From Boat Captain to Web Developer

In December 2018, after 10 years of working as a boat captain in the passenger vessel industry, I took the plunge into the tech industry as a web developer. After learning web development as a hobby in 2016, while working full-time as a captain, I have been able to reverse those roles, now working full-time as a web developer while occasionally working as a captain.

Reasons for changing careers

My first job was working as a sailing instructor when I was 15 years old. I started working on a passenger vessel when I was 17, and I earned my captain's license when I was 19. From there on I quickly learned everything I could, from maintenance in the engine room, how to manage crew, and, most fun of all, how to operate the boats. I spent my summers running harbor tours and booze cruises, and during the off season I operated the ferry from Hingham, MA to Boston, MA. I worked my way up after just a few short years and trained new captains on everything I had learned over the years. It was challenging and rewarding.

In 2012, I decided to pursue a degree in management from the University of Massachusetts - Boston, going to school full-time while working part-time. One of my marketing courses introduced me to the idea that learning the basics of coding would help me succeed in business, regardless of which field I was in. In my spare time, I did some research and learned basic HTML and CSS. In May 2015, I graduated with a B.S. in Management with a concentration in Marketing.

After graduating, I continued to work as a captain full-time. Being in the passenger vessel industry left me with a somewhat unusual work schedule, usually 3-4 day work weeks, so I spent my days off learning web development as a hobby. Later on, I was able to apply the things I learned to side projects and eventually take over maintenance of the website of the boat company that I worked for.

In the course of a couple of years working on side projects and learning web development as a hobby, I came across an opportunity to do it full-time. After 10 years of working on Boston Harbor, I traded in a wheelhouse for an office desk. While being a boat captain was fun and rewarding in its own right, so is coding, and web development has more upside.

Finding my way in the world of coding

Being a self-taught developer has been very beneficial to me over the years. Not only have I been able to learn HTML, CSS, JavaScript, countless frameworks and libraries, and many other things involved in web development, I have also learned how to be resourceful.

When I first started to learn code, I didn't know where to start. At first, I learned some HTML and CSS basics on Codecademy. After finishing those introduction classes, I moved on to trying JavaScript and PHP, but it didn't seem to stick with me. It was hard to learn, and I wasn't sure if coding could be a career for me, or even a hobby. But I didn't give up. I took a web development bootcamp that I found on Udemy, and after a few weeks was starting to get a better understanding of web development. I knew then that this would be a career for me. The more I learned, the more I wanted to keep learning even more.

Over time, I became more and more confident in my coding skills, finally understanding programming languages like JavaScript and PHP. I took more courses on Udemy, increasing my understanding and skills in coding, libraries and frameworks, debugging, automating workflows, version control, and deploying projects. Even with all this training, it was hard to find a job without real-world experience. I launched my freelance business, Blue Collar Coding, in September 2018 with the objective of providing web development and maintenance services to small businesses, accumulating a few local clients. All of this paid off when I got my first web developer job in December 2018. Since then, I have never stopped learning, continuously trying to improve my skills and advance in my career.

Building a solid foundation for my career

After about a year or so into my career as a web developer, I knew I wanted to do more. To do so, I decided to try to learn software engineering, specifically front end engineering. I have always enjoyed working on full stack Javascript and React projects in the courses I took online, so I knew that was the path for me.

In March 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic forced the world to spend more time at home and social distance. After weeks of quarantining and social distancing, and not seeing an end in sight, I decided to utilize the time to double down on learning software engineering. I took more online courses and read books on advanced JavaScript engineering topics and best practices.

Although I pride myself in being self-taught, I do recognize gaps in my knowledge. The online courses on Udemy and similar sites don't usually cover higher level topics usually addressed in computer science programs. So, by the end of 2020, I had researched different options to gain a stronger foundation in computer science and software engineering. I chose to enroll in a certificate program through EdX. By the end of February 2021, I earned a Professional Certificate in Computer Science Essentials for Software Development from University of Pennsylvania (PennX). This helped me close some of the gaps I had, getting a greater level of understanding of software engineering fundamentals, software design, data structures, and algorithms to strengthen my current (and future) skills in front end development.

Misc. interests and fun facts

Although my careers as a boat captain and web developer are a big part of my life, there's way more to me than just those! For example, I love to cook and I am a big hockey fan (Go Bruins!). If you want to learn more about me, I listed different ways to reach out to me below.