Devin's Blog

The year is 2012/2013.
I'm a freshman in high school learning computer science. It's difficult at first, but I get the hang of it soon enough. Over the summer I make a "2D game engine" using Java's AWT. Unknowingly, I write a CPU fragment shader. It doesn't perform well.

The year is 2013/2014.
I'm in Computer Science II and I'm ahead of the class. I finish assignments quickly and help the other students when appropriate. I think this is what I want to do for a living.

The year is 2019.
I've been writing software for the past ~7 years of my life in school and as a hobby. I live in Munich. I work at a company where I write backend services to prevent unauthorized feature usage on our scanners. The android team fails to validate whether a device can be hardware identified over bluetooth. The project fails there, and I am left in limbo. We get a new VP of software. I suggest we should enable our users instead of inhibiting them. We start working on that. I excel here. I am happy.

At the end of my internship, I return to the U.S. to finish my Associate's degree.

The year is 2020.
I've been writing software for the past ~8 years of my life in school, as a hobby, and I have 6 months of work experience under my belt. I start looking for work. There is nothing.

Three months pass. Quarantine.
The happiness is fading.

I decide to go back to school to pursue a Bachelor's in math.
I do well online in accelerated differential calculus and a 200-level computer science class. I go for another semester. Depression hits hard. I'm digging myself deeper into debt. I don't actually care about the degree, I just want to start my career.

I fail all my classes.

The year is 2021.
I've been writing software for the past ~9 years of my life in school, as a hobby, and I have 6 months of work experience under my belt. I apply for hundreds of jobs. I interview with twenty. Nothing works out.

A friend suggests I apply at his company for a software-adjacent position. I do. The company thinks I might not be content in a software-adjacent role. They video call me for the rejection. I cry after we hang up.

I write an in-depth blog post about some feature in a niche programming language. In a few days it hits about 15k gross page views. From this, I interview with two more companies. Neither work out. Everyone wants more experience.

I push carts and scrub toilets to pay my bills.
I want to kill myself... But I don't tell anyone.

I save up enough to survive a few months, then quit. I take a short break, then apply at my old company. There's so much pressure to succeed. I bungle the programming challenge due to nerves and an unfamiliarity with the current ecosystem. They reject me.

The year is 2022.
I've been writing software for the past ~10 years of my life in school, as a hobby, and I have 6 months of work experience under my belt. My debts are catching up to me. I apply to more jobs. Most want more experience. Internships are only for current/returning students. Is this the death of the self-taught programmer?

Through all this I specialize in subjects whose careers require more education or experience. Oops.

I feel lost. Hopeless...
I write this blog post.

The year is 2022... Maybe I'll find a job soon.