Coached My Friend Into a New Software Development Career

Almost two years ago, I ran into an old friend of mine named Evan (not his real name, since I haven't asked his permission to tell this story) who was somewhat recently married and working a part-time job.  I knew him to be an intelligent person and quite capable of learning new skills.  I pitched him on the idea of starting a new career in Software Development.

I had made a Software Development Curriculum a few years back that centered around Lynda.com as a tool for developing practical tech skills and frequently practicing them with do-it-yourself projects.  My brother Davey had used this, and it was a major starting point for him learning the skills to take on his first full-time job as a software developer.  He is still working as a software developer to this day and making a very good living doing so.

I wanted to use the curriculum to help Evan also.  Evan worked diligently at following the instructions and learning HTML, then CSS, then JavaScript.  I think he learned a little PHP along the way before he started branching off into creating his own website and his own projects.  He also took some time off for a period while he and his wife had their first baby.

Anyway, I'm very pleased to say that Evan now has a full-time job as a software engineer!  I'm so excited to have been able to share this industry with someone new.  I feel like it was kind of a quiet thing but it helped set him up for a lifelong, enjoyable, lucrative career and financial security for his family.  That's very much the way I feel about having this career for myself, and I couldn't be more pleased that I could be a significant part of that in his story also.

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