Zero to Employed Software Developer in 18 Months

Codecademy has a short interview with a software developer named Rachel in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧

Rachel started out with no coding experience…

I decided to just go for it and started learning February 2020, as I was considering my career options and decided it was time for a change…

I managed to get myself a job as an Apprentice Software Developer after just six months of using Codecademy Pro.

According to Glassdoor, the average annual salary for an apprentice software developer in the UK is £22,000.

That works out to $27,150 USD, which is about $2,260 per month 🤑

Best I can tell, it took Rachel ~18 months total to go from no coding experience to landing her job as a software dev and earning that kind of salary. And it looks like she was working full-time in her old career while learning to code.

Pretty impressive 😎

No idea if her job is remote or not, but the salaries for remote vs non-remote jobs are essentially the same nowadays.

Plus, software development is the kind of skill that you can use to freelance, land a remote job, or build your own software business. 

So with that single 18-month stretch, Rachel was able to change career and significantly increase her future earning power 💪

Rachel’s advice to new coders…

Don’t be scared to jump in. It’s not as complicated as it looks.

There’ll be a few bumps where you come across a concept that just won’t click at first, but you’ll get there — the satisfaction when it all suddenly makes sense is so worth it!

Don’t get too caught up in the ‘best’ language or place to start either. If you can learn one language, then those skills are very much transferable — speaking as someone who has been bounced around between a lot of different languages over the last year!