Something New

I never thought I’d become a professional software engineer. In high school, I was focused on photography. I took every photography elective I could, spent early mornings in the darkroom alone, focused on my portfolio. In college, I studied journalism and was a photographer on two student newspapers. Many hours were spent in the newsroom. Late nights, sleepovers, weekends, and even on days class wasn’t scheduled. I made all of my friends at the newspaper. I even met my wife there. I did art shows, won awards. I did some freelancing, attended every protest I could to document. I was dedicated to the craft.

After college, I applied to many newspapers, but it’s a tough world out there. I felt stuck in customer service. In 2020, I reassessed and taught myself programming skills. Python, JavaScript, web development, etc. It started as a hobby, but I started considering something full time. I took some paid courses, I used YouTube, I read documentation. Nothing formal. There’s so much accessible information out there.

In 2023 I left customer service and became a solution support engineer. I discovered how much I love to build things. I don’t do as much photography anymore. You’ll never know what’s out there unless you try new things. Now I’m taking a crack at game development as a hobby. I have no prior experience with making games, or drawing for that matter. My traditional art skills are lacking. But I managed to publish my first game, participate in a game jam and speak on a panel about it.

So I made this blog to share some insight on my journey into game development as a self taught programmer, and to hopefully inspire other people who want something different for themselves but need a little encouragement.