My journey to web development

Hi all,

Welcome to the prolific year of 2023! I don't know about you, but I am very confident about this particular year. I am confident about the milestones that I decided to work on until the end of the year. But, let me go deeper on that topic on another day.

For those that do not know me, today I want to talk about myself and my journey to become a software developer.

I have a background in Civil Engineering, and fortunately, I had the opportunity from a young age to work aboard and manage complex projects in Mozambique. The challenge took me out of my comfort zone just almost after my graduation and gave me the chance of knowing myself and my capabilities to raise for high purposes. Managing projects and dealing with difficult situations while motivating the team to do the imaginable was my thing.

I imagine that you are asking yourself: What this has to be with web development?

A person with strong desires and internal strength will never settle short until they found the right purpose. People, like me, always look for new challenges, more achievements and personal growth.

In 2015, I decided to pursue my MSc in International Project Management. After my graduation, I came back to Mozambique to manage a variety of projects, some of them in civil engineering, railway and fintech. It was by engaging with IT project-related, that I realized I had found my wonderland. Combining my passion for data and problem-solving with coding, made me become a Data Scientist.

I learned pandas, numpy, matplotlib, pytorch for data analysis and started to develop some dashboards with a magnific tool such as Plotly Dash. Moving forward to web development with frameworks like Flask and Django I could develop web apps to deploy my first apps on the web. I realized that I could do better with my UI/UX on the front-end since was very basic at that time. For that, I started looking for front-end frameworks or libraries that could help me reach where I wanted. Learning React was my first choice for server rendering on the frontend side calling the back-end through APIs seems to be more intuitive, clear and way better in terms of performance.

The process since 2020 was not easy, but at least was very fun. By proving that anyone can learn to code and become a web developer, even someone like me, with a very different background and experience with construction and work sites. Anyone can understand that fulfilment comes from the heart and doing what we love should be the main goal of every human being. Because in the end, no one will do the work for you, you must stand up for your dreams and find your peace wherever the place will be.

Next steps?

Well, my next move will be to start working on mobile apps with React Native.

Hope this story has motivated you to find your place on Earth, and gain the strength to change your career in case you feel that your passion is not fulfilled yet. The journey will not be easy, but in the end, your soul will be at peace.