u/Alert-Seaweed-3862

I see a lot of posts on here that are pretty doom and gloom about breaking in right now. And look, I get it, it’s genuinely harder than it was a few years ago. But I don’t think enough people share the wins, so here’s mine.

Zero coding knowledge to IBM in under two years, no CS degree, no bootcamp, no connections.

The gist of how I got here is 6 months of self-teaching via The Odin Project, then my first full-stack dev job at a startup, then a year of real-world experience later, I landed a role at IBM. That’s the whole arc.

The six months of learning was just showing up every day. The startup year is where it got real. I wasn’t just doing my job, I was still building on the side, picking up new languages, pushing outside what my role required. The day job gave me production experience. The side work kept me growing. That combo is what actually moved the needle.

Landing the IBM interview was technical skills. Getting the offer, I genuinely think, came down to soft skills. Being able to talk about your work, explain your thinking, and actually connect with people across the table matters way more than most people give it credit for.

You’re going to apply to a lot of jobs and hear nothing. That’s just the reality right now. But this path is real and repeatable. Keep building, keep learning, and work on how you present yourself.

Happy to answer any questions.

I see a lot of posts here about whether to reach out or stay no contact, and I wanted to share my experience because I think it helped me more than I expected.

Six years together, engaged for two. Split up in February. For 2.5 months I was stuck in this loop of hoping, wondering, and holding onto the idea that maybe we’d find our way back. We had a few brief conversations early on, she even had me come over once, and the ambiguity was honestly the hardest part. I didn’t know where I stood and that open door was keeping me from fully grieving.

About a week ago I finally asked if she’d meet up. I was honest that I wanted to see if there was anything worth fighting for. She said yes.

That conversation was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. She told me she’s been happier than she had been in a long time. That she wasn’t interested in pursuing the relationship again. I was sitting there madly in love wondering how 6 years could be left behind in 2.5 months.

Then she explained something that actually helped me make sense of everything. The last 4 months of our relationship she was already checking out emotionally. By the time we actually broke up she was already 4 months ahead of me in the grieving process. So the fact that she seemed completely fine while I was still devastated wasn’t because what we had didn’t matter. She just had a head start I didn’t know about.

It still hurts. I woke up this morning from a dream about fighting for her. I’m not going to pretend I’m fine.
But for the first time in 2.5 months I’m not in the dark. I know where she stands. I know there’s nothing left to fight for. And as painful as that clarity is, it’s also the first solid ground I’ve had to actually start healing from.

If you’re stuck in the ambiguity, paralyzed by the maybe someday, wondering if you should say something, sometimes the answer is yes. Not to win them back. But to get the information you need to finally start moving forward.

Good luck out there. You’ll get through it.