An avid gamer, Moshood Adeyemo became interested in programming when he noticed other players developing mods for his favorite video games. He intended to major in computer science but fell short of the degree requirements.

Instead, he pursued a degree in communications and became an account executive in the advertising industry. He managed a team of creatives–graphic designers, copywriters, and the like–serving as the final gatekeeper for ad creatives.

“I was miserable doing that, I did not like it at all,” Moshood recalls. “I had a good skillset for it, but it just wasn’t for me.”

Long work hours, strict deadlines, and the constant expectation of being on-call meant having no work/life balance. After teaching himself how to code by taking Udemy courses and watching YouTube videos, he took a leap of faith and quit his advertising job to study full-time at Springboard.

A self-taught programmer, Moshood struggled to get his foot in the door without a related education background or IT certifications. Within five months of starting the Software Engineering Career Track at Springboard, he landed a job as a software engineer at LinkedIn.

It was scary. I had a lot of doubts. I had already done a lot of self-learning at that point, so I was confident I could do it, but the scary part was having faith that somebody would hire me. That part was out of my control. I was unemployed for about six months.

When I enrolled in Springboard, I was ready to become an entry-level software engineer, but getting my foot in the door without an engineering degree or any certifications was hard. That’s what made me decide to go the bootcamp route. Springboard’s deferred tuition option was also a big factor in my decision.

I saw everything Springboard had to offer, including the weekly mentor calls, career coaching, and the course curriculum. I liked that the lectures were asynchronous, so I could go at my own pace, get more information on topics that interested me, and fill in my knowledge gaps. The instructor, Colt Steele, was very good at explaining complex concepts.

Yes, I started the bootcamp in February and landed a job in July. Since I had a lot of prior self-learning, I used my participation in Springboard to show employers I was serious about becoming a software engineer.

I started applying to jobs while in the bootcamp, but I landed my current role after a recruiter contacted me. I ensured recruiters and employers in my network knew I was ready to be hired. I wrote many LinkedIn posts about how I was transitioning from advertising to software engineering. That’s when a recruiter contacted me on LinkedIn about an open position.

The interview process is hard. I interviewed at Google a couple of weeks before landing my LinkedIn job, and I failed that interview. You never know what they will ask, so you must do a lot of research. The hardest part is anticipating what technical questions interviewers might ask. Often, they’ll give you a problem to solve and you have to use specific data structures and algorithms.

I had already done a lot of research and knew what I wanted, so I only had one call with a career coach. I mostly asked if they had any advice on what I could do that I wasn’t already doing. They were very helpful.

If I ever had a question I needed to be answered quickly or something I couldn’t find through my research, I could reach out to my mentor and he would send me resources. He had also created a free course on job searching, so he was very knowledgeable in that area.

I used LinkedIn a lot. It’s funny because I never planned to work at LinkedIn. I was aiming for a FAANG company. My career coach encouraged me to tailor my LinkedIn profile to the jobs I was applying for and post about my career change to increase my visibility on the platform.

I’m an engineer on the infrastructure team. We maintain a library of code components for engineers on the product side. A component represents what you need to navigate a website, such as a button, a dropdown menu, an input field, checkboxes, form elements, etc.

I also fix bugs. When something doesn’t work how it’s supposed to, the engineer will submit a ticket to my team. The engineers also submit tickets requesting new features or asking how to use certain components.

It's amazing. I'm not going to lie, I'm the happiest I've ever been. This is something I've been wanting for a very long time. So I was very, very excited when I got the job. The honeymoon phase hasn’t ended yet; I’m still very excited every day. I get to solve problems and work with other engineers, which I missed when teaching myself how to code. It has been a blessing and I love it; I'm very happy to be here.

I’m still figuring that out. It’s a very broad profession. There are a lot of different paths that I can take. Right now I’m focused on ensuring I'm a good employee, especially in this economy. But I’m exploring the different software engineering paths. I'm creative and like to be hands-on, so I’ve considered working with embedded systems or coding hardware. But I might stay where I am because I like it.

I try to motivate myself. I'm very goal-oriented and ambitious. What drove me was that I had already taught myself so much programming. I could build websites and do front-end engineering, so I took a leap of faith. It increased my self-esteem. I don't second-guess myself anymore because I know who I am. If I put my mind to something, it will surely happen.