# Breaking away from the system...how I got here... *...and where I'm going* By [Josh MacKay Dev](https://paragraph.com/@joshmackaydev) · 2024-04-15 --- Following up from my intro post, I want to give you an idea of how I ended up where I am. From university (college), to a career in engineering, to travel, art, multiple failed businesses, being a father and now the land of tech and development. Seems like a lot when I see it written down like this, let's get started. My biggest regret... -------------------- I want to start with this. When I was 11 or 12 years old in 2002 I found a book on HTML. I believe it was from the late 90s and had an astronaut (I think) on the front. I worked through that book and really enjoyed it. I wish I pursued it, at that age I was more interested in riding my bike and Pokémon. But it is what it is, I eventually made it. Entry into the real world ------------------------- Like a lot of people, it starts with an expensive tertiary education. Why? Because that's normal, apparently. Basically my "careers counsellor" said I should do engineering because I was doing maths and physics. They knew nothing about me or my interests, they weren't qualified to have this level of influence. What did I do? Went and did an engineering course, because what else was I to do? 4 years later and 10's of thousands in debt, I had a piece of paper. Another year later, I had my first engineering role, 3 years later I left...I hated it. What did I get out of this whole process though? Poor mental health but an interest in programming, 6 months in Europe on an exchange program and a couple of life long friends which I can't complain about. Leaving the path ---------------- The last day of being an engineer was exciting, but I was completely scared because I had no plan for what I was actually going to do. Quick tip: have a plan before quitting your job. Not long after this I started working on an idea with a friend which would become my first taste of starting a business. I built a Wordpress e-comm store, dealt with China in getting stock, bulk ordered stock locally and set up shop in a spare room at home. Did it work? Nope. This iteration of the business was a complete flop. Learned some very simple, yet powerful lessons though. That business is still trying to get of the ground after a number of years, though I'm no longer in it. I didn't understand the industry enough and I realised I didn't actually have any interest in it, there's another lesson in that. Business adventures ------------------- A year on from leaving my engineering role, my second business venture started with two others. It was a trades based service business. Something I had some interest in, but not any real experience or knowledge. This actually started out ok, we ended up with a number of employees, a solid client base and a good image. We actually started up another business that specialised in one of the services we offered. Then COVID hit, which I don't need to go into too much detail with, it was bad for most. We managed to get through no thanks to the second business we started, business there actually picked up a bit because people were home. Coming out of COVID was the issue. Cracks were appearing in the business, numerous problem that persisted for too long. I also had lots of personal issues going on at the time and it ultimately saw me walking away from it all. By the end of it, the experience was a huge financial loss. The start of my dev journey --------------------------- Programming makes all these little appearances through my life, trying to give me a little hint. When I was a kid, when I was in high school, in university and even in my engineering role I needed to use a little Python. I wish I followed the hints. This time I decided to take the hint. I stayed in the business for a few months to help with processes before I left. During this time I obsessed over web dev skills and filled every spare moment I had with learning. My days were 18 hours long. I would only work, study and exercise, that's it. The time came where I left the business and I was on my own. I needed to find a way to pay the bills while I was learning, remember, I was financially ruined at this stage. I ended up taking a job driving high reach forklifts in a warehouse on night shift, 11pm-6am. It paid well, but damn was it hard. I would get home, sleep, wake at 2pm, study until about 9pm then go to work. This lasted about 6 months until they fired everyone, not enough work volume. Great. I was out of work and my partner was 7 months pregnant...yeah. An unexpected development ------------------------- Luckily I was able to find another role, doing the same thing in the afternoons, but it was over an hour away, paid a lot less and my stress was through the roof. But...a month later I get a call to go in for an interview for a web dev role I applied for locally, I was shocked I did not expect it. The interview went bad. Couldn't answer most questions, but I was very honest and they learned about my journey up to this point. They could see I was relentless. A couple of weeks later I was called in for a second round, this blew my mind. It was a code interview, just a quick DOM manipulation test in JS. Guess what? I messed up, couldn't get it to work. It was so basic, how did I stuff up?? I walked out feeling embarrassed and low, questioning whether I had wasted all this time and whether I could actually achieve what I'd set out to do. A week later I get a call and I landed the job. So much weight had been taken off my shoulders and it was a cause to celebrate. I might leave those deciding factors for employing me over the other candidates for another post. The only catch with the new role is that it was using C# and .Net. I had been learning the typical HTML, CSS and JS stack. How was I going to do this? I was in way over my head when I started and wondered if I'd done the wrong thing. I was constantly thinking "I don't know any C#, what the hell is .NET? What is ASP.NET? What on earth is MVC??". Two weeks in and my first child was born and my life had now become completely unrecognisable. Seven months in and I have learned so much already. I am building small apps with Blazor and EF Core and really starting to love the .Net ecosystem. Javascript still makes an appearance at home and I still practice it when I have time as I would like to work with a lot of APIs and libraries that are over there. But for now I'm taking the opportunity to slow down a little bit to enjoy life again and to be a dad. The future... ------------- Keep in mind, I'm not doing what I'm doing to work a 9 to 5. I'm developing skills and ideas to be able to pursue my own projects and adventures, whatever that may be. Where I am now represent a time to reset, regather myself, enjoy time with my new family and then see what's on the horizon. I can see Ethereum and blockchain in my future and I can feel myself being led there. This time I won't ignore the signs but chase them. Creative anchor --------------- The one thing that had stayed with me through this entire journey was my art. I am an airbrush artist in my limited spare time. It brings me peace and a clear mind while I'm doing it. I believe everyone should have something completely unrelated to their day to day that helps you to relax and clear your mind. Painting does this for me and as a bonus brings in a little money. Thanks for making it this far. If you enjoyed this, please consider sharing it. A final note, everyone gets imposter syndrome, but no one think you are. --- *Originally published on [Josh MacKay Dev](https://paragraph.com/@joshmackaydev/how-i-got-here)*