
What work were you doing when you first joined Treehouse?
Before joining Treehouse I was working as a professional hairstylist. I actually went to college for finance but while I was studying someone gave me an opportunity to learn how to do hair and I fell in love with the profession. I decided to make that my career and spent more than 10 years as a professional hairstylist.
About 3 years ago I started thinking about making a career change my income was limited by the number of customers I could see at any given time, and because of that my I had limited time for my personal life. I had to be available at all hours of the day, night and on weekends to service all of my customers. My brother, who was working for an ad tech start-up at the time, suggested I look into Treehouse and I’m so glad I did.
What first encouraged you to learn to code and pursue a career in the tech industry?
I’ve been programming since the age of 13. I was first inspired by a classmate of mine who was really good with Flash and ActionScript. He pointed me in the right direction for where to learn and from that age through my 20s I did freelance work as a web developer.
You’re now a software engineer. Tell us a little about your experience transitioning careers.
The Tracks I’ve done on Treehouse have exposed me to front end web development, full stack JavaScript development, iOS development, Java, Python, and UX/UI Design. While I was completing the Tracks I applied my coding skills to building freelance projects for friends, family, and local business owners. Last March I also released my own iOS app to the app store named SquatRight that helps people know how low they should go when they squat. I built the app using the popular framework, React Native. Over the summer I also built an iOS and Android app prototype for a tech/ed startup, Grovo using the React Native framework. Shortly after that, I built a Node JS application that integrates APIs from Google Sheets and Twilio for a freelance client.
Now I work as a QA engineer building automated tests in Python for a company name Twist Home that created a smart LED light bulb with a built-in speaker. Check us out. I have also become the co-organizer to a popular tech meet-up here in New York City, React Native NYC.
What has the value of a Treehouse education meant to you?
Treehouse allowed me to gain the skills I needed to make a career transition without leaving the job I had at the time, which was key for me. I wasn’t in the type of situation where I could just go to a coding boot camp full-time and not work. I feel that in many ways it actually worked out better then if I would have gone to a boot camp because I was able to pace my learning and make sure I understood it. What I learned from Treehouse has allowed me to become a professional in a high demand and very rewarding industry.
Treehouse allowed me to gain the skills I needed to make a career transition without leaving the job I had at the time, which was key for me.
What have you found the greatest challenge while learning to code?
Trying to learn a concept that just doesn’t click can be a challenge as it sometimes holds you back from moving forward to the next part of what you’re learning. However, If you persist and try to attack the learning from every angle possible, it will eventually make sense. I got into the habit of looking outside of Treehouse for additional resources and documentation to aid my learning. I make a habit of getting a 360-degree view of whatever it is I am learning.
What are your favorite aspects of the tech industry compared to your past career?
My favorite aspect of the tech industry is that there is always something new to learn so it is hard to get bored. I can build amazing products that solve people’s problems and make people’s live’s easier.
What I learned from Treehouse has allowed me to become a professional in a high demand and very rewarding industry.
What advice would you share with aspiring developers?
Don’t stop. What you are attempting to learn may feel overwhelming at times but try to learn in chunks at a time. Make sure you understand and apply whatever concepts you are working on before moving on. Get involved in your local tech community through meetups and make sure to ask for help from the Treehouse Community.
Learn to code and start your new career as a developer. Explore the Techdegree Program today.
https://blog.teamtreehouse.com/unemployed-to-enjoying-the-developer-lifestyle
Thanks for sharing. At our company, I often meet people of different backgrounds who chose to become mobile developers. Never regretted it, obviously!
Went to coding boot camp they promised that they would find you a job after you completed the program that was a lie
Hi, I’m Paul Torres, and I’m 48 years old. I’ve never had a programming job in my life but I did do a lot of programming at the University of Toledo in the late 80’s and early 90’s. I now mostly write programs in Visual Basic 5.0 (Yes, that version from 20 years ago in 1995). I started using Basic A when I was a teenager in high school. I then uses Quick Basic when I was going to the university. Ironically I did not learn Visual Basic or Quick Basic in school although I learned more about Basic A in my senior year in high school for half a semester. In college, I learned C, Fortran, Ada, Assembly language, and Unix among others. I never I was able to found a job related to my major of Computer Science and Engineering. I have written some programs in Visual Basic 5.0 that are pretty good. I have a great game of concentration that I think is a lot different than any that you may run into when you surf the internet. Without giving up too much more away, I think it should be tried out. I figure there are obsolete-program-language-loving aficionados who would like to consider buying the game. Can you make some suggestions on how I can make it work?
I did teach myself how to program in Delphi, my question is how could I get a job with those skills without a bachelor degree in CS.
A nice story and congratulations to Brian. However, any stories of people who had absolutely zero prior programming experience prior to tree house who then go on to have a programing job directly as a result of treehouse learning? These are great stories, but when you read on, the subject always seem’s to have had at least some kind of prior learning/experience (case in point Brian here who already had been programing since age 13!) Not dissing treehouse – just asking a genuine question.
Hi Ben! I’d recommend checking out this recent roundup of student stories as the majority of these students had zero previous coding experience when they began learning. 🙂
Well, that shut me up then! ? Thanks Faye, appreciate the link.