From the Operating Theatre to Software Development

So, I think I’m starting a blog? Until now, it’s not been often that I’ve actually written down my thoughts and feelings and learnings. Since I began drafting some words, though, I’ve found it quite cathartic. I’m not really putting this out there to gain any kind of internet traction (e-traction?), but instead to have something to look back on in the future, to see how I’ve grown. Maybe a few others will glean something from this as well.

Where to begin, then? I think it makes sense to comment on what I’ve been doing for the past six months, following an abrupt end to work and subsequent decision to pursue software development as a career. I’ve toyed with a few different ways of describing this path. Bullet points? Timeline? Comic? Drawn-out mixed-metaphor? Sometimes my most engaging written communication is pretty much a stream of consciousness. At least that’s what some people told me the last time I blogged - though, that was about my travels for work in Germany (miss you die Brög). I think I’ll just try that and see how it goes, together with this helpful tidbit:

TL;DR: tech kid -> studied biomedical engineering -> worked in medtech for 6 years -> made redundant -> struggle -> software development epiphany -> full-time study -> #newdecadenewme

Regarding software development and me: I don’t know if I can even say that I'm a developer. Can you call yourself something before you’re gainfully employed to do that thing? Dunno. That said, I have made some cool apps with my own fingers on the keyboard of my not-Windows computer so maybe that’s enough?

Early work on a friend's Aussie music blog. Pedestrian's Best Music Blog 2012 yeah buddy!

Those who’ve known me since I was young would classify me as a ’techie kid’. It guess it’s not surprising for anyone to read that yet another adult software developer was *gasp* also techie kid. Accordingly, I tinkered with everything, dismantled and rebuilt gadgets, loved computer games, built my own PCs, and most importantly made a sweet custom MySpace profile (I wish I had a screenshot of that still!). This grew into an aptitude for maths, science, and design during high school. Towards the end of year 12, after much deliberation, I decided that biomedical engineering was the right path of education to take in university.

This was fine, some parts I enjoyed (biomechanics), some parts not so much (statistics). At the end of it all, I was fortunate enough to land a job at the first company to which I applied. They must have been pretty desperate! Luckily for them, I turned out to not be a complete flop and managed to do some good things for many years. Most of my time was spent in operating theatres around Australia, training and guiding surgeons in best practices for our 'GPS for surgery' navigation and scanning systems.

I learnt to communicate effectively in what can be a very high-pressure environment. It was so daunting at the beginning, being thrust into this workplace with incredibly talented individuals who were already working in established OR teams. I was some whippersnapper dude fresh from uni, purporting to know things about these advanced systems. I soon came to appreciate how important these systems were in assisting surgeons as they sought good outcomes for brain and spinal surgery. In teaching how to use them, I minced my words, a lot. I doubted my abilities, a lot. There was more than one occasion where there were some angry words thrown my way. I remember the time I asked an extremely experienced Sydney neurosurgeon if he knew how to use a particular feature of our spinal software after another method was failing. He’d been using it regularly for 10 years.

It was certainly a challenge to build resilience in this environment, knowing that the stakes were so high. In hindsight I think it forced me to learn quickly because, well, there wasn’t really another option. Eventually I became pretty good at talking OR teams through usage of the technology. There was a boon in confidence and newfound enthusiasm to learn more about adjunct software features and usage in different surgical procedures. I enjoyed each day, knowing that my work was helping surgeons achieve better results for their patients.

After a few years, I took on a sales role with the same company. I was essentially doing the same things as before, with the added responsibility of selling systems, software, and services to customers that needed them. I never saw myself doing medtech sales as I had stigmatised it as the classic car salesman type of role - I can’t hustle like that. Fortunately, after some gentle encouragement from my fantastic manager, I decided to go for it. It turns out I had already been doing what was required pretty well: identifying areas of need and offering solutions to hospitals so they can get more out of our technology. I had reasonable success doing this for a few years, but ultimately, I didn’t enjoy this added aspect of the role. I tried focusing on different products and use cases to keep the motivation there. I ended up looking after some particular digital operating theatre products nationwide. This was an attempt to play to my IT and software skillset, as these products are heavily focused on hardware and software integration to the rest of the hospital’s information systems.

And then: redundancy. Restructuring, cost-cutting, yada yada. The reason doesn’t really matter so much as the reality of suddenly not working. For me the struggle was mostly with feeling the lack of self-worth, lack of confidence, and lack of general direction in life. Coupled with the exacerbation of my depression, I wasn’t in for a good ride. For a long time, it was rough, really rough. I reckon I only started to make any progress when I started seeing a psychologist regularly. Looking back, I can’t believe it took me so long to accept that doing so would help. It took even longer to actually have the courage and drive to pick up the phone and make an appointment. Getting through the door in the first place can often be the hardest step to take. It was so helpful to regularly talk to a professional who listens without bias and judgment. I can certainly say I’m in a much better place now than I was 6 or 12 months ago. If you’re reading this and are struggling in a similar way, I can’t recommend talking to a mental health professional highly enough.

If there’s a silver lining to this, it’s that the redundancy payout afforded me time and money to deeply consider my next steps career-wise. So many people don’t get this luxury, and are forced to think about these things in a haphazard way. That is, at nighttime when tired after work, or during their weekends when they would rather be enjoying the break from work.

There were two main factors that led me to deeply consider software development:

1. Disillusionment with 'surgical repping'
2. Acknowledgement of my desperation for a creative outlet to solve problems

Whilst I learnt so much, and am so thankful for the friendships made and experiences had over the years, I didn’t want to continue down the surgical rep path, no matter which of the many flavours that it can take. I wanted to be creating something that wasn’t simply dollars. I get that dollars are important, but I’m pretty sure there are plenty of people out there that can do a far better job at directly generating them than I ever could.

Instead, what I like to see is immediate, tangible output of a product as a result of my creative input. For this reason, I loved art at school, I loved designing websites as a teenager, and I loved manipulating data with Excel at university. Why didn’t I recognise that I could do this day in, day out with a career in software development, sooner than a few months ago? When I finally considered it seriously, I couldn’t find any reason that it wouldn’t be the right choice for me and my abilities. All I needed to do was learn a few new tech skills! So, I resolved to do this.

It turns out web development isn’t just HTML, CSS and jQuery with a Wordpress backend. Who knew? Things have changed since teenage Jez was exploring them 12 years ago. Fortunately, these fundamentals are still, well, fundamental today. You still have to make elements with HTML and manipulate them to look cool with CSS. That said, you now make them do stuff with Javascript sans jQuery and can put it all together to host a blog without touching Wordpress or PHP. I’m liking these changes so far.

In pursuit of this new career objective, I needed some guidance. The subtext of the above paragraph is that there are so, so many languages, frameworks, libraries and the like that one could try to learn. I’m not going to give you examples of all this tech because anyone who’s used the internet already knows it’s big. And if the internet is big, then the technology that powers and utilises it must be even bigger. That’s true science.

I flitted for a while from one online resource to the next. My programming language of choice was Python. I’d read that it was becoming increasingly popular and some cool companies were using it. I became pretty familiar with code katas. A family friend who’s a very experienced software developer kindly took me under his wing, and put together a learning curriculum of sorts. It was solid. I liked that very few things were assumed and hence I needed to work through fundamentals before moving onto higher-level topics. It covered computer science theory and tied it to practical programming skills. But, honestly, in the context of my mental health struggle and wavering self-doubt, I wasn’t as productive as I hoped I would be. My mentor had a lot on his plate, and I needed more direct contact and enforced structure to make the most of the precious time that I had to learn.

Enter General Assembly (GA). I’m thankful for this place more than most people know. If you’re not aware, GA is an international educational organisation that’s built by nerds for wannabe nerds. What I mean by that is, GA provides various courses ranging from hour-long intro sessions through to three month full-time immersive slogs. They specialise in high demand tech fields like Software Engineering, UX Design, and Data Science. All the courses are regularly developed together with the industry. So, GA can ensure their graduates have relevant skills and knowledge to help them land their dream role. The benefit, of course, for the industry is that they can nab new hires who have relevant skills and knowledge. Win-win.

It isn’t cheap, that’s true. But if you can swing it, and you have a 'what you put in is what you get out' attitude for the course, it will truly be the best learning experience of your life. I’ve heard so many students and alumni say this. After finally making peace with the cost, I signed up at the last minute for the three month Software Engineering Immersive, starting on the last day of September in 2019. 450+ hours of full-time education. All of a sudden, I was committed to it, and was going to class for the first time in 6 years.

I couldn’t remember the last time I was excited to get up in the morning. I thrived in this new structure my life had. The content was relevant to what I wanted to be doing and the quality of the teaching was the best I’ve experienced. I was commuting to the city, and overall, actually feeling like I was doing something useful as a human in our society. I’ve made friends that I’m sure will be around for a long time, and joined a community of talented individuals that accepts people from all walks of life. This is the aspect to which no online course can hold a candle. I doubt any traditional university could foster that kind of community in such a short amount of time.

Twelve weeks and four projects later, the course is over. It was initially a bittersweet sensation as my class was a pretty tight-knit group, all of whom enjoyed spending every day of the working week together. Then it just stopped! We’d learnt so much, it’s amazing to think about the contrast in skills at the beginning versus at the end. Fortunately, it’s not really over. The alumni community at GA is vibrant, and not one you’d want to ignore. We’ve already been welcomed into multiple slack channels and invited to alumni events, and that’s just the beginning. Is good. Furthermore, for the immersive courses, GA provides a complete 'outcomes' curriculum, including full-time staff, dedicated to helping you land your ideal job. The biggest benefit to me, aside from all the help with job-seeking collateral like LinkedIn, the CV, and the portfolio, is the team of staff behind it that are cheering you on. I think that for the (many) students like me who come into an intensive course in a new field doubting themselves and their ability, this is so key to providing that boost to help keep on keeping on. Is very good.

And now? I’m feeling pretty well equipped, and am on the lookout for an exciting software development job. What a year, 2019!

Credit for my sick Photoshop job at the top:

• Photo by Janko Ferlic from Pexels
• Photo by Markus Spiske temporausch.com from Pexels