A Quick Sales Pitch

Super Powers!!! …not that of super heroes per se, but indeed the strength of 10 men or even 100+ mammoth gorillas!!!

🦄 On Super Powers

I’m referring to computer programming – software coding, hacking, writing instructions that a computer performs on your behalf or the behalf of whoever it was designed for.

You already knew your computer was powerful as you no doubt use it to get work done everyday. You’re using one now to read this article, perhaps searching for answers to a career change question.

Either way, here’s what I learned about software that is obvious and not, it scales! Facebook serving millions of people every day is the pinnacle of achievement in this department, sure, but the scale more relevant to you or I, though smaller, is relatively as powerful.

Smaller than the likes of Facebook are businesses run by small teams (1-10 people) that make (or save) someone millions of dollars a year. They can do this because software scales that small team into a very big one.

To be fair, you can’t learn to program and magically become a wildly successful entrepreneur overnight. The skillsets are quite different, but if you have any entrepreneurial aspirations at all, you can see how if leveraged against other skills, it can amplify your chance at success.

Even if you’re not looking to start a business, a career in software comes with more benefits than most I’ve discovered.

But, I can hear many of you saying, “Will, programming sounds either boring, intimidating, or like pure magic, and often a combination of all three”. If this is you, let me quickly try to convince you it’s none of the above, as I’m a true convert.

📈 A Quick Sales Pitch

1. It’s less boring than you might think.

   Desk jobs aren’t very glamorous in and of themselves, I hear ya. But pair it with any field imaginable, industry disruption, and a global reach and you’ve got red carpet material right there.

2. It’s easier than ever to learn.

   Not great at math? Fortunately, heavy math isn’t really required for most of programming work.

   Plus, the internet is a treasure trove of free tutorials, courses, lessons and examples to teach you almost any programming concept in almost any language you’d care to learn.

3. It’s anything but magic.

   It’s very logical. Here’s what a simple program can look like:

   1 + 2 = 3

   The mystery unravels as you build up layers on top of this.

   x = 5 + 5
   if (x is 10) {
    // do something useful
   } else {
    // launch nukes
   }

Side Note on Super Powers

It’s not for everyone, but if you’re the least bit intrigued, see how far you can get with a step-by-step lesson. It may be less intimidating than you think. I quite like this beginner course on Javascript.

If you don’t just love it, that’s ok too, because you can always hire someone who does.