thank you so much for listening to another episode of the career transitions podcast that we are producing through Learn Academy and I wanted to introduce you to my next guest Elijah Barreto who was a part of the echo 2022 cohort so uh we have a lot to talk about and just before this conversation uh he and I were discussing the other things we do of which I got really interested because it involves Endurance Sports which I would not consider myself an athlete kind of even to this day but anytime I meet somebody that's like oh yeah I run for fun I'm like what let's talk so anyway so we've got a lot to talk about uh but today I mostly wanted to focus on Elijah's Journey specifically what he came from before he came into Tech what he discovered about himself as he was going through that journey into Tech and looking back a year since the program like what are some of the things that he's reflected on and thought about um and maybe some something for you to consider as you're also considering moving into Tech or going through a program whether it's through learner otherwise so Elijah hello hello and thank you for joining me today hello Adam thanks for having me today so I actually wanted to start with from the horse's mouth what is your origin story in detect like take us back in time what's something that we have to know about uh the before times the before before Tech times that's going to help inform what motivated you into Tech

oh great so let's see how far back do we want to go so I was in the Navy that's what brought me basically to San Diego married my wife and my high school sweetheart and um in the Navy I was a c-wiz control Tech so worked on the uh like missile defense system for the Navy so I got to a little bit of exposure to troubleshooting and maintenance and stuff like that after the Navy I didn't know what to do and I just got into like sales and calling people on the phone eventually landed a job as a debt collector and did that for about 10 years and did pretty good maxed out my 401k while I was working there and was able to save enough money to buy a house with my wife during the uh during the recession when all the housing prices hit the bottom we were able to go in and finally buy our first house and so I became a stay-at-home dad and while being a stay-at-home dad um I got into Ultra marathons trail running and just finding things to keep fit and stay healthy and um eventually talking to one of my neighbors he was like you should try coding you know you seem like you would have the mindset for that you know it's the same as running you're going to be basically putting in your reps you know every week and getting better and better at it so I started trying to learn some of that code on my own and um did all the free online courses udemy free code Camp I mean you name it I was trying to do the 100 days of code challenge you know trying to do whatever I could to get my name out there and learn and just try to find things to do so I think what got me into Tech mostly was just I was looking for a new a new career a new job something better than calling people every day on the phone it just that got old for a long time even training other people to do the job was kind of exhausting at the end of my career because it's just it's so repetitive and there's no like there's no challenge at the end of the day like like you find encoding there's so many like ways you can challenge yourself and um talking to my neighbor about python that's when the light was like I gotta try this out like Python and AI learning to me was just like that is insane I've been using this for a long time I've been using Netflix I've been using YouTube I didn't know that there was this pattern learning scheme behind the whole scenes you know like choosing which movie I want to watch or which friend I'm gonna see on my feed so that really interested me and I started diving really deep into Python and it was a long time of like just struggling on my own finally one of my neighbors she joined coding bootcamp as well and that showed me like she did great through the boot camp and she was like successful and I just kept asking her questions like should I join a boot camp or should I keep learning on my own and she's like try whatever works for you you know and I was learning on my own learning on my own until finally I decided to join a coding boot camp and go that whole route um now being a year out I've learned like so much it's just it's insane how much can you can learn within a short amount of time when you really like apply yourself for like 40 hours a week so that's yeah it's interesting reps where you land yeah I I'm curious about your kind of that that impetus for change I mean it sounds like I'll be very Frank the idea of being a debt collector found it sounds very uh not sexy um or exciting in any way so I guess we'll start here was that was that a career path choice in the first place or is that just kind of where you landed for other reasons like what was motivating you to go down the debt collector route in the first place uh just it was opportunity um I I shouldn't have even had that job I heard at I was at a sales job where you call someone and you tell them you've won a sweet like a first prize or something you kind of like con them into going to a place where they sell them a timeshare or something like that and I heard another guy in the elevator talking about a place where you do a different job where you call people and you make commission off of you know the amount of money they pay in their bills and that sounded more fun so I left that company and just started doing debt Collections and once I got into that job it was I got into debt collections when it was like the wild wild west of debt collections it wasn't as many laws so I heard things and saw things that were like I couldn't believe it I was like trying to be a good debt collector not like some of the other people that were working around me and doing things that were like it just it wasn't intense they made a lot of laws since then and changed it but yeah it wasn't sexy but it paid the bills then there was like sure a lot of opportunity if you can just you know push through the the noise you know so I found that I was very successful at it and got promoted right away and so like I said I was able to max out my 401k and I I never had problem paying the bills and I was going to college at the time trying to take classes and learning thinking like this isn't a career right but I made it into a career I never thought like that collections would make me the amount of money that I could make but yeah if you apply yourself to anything right you can uh you can make it successful

so what of I want to go back to your time in the military were you in the Navy was that right I was in the Navy correct yeah and so in the Navy how long were you enlisted I was only enlisted three years yeah I got out a little bit early yeah so I'm just curious um how if at all did your time in the Navy and form your choices professionally did did it or was it more like it was kind of a stop in your journey and when you got out of the Navy you just sort of continued on the Pursuits that you had prior to it did anything change while you were in the Navy in terms of your professional desires or Pursuits foreign I mean I feel like I gained a lot of confidence from the Navy and it was similar to the boot camp experience where you learn a lot in a short amount of time I learned about electronics and solid state and all these Concepts that were like way above my knowledge level and just having that confidence that I was able to while I was working a full-time job try to go to school full-time and work I actually worked two jobs while I was doing a debt collector I worked as a server as well because I just figured I needed more money to pay for school so I took classes like chemistry and I was I felt confident going into that knowing that like if I could do a short course I could do a longer course and so yeah the Navy was great it was like a Brotherhood and you know I I did well in the Navy I would have done great if I stayed in but I just felt like there was bigger things ahead for me and I didn't know what it was I just knew that it wasn't the Navy

sure I'm curious like what did Bigger look like for you I think more income and more opportunity because like in the Navy a lot of the opportunities they weren't like income based it was more like you're going to be like for instance I worked really hard to get stationed in San Diego and like I had to be top of the class top of the class to even get choices for the orders so and asking for vacation and things like that freedom basically yeah I forgot about that so anytime you'd want to take a vacation or do this and that you'd have to put in a leave of absence and so I kind of wanted to experience more of the civilian life instead of the military role like it was fun in the Navy but I just felt like I wasn't learning anymore and it just it was just it became like a monotonous job kind of so what were you doing for your mental health um through all of this time I know you talked about um you know you getting into trail running and Ultra marathoning and Triathlon and was that a part of kind of your own way to sort of maintain your own mental health or was it more a pursuit of you know deep interest or did you have background in that like give me an idea of like what your ultramanic Ultra marathoning and endurance sport time has done for you overall oh my God huge huge mental health boost um I started like dabbling in the marathon while I was a debt collector just to like on my off time and hitting trails and sitting at a desk for so many hours is brutal you know it just messes your back up and going outside and doing physical activity was just a relief you know and you don't think about things out there you just move and you're just trying to get through nature um so yeah eventually I I saw the triathlon and I thought that looks hard and scary and that's kind of how I pick a lot of my goals is like if it's scary oh I think I might try to do it and yeah Triathlon seemed like impossible to run swim and bike you know I I started swimming at the pool taking classes in the master's class trying to learn how to how to improve your stroke and all these things and I had the whole routine going until my brother-in-law was like have you heard of this thing called trail running an ultra marathon there's like you can run you know all day and just be out in nature and I was like hell no no way like pass he sent me a book though and it was a book that kind of outlined the plan just a basic plan how to do it and it had everything like whatever issue you might think of that you'd run into it the book covered it and I read the book and I was like this is something I could actually do it's similar to marathon training you just you're you do more like volume but it's the same the same concept you know you're putting in your reps week by week little by little you know you're 50 miles a week 60 miles a week you know I didn't get past that a lot of people do do like 100 miles a week but that has really boosted my my mental stability I just feel better I feel proud of myself when I train and I show up to a race and you like I'm ready to go like I know I can there's no doubt you're gonna finish that race you know if maybe if there's an injury or whatever but you know you can run 100 miles or whatever you've been training for and so that is just it helps me out in everything I do because you know marathon training and ultra marathon can take like six months to a year so it's not a kind of a thing where you just you're a one and done you're in it for a while and I always wondered why people keep doing these events like you you did 100 miles like one why are you doing another one I look at someone's Ultra sign up and they have like six or seven hundred mile finishes and I couldn't understand until I got into the sport and I'm like oh I get it like you run 100 miles and then you kind of want to do it again and see if you can do better or see what you can improve or you know it's the whole experience it's about the journey you know yeah it's about the journey there's no doubt about it so let's talk about the next phase in your journey into Tech what was the motivator or the Catalyst for that the per you know change of pursuit

partly the partly the pandemic a little bit of the pandemic I was already learning before that but that was like man that that really I mean I had spent a lot of time at home a lot of time at home with the kids and I just knew that when that time was over I was ready to do something like I needed to get out there I was tired of being like alone you know like everybody right and I needed something scary and challenging and signing up for something like a coding boot camp and having to finance that that was scary so I I did it and it was I never looked back and it was a good experience for me I just um I think the impetus though was just knowing that I could do it and seeing that it was something that was going to be like rewarding when I finished it I knew that I would have something and I could carry that on basically build upon it same as Ultra marathons and I think I think that's what what really sparked the change in me I just I wanted to do something for so long and learning on my own just wasn't cutting it yeah it's a scary thing making a shift like that and you know if you're taking on debt or you're taking on that obligation and you've talked about being a stay-at-home dad and having that obligation it sounds like you had either stocked up some money or you had found your way financially to a place of stability but and so now you're able to make this change is that a fair kind of representation of that picture of where you were at that you know you you had the kids and some obligation but you also had some funds stashed away that kind of allowed for this space or were you taking even a bigger risk on that move well yeah yes and yes we did have the plan but it's still like it it didn't make me feel safe even though you know we had the ability to do it it's still it's still scary and I'm like it felt more scary than even like 100 miles like I'm like this is a lot you know 100 mile race only costs 300 bucks this is like way more expensive than that and there's no metal and I'm just kidding but no I didn't know I was scared I was yeah so and even during the process after the process I think even then the fear became even more real like and I think that it kind of still drives me that fear like was it worth it you know and I'm gonna make it worth it so that's how I think in my life right now like I did that and I did that because it means something you know yeah yeah the fear is a tough one for a whole lot of reasons because you know it what I've heard from a lot of students and even you know going through somewhat of that Journey some of that same Journey myself but much earlier on in the early 2000s was it's a real change of identity peace that you know um and what I've observed is especially those that have gone have a military background is so much of that time is dedicated to Identity and defining your identity or at least uncovering it for yourself and then to go through this shift where you're maybe going from you know one very clearly public or clear public identity into another type of identity and all the stereotypes that come with that and all those just all of those pieces so my question to you is how much do you think of who you are stayed the same throughout this entire Journey that you've been on professionally what are kind of those core fundamental attributes that whether you were a debt collector or in the Navy or you know now going into Tech what has stayed the same

hmm good question so for me I think what has stayed the same is I always choose things that are really difficult to accomplish like my goals maybe are too high but I like that so like some of the projects that I've chosen like I failed on them you know and I'm comfortable with that because I feel like I learn a lot more when I push myself and and same with my friends you know I'm kind of competitive but I like to be competitive in the sense like we're we're gonna do something great you know like we're gonna beat the other team but we're also going to push each other to make the best product so I think that has stayed the same you know I love working with other people so that has stayed the same too and I think just being able to um to make opportunities when people don't see them or make a solution I guess we're where other people don't see it that has stayed the same as I've always been like that so I want to so let's talk about the advice you might give to somebody else who's planning to make a change looking back what are the things that you feel like either you should have done more of or you're glad that you did to kind of prep for the decision to make a career change what are some of the things that come to mind and the opposite or the other side of that question is what are the things you thought were important that ultimately looking back weren't okay yeah good one um so my advice to somebody thinking about doing it or contemplating is just do it you know just do it if you're thinking about doing it it may already be the right decision and you don't know if it's the right decision or not but you will definitely learn something from the experience um I think I waited too long like I I should have just jumped on the opportunity when I first had the idea when I first I was at my debt collections job messing with you know static web pages and making my own things I should have done it back then so I think that would be my biggest advice is don't let anything stop you from from doing anything that you think you could do you know it's there's just so many good jobs in in web development I wish I would have looked into it a lot sooner so and so yeah other things that I think weren't as important now looking back is I was trying to learn too many different things at once so I was trying to Learn Python and JavaScript and everything at the same time when I could have probably just gone slower and I was like I felt like I was in a rush to learn all these things to say I I've done that I've done this I've done that I've done that when I could have just stuck to one stack even if it was just front end and learn front end and then you know learn the full stack so if you're contemplating going through that full stack process or whatever stack you're going through I think just learn learn one step of that stack I think would be the best advice and get good at that because that will help you out a lot I did a lot of studying and a lot of prep before the boot camp and that helped me out a lot but it was the new things that were challenging and fun that that I enjoyed learning was in that process

that's really helpful I think some of that preparation worry is a big part of it uh is so a common question that we would receive from folks you know asking about going through the program is whether or not they that whether or not there's any prerequisites you know do you have to be good at math or do you have to have done a CS program or do you have to have done X Y or Z like how much if any of that is true

hmm I think that really helps I've seen the people that are good at math tend to do just this is the problem solving really helps so like if you can latch on to math I would say do it you know as high level of math as you can get and that's kind of what I'm doing right now I'm pushing my math you know I'm going for calculus that I never finished in high school but I don't think it's a requirement because there's so many other jobs in making um anything on that you don't need to know just one thing you don't need to be mass-minded you could be more design oriented for example or you could know CSS so I think whatever you're good at and you bring to the table you can make it like into a job in web development something I didn't know I thought okay you have to be good at all these things and no you just you be good at whatever you're good at you know if you're good at Art and you're good at you have an eye for detail you know you're you can bring that to the job so that's one thing that really helped me is my attention to detail when coding I could see real quick where where the errors are and you know so I think it's good to be good at math but if if you're not good at math you might be good at just like talking to people or learning about a product or selling a product so there's endless jobs so yeah I think just forget about all those all those fears and obstacles and give it a shot you know

so what are some of the skills that you learned through your prior career path that has helped you be a better software developer do you think

I think a little bit of sales a little bit of sales has helped me um when I was young I did door-to-door sales and I would sell things door to door and that helped me a lot like right now I'm able to find clients just by speaking to small business owners and asking them hey do you want a website built you know and I think just being able to communicate and even though I don't like talking to people I can make myself talk to people and go look for jobs you know and I've tried direct networking with people on LinkedIn and that was way more successful than just putting in a job application so I think that just knowing that I can't communicate with people and and sell myself you know because that's really what it's about now it's like I know I can do the job but I have to like show people that I can do the job and that's another thing I'm trying to get better at is like doing media content which I don't like doing but I know it it will definitely help me if I apply myself blogging and doing all those things yeah that makes a lot of sense I'm always fascinated by those crossover skills you know my background was as a stage actor and the question I'd get quite often is what from that time have you put to use in your time now and there's some obvious things but there's no denying that my time having spent so many years in front of complete stritchers doing performances has made me incredibly comfortable in situations either it be sales or meeting new people or giving a talk there's there's no doubt that that is crossed over and so I'm always fascinated by those similar um the you know the other ways in which people have taken from other you know other professions they've gone through and put it to use inside of their time in software development and so to you listening I would encourage you to consider that as well that the Journey of a software developer is one that is very multifaceted but also that some of the greatest value you could give and bring to the organizations you ultimately work for comes from experiences that are completely outside of software development and what you learned in whatever way you went through doing that and speaking specifically of boot camps and trade schools a statistic a set of Statistics that I found were really fascinating was a study of the average age and professional experience of students showed that a majority of students were either were 29 and a half years old or older and that they had already had seven or more years of professional experience in areas unrelated to the trade that they were entering and so because of that they had a ton of crossover and I always found that very fascinating and I think it's one of the great assets that anybody can bring to the trade of software development and that is prior experiences unrelated to software development well with that I'm going to bring this to a close Elijah thank you so much for your time I appreciate you sharing with us your journey what what brought you here to this moment and Beyond and uh to each of you listening you know feel free to reach out if you have questions about how to make that transition from where you are to where you want to be and just know as Elijah said you know uh consider sooner rather than later consider just taking the leap and going for it because while it might be scary it's definitely going to be worth it so Elijah again thank you so much for your time thank you so much for having me Adam all right