Man, August 2019. Lemme tell ya, that was a weird time for me. I was kinda stuck, you know? Just grinding away at this gig I had. It wasn’t bad, not terrible at all, but it just wasn’t… it wasn’t lighting me up anymore. Every morning felt like another brick in the wall, just showing up, doing the work, clocking out. Rinse and repeat. And honestly, it had been like that for a good solid year by then.
I remember one specific morning, August 1st it was, I was just staring at my coffee. Like, really staring at it, like it held all the answers. I felt this huge urge, this push to just shake things up. Not sure where it came from. Maybe it was just the summer air making me restless, or maybe my brain finally decided to just scream, “DO SOMETHING!”
Realizing I Needed a Change
So, I started with just thinking, really. Not hardcore planning, just letting my mind wander. What did I actually like doing? What did I hate? What were those little tasks at work that made me sigh? And what were the ones that made me lose track of time? I grabbed a cheap notebook, nothing fancy, and just started scribbling stuff down. Pros and cons, brain dumps, just whatever came to mind. It was messy, all over the place, but it was a start.
I realized pretty quick that the whole project management stuff I was doing, the endless meetings, the pushing papers – it just wasn’t for me anymore. My heart was in the actual building of things, the hands-on coding, the figuring out of hard problems on the keyboard, not in Excel sheets.
Making the First Moves
The first real move I made was just talking. I started talking to my old college buddies, people I hadn’t properly chatted with in ages. “Hey, what are you working on?” “What’s new in your world?” Just casual stuff, trying to get a feel for what else was out there. You wouldn’t believe how much that helped. It wasn’t about finding a new job right away, it was about opening my eyes to possibilities I hadn’t even considered. One friend was deep into backend development with Go, something I’d only dabbled in. Another was doing mobile app stuff. It was like a whole new world opened up.
Then I decided, screw it, I’m gonna learn more about Go. I remember telling myself, “Alright, this is it. No more procrastinating.” I bought some online courses, watched tons of YouTube videos, and just started coding little projects at night after work. Nothing big, just small apps, APIs, that kind of thing. I spent every evening and weekend hacking away. My wife thought I was crazy, just glued to the screen, but she was supportive, bless her heart.
- Bought a Go programming course online.
- Watched a ton of free tutorials on YouTube.
- Started building small API projects.
- Networked with old contacts, just to chat.
I kept that up for about two months. August and September, just pushing myself. There were nights I wanted to just throw the laptop across the room, because some bug just wouldn’t quit. But I stuck with it. The more I built, the more excited I got. It wasn’t just code; it was solving puzzles, seeing something I made actually work.
Putting Myself Out There
By late September, early October, I felt a bit more confident. I updated my resume, really focusing on the actual tech skills I had, not just the management fluff. I put all those little Go projects I’d built on my GitHub, even if they were rough around the edges. I figured, hey, it shows I’m learning, right? It shows I’m passionate.
Then came the nerve-wracking part: applying. I started looking for junior to mid-level backend developer roles. I was honestly a bit scared, thinking I wouldn’t stand a chance, that I’d wasted all this time. I sent out maybe twenty applications that first week. Got a bunch of rejections, no surprise there. But then, a couple of places called me back. Just phone screens, but it was something.
I bombed a few interviews, totally stumbled on some technical questions. It sucked. It made me wanna quit. But each time, I’d write down what I messed up, go back, and study that exact thing. It was like a game, leveling up after each failure. I learned so much more from those failed interviews than I did from just coding on my own.
The Payoff
Finally, in early December, I got an offer. It wasn’t a huge jump in salary, nothing crazy, but it was for a pure backend developer role, working with Go, at a small but pretty cool tech company. I remember the day I got that call. I almost cried, no joke. All that late-night coding, all those frustrating bugs, all those rejections – it finally paid off.
I gave my two weeks’ notice at my old job, and let me tell you, walking out of that place on my last day, it felt like a weight had been lifted. The air just felt different. I started the new gig in January 2020, and even though it was challenging, it was exactly what I needed. I was building again, learning new things every single day, and I genuinely enjoyed going to work.
Looking back at August 2019, that decision to just sit down and think, to pick up that notebook, to start talking and learning… that was the best move I ever made for my career. Sometimes you just gotta trust that gut feeling and just start doing something, anything, to make a change. It won’t be easy, but man, it’s worth it.
