Why software engineering?

I have been a chef for 12+ years. Cooking and the hospitality industry is all I know. The hospitality industry has helped me travel and live abroad and has taught me everything that I know about organisation, presentation and work ethic. I met my wife in the kitchen.

When COVID-19 hit Melbourne, we were forced into a complete lockdown very quickly and it became apparent that the hospitality industry would be affected. We just didn’t know at the time how badly.

Nobody expected to be in lockdown for so long. The longer the lockdown lasted the greater the affect on an industry that already runs on such tight margins, very few hospitality businesses, if any, would have had the surplus to afford that type of lockdown. If it wasn’t for job keeper, the industry would have drowned.

This is when I had a realisation that I was working in such a fragile environment. My family and my future was hanging onto this idea that hospitality was a safe industry because “everybody needs to eat”. I now think differently about that. With a baby on the way and the real possibility of having no job to go back to, I took my newly given free time and really thought about what I enjoy doing and how I can make that my bread and butter.

I have always had a fascination for computers and web and application development. I’ve always just thought that it would be impossible for someone like me to be able to do that. But just by chance I decided what it takes to be software engineer and started messing around with some code online. As it turns out, I really enjoy it, and I want to do this as my bread and butter.