Original subtitles

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so I know it can be easy to look at

LinkedIn articles and YouTube videos and

posts about people that landed a job at

Google or Facebook or Microsoft after

just learning how to code six months ago

now the reality is these people are

anomalies this is extremely rare and

really just not a reasonable expectation

for any of you to have so in this video

I want to bring you back to reality and

share with you my career development and

journey over really the past 10 years to

get to the place where I'm at today now

I am relatively young I'm only 22 years

old however I started learning how to

code when I was 12. I've been working

all kinds of jobs as you're going to

hear in this video since I was about 14.

many of them not related to software

engineering many of them related to

software engineering anyways stick with

me for this video I'm gonna bring you on

the journey and talk to you about how I

got to the place I'm at today so just as

a bit of added context here in case

you're new to the channel my name is Tim

I currently work as the lead software

engineer for a tech startup that I am a

co-founder in now I am not the majority

shareholder I was brought on about a

year ago to kind of run the whole

engineering department we have a few

other developers that work with me I

kind of manage a team of them right now

and that's what I'm up to for most of my

day other than filming YouTube videos

regardless let me give you the whole

kind of Journey until how I got to this

point so let's go all the way back to

2014 where I landed my first job ever

and this was working as an assistant for

the company that my dad worked for which

did high-end home automation and when I

say high-end home automation this means

that they're doing Lighting systems AV

systems security systems automatic

Shades pretty much anything that you

could imagine kind of being required

when you get into really big homes all

kinds of crazy stuff worked in all kinds

of mansions and for very very wealthy

people regardless what I did there was

pretty much just work as kind of like a

grunt person I helped out on job sites

and then I programmed Lighting systems

which meant that if you press the keypad

it would like turn this light on or make

the shade go up or down super super

basic stuff it was just pretty much the

only job I could get because my dad got

it for me when I was 14 years old then I

was making about 15 an hour whatever the

minimum wage would have been in 2014 in

Canada and that was the first job that I

had when I was 14. continuing in 2015 I

started working at a summer camp now

this summer camp was one I had been to

many times I knew a lot of people that

worked there already and it was very

easy for me to get that job since I had

been going to the summer camp for like

years before that regardless I worked as

a counselor and I made three hundred

dollars a week yes 300 a week which was

much lower than minimum wage somehow

they can actually pay you less when you

work for a camp regardless I wasn't

complaining with no expenses that was

still good money for me back when I was

15 years old now I continued working at

the summer camp from 2015 to 2017 each

year making a little bit more money but

pretty much doing the same thing as a

summer camp counselor so I think I made

300 and then I made maybe 400 a week and

then by the time I was in my third year

of being a counselor I probably made

like 475 dollars a week or something

along those lines

then in 2017 at this point I'm 17 years

old and in high school while I wasn't

working in the summer I decided to pick

up a job at McDonald's I just worked as

a normal crew member I wasn't like a

manager or anything like that and I made

minimum wage worked about 15 or 20 hours

per week and I did this just to make a

bit of extra money while I was in school

now keep in mind at this point in time

I've just started my YouTube channel

it's very much a hobby I have less than

a thousand subscribers I'm making pretty

much no money from it and it's just

something I'm kind of doing for fun

obviously I need to do other jobs if I

want to make any kind of money and I've

always been interested in making money

so I was pretty much always doing any

kind of job I could just to make a bit

of extra cash while still focusing on

school fun Etc alright so now in 2018

this is when I decided to go back to the

summer camp again this year however I

was promoted to a stem program

coordinator which meant that I was going

to run a coding specialty as well as

take care of all the STEM related

programming at the camp so that meant

that I was doing things like overseeing

robotic Specialties 3D printing uh

handling kind of third-party people or

Freelancers that would come in and work

for the camp and that's kind of what I

did it was a more management role but I

also taught kids how to program and

that's what continued to kind of

encourage me to work on the YouTube

channel so I had videos that kids could

watch after Camp

um kind of at home and to learn more at

this point my YouTube channel had picked

up a little bit I had a few thousand

subscribers I was making a little bit of

money from that and I think uh the pay

that I was making from being a stem

program coordinator was like 575 dollars

a week so I was making let's say three

grand a month if you take you know the

YouTube channel and you add my salary as

a program coordinator now in 2019 I

decided to do this again so this is when

I was in first year university the

YouTube channel had picked up even more

I was probably making a few thousand

dollars a month now from YouTube as well

as working again in the summer as a stem

program coordinator and this time I

think I managed to get 750 a week after

negotiating that salary and all of a

sudden I was starting to make you know

what felt like a lot of money for a 19

year old with pretty much no expenses

that had just entered first year

university now at this point uh this is

kind of where the career trajectory

changes a bit and I go from kind of all

these random part-time jobs to doing

some more serious software engineering

related work or at least coding kind of

focused work us let me get into that now

so in 2019 there was a portion of the

Summer where I wasn't working for the

summer camp and during that portion I

worked as a junior system administrator

again for the company that my dad worked

for this time I was doing much more

serious programming work where I was

actually writing legitimate code I was

writing a bit of code in Python I was

writing some code in Visual Basic and I

was doing some very kind of simple

programming tasks and getting some

systems to kind of integrate with each

other just doing a little bit of

networking stuff kind of just working in

the tech department and had a little bit

more you know like say trust I wouldn't

say necessarily responsible ability but

they were giving me more adult type

tasks to be doing and that was the first

kind of real let's say programming job

that I had had so continuing from there

in 2020 this is when my YouTube channel

really started picking up I probably had

about a hundred thousand subscribers and

I started to make what was pretty much a

full-time income from YouTube at that

point in time was probably 40 or 50

Grand a year that I was generating from

YouTube now through having the YouTube

channel I managed to get an interview at

Microsoft this is in 2020 and I landed a

job as a Microsoft software engineering

intern so throughout the summer of 2020

I worked as a Microsoft intern while I

was working as an intern at Microsoft I

made 10

290 dollars per month plus a stipend of

4 900 uh Canadian dollars so I made

effectively let's say 35 000 Canadian

dollars within three months of my

Microsoft internship obviously that was

insane and that was the highest income

earning year I had so I had all the

money from you YouTube channel which was

like 45 50 Grand something like that

plus all of the money from my Microsoft

internship so I made let's say 75 000 in

2020. then comes 2021 in 2021 I stopped

working at Microsoft because my YouTube

channel was kind of just blowing up I

continued working quite a bit on YouTube

ended up making six figures on YouTube

and then I started working as an

algorithms instructor at algo Expo so at

this point in time I had already landed

a legitimate software engineering role I

had some experience teaching through my

uh kind of work at the summer camp and

obviously I have my YouTube channel now

which was a bit more credible I had a

bit more um let's say substance to the

videos and knowledge that I was sharing

and I ended up working for algo expert

when I worked for algo expert I

explained data structures and algorithm

style interview questions all of those

are still available on the website you

guys can check it out and after working

as an algorithms instructor I actually

created my own course with algo expert

called programming expert so I did this

course in 2021 so to kind of backtrack a

bit here 2020 I worked for Microsoft I

became an algorithms instructor for algo

expert obviously this whole time I was

running the YouTube channel then in 2021

we created the programming expert course

which you guys can check out from the

link in the description and then in 2022

with algo expert again we created the

blockchain expert course which is for

anyone looking to get into web 3 or

blockchain development again you can

check that out from the link in the

description now just to give you a bit

more information here because I know

this is kind of all over the place and

not very structured from the years of

2019 until kind of the middle of 2021 I

was actually a full-time student in a

computer science degree program I

completed five out of eight of the

semesters of that program before I

decided to drop out just due to the

other opportunities that I had but that

is why I was working kind of summer jobs

and I never had any full-time position

it was because I was constantly being a

student while running this YouTube

channel which was pretty much a

full-time job at that point and then

doing any kind of Summer gig that I

would take on so it wasn't until 2021

that I was able to really fully commit

to doing things like being an algorithms

instructor creating this programming

expert in blockchain expert course and

then of course running the YouTube

channel which obviously at this point is

doing quite well and that I'm going to

continue to do for the foreseeable

future now though I'll also mention that

in 2022 is when I became the lead

software engineer for this Tech startup

so about a year and two months ago from

filming this video I was approached by

the current founder of our company who

asked me if I wanted to come on and

leave the engineering team obviously

this was the biggest kind of engineering

role I could possibly take on this was

going to be the most amount of

responsibility the most amount of stuff

that I needed to learn and just

something that I hadn't done before to

be honest I probably wasn't qualified to

be a senior software engineer here at

this company but I took on the role I

said you know what I'm gonna figure it

out I'm gonna deal with it and that's

what I've done today now after taking on

that and working for about a year

programming pretty much every single day

on a really large scale project I feel

way more confident and way better in my

programming skills and I'm going to

continue to do that so I'm super super

happy I took that position obviously it

was very intimidating when I first kind

of got brought on and was just expected

to run all of this stuff but I figured

it out and yeah there you go so I know

that this video is kind of all over the

place but what I wanted to show with

this video is that everyone has a

different Journey when it comes to being

a developer or Landing some kind of

software engineering job for me mine was

kind of all over the place I've been

programming for 10 years yet I've only

really been working as a software

engineer for say the past four years a

lot of my experience as a software

engineer is simply self-taught it's

through making YouTube videos it's

through teaching you guys it's through

making courses and experimenting and

kind of teaming up with other

programmers around the internet I

haven't had a ton of formal software

engineering experience yet I'd still say

I'm a pretty competent programmer and

obviously you guys can judge that for

yourself when you watch my YouTube

videos go through my courses and see the

kind of apps that I'm building and that

I'll release and share with you guys

later in the year uh and kind of you

know give you updates as we go along in

terms of what the future holds I have no

idea I'm going to continue working for

this Tech startup I'm going to be making

a few other really awesome courses and

teaming up with some company so look

forward to that and with that said I

think I'm going to wrap up the video

here a reminder if you want to become a

software engineer check out

programmingexpert.io from the link in

the description you can also check out

blockchain expert if you're into web 3

and blockchain development with that

said I'll wrap it up I hope you guys

enjoyed if you did leave a like

subscribe and I will see you in the next

one

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