From a Construction Laborer to a Full Stack Developer

My name is Matthew Vey, I'm 26, went to college and graduated and got a engineering certificate, worked at my trade for 2.5ish years, and now I'm a software developer!

What did you do before Get Coding?

I was a power engineer by trade, my actual job title was Process Operator

What made you decide to switch your career?

COVID really made me look at things differently, and made me look at my career and what I wanted to do going forward, and the answer ended up being a career in tech.

Did you ever think of switching your career to tech?

I had always admired the industry, the work-life balance, and the lifestyle that comes with it, but never thought I could actually make the switch, until I learned more about the industry through friends and my consult with Get Coding.

Why did you choose Get Coding?

I had a friend recommend I try to learn to code on my own with online resources, but it didn't really take.

But they had also mentioned they had heard of Get Coding program as they went to school around the same time as Sahand I think it was, and heard they were doing great, cool things with Get Coding, so that was a big influence to reach out for the consult.

Were you working during Get Coding?

I was, I had a brutal schedule. I worked quite far away, it was 1.5 hours drive to get to work, then I would work for 10.5 hours (sometimes 12) and then another 1.5 hours back home. Thankfully there was a bus for the 10.5 hour days and for the 12s I was able to get into a carpool. And the work was during a large project, so the shift was 5 or 6 days a week.

So I would get home and work on my projects after having some dinner and do a but more on the weekend on my day off.

It was really hard and made it so I wasn't as fast as other graduating the program but it felt so validating when I got the job offer for a developer position.

What did you build during Get Coding?

I made a few things, a Tetris game, a little game I called fruit catcher, where fruits would be falling out of the tree and there was a basket the user could move around and catch the fruits.

The big project I made was a web app where a user could get the weather forecast for a location and enter some work information into a form and then it would compare the weather to the information they provided and it would provided feedback based on if the weather might be poor the day they are working outside for example.

The user was able to sign up and save multiple locations and switch between them, they were able to adjust the values that would trigger the feedback to the user, as well as save other preferences like light and dark mode.

What are you doing now?

I'm a Backend Developer with OPAS Mobile, but I have dabbled in the frontend a bit when it's testing week and we need all hands on deck to work through the bug board.

How do you think your previous career in construction help you in your new role?

We had weekly safety meetings, lots of training courses, as well as just the experience of the job and what it takes to work in that industry and I feel all of that is super relative for me in my position because now I am developing software that is targeting areas of that industry to help improve areas where it may be lacking such as document control and incident reporting to name a few.

So for me it is a bit more direct, but any job comes with experience with communication, teamwork, and time management, again to name a few, that are transferable to any job no matter the industry.

What would you say to people considering switching their career to tech?

I know for me the switch has been very fulfilling. I am able to contribute to something I care a lot about, my work-life balance is better than ever and I have been able to be there for life events that I would've missed previously, and I'm overall just happier!

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