Luckily there is still a lot of use from my old skill set, and I suspect there will be more as time goes on.
I would have properly applied for every job that appeared in the country over that time.
Surprisingly a lot of people enter the field laterally, not everyone goes through the investment banking angle.
Software engineering is incredibly high in demand, there are countless free resources and courses available online, and there are a lot of people out there with the capacity to teach themselves. Software engineering is probably the single most enabling thing one could teach themselves in today's world.
There are people who learned how to code, tossed an app in the App Store and made millions. Or someone who started a wordpress blog, dabbled in some customization and discovered a passion for writing code that they never knew existed. It's like teaching yourself how to read, it enables you to learn and understand more.
It's probably one of the few professions where Malcolm Gladwell's contentious principle holds true. Do it religiously for 5-6 years and absorb everything you learn like a sponge, and you are probably more of an expert in your field than someone graduating from a University because you're on the cutting edge whereas they're just figuring out where they fit into the picture.
There is such thing as a traineeship. Yes, they lose out on a lot of the concepts and focused study, but I'd take sharp trainee over a hand pressed graduate any day.
It is needed in some cases, you want people to be properly educated, but that's only when the tuition is necessary for that education.
Engineering (software) probably doesn't for the most part, and I think most people resent the hoops they have to jump through because a university wants to stay relevant, hence the down votes.
Tangentially, presumably for the same reasons, both genders were evenly represented.
When you go to a doctor, you expect that they completed training and are certified to practice medicine. It is the same for the engineering profession. Would you want to work in a high rise building that was designed and built some self-titled engineers who have never been appropriately trained?
In some countries it is that way. I know Canada is very strict about who can be called an engineer.
In the US, it is not that way. AFAIK, there's no legal definition of an engineer, and anybody can call themselves an engineer.
But that's only for actual Engineering disciplines. We in software don't need to take an "Engineer" test for the same reason we don't need to take a "Rock Star" test or "Ninja" test. We use the title as a courtesy, not an indication of qualification.
I believe you that this is the requirement for some fields of engineering. However, there are thousands of people reading HN with the job title 'software engineer' who did not take those exams.
Why would some national laws about certifications prevent you from referring to such a person as an engineer?
I left for software before sitting the PE, so they'd read the same were I to return to doing Mechanical Engineering work.
But of course it's silly to stand on principal on such things, so I've never taken offense to anybody calling themselves whatever they like. If the janitor can be an engineer, certainly anybody else can too.
I imagine Architects feel the same way. And Cardiologists will as well, when we start appropriating their title.
The PE thing really only applies to stuff like civil engineering projects.
In any case, I'd already moved on. I started dabbling in web development in 2008, but by 2010 the Chicago startup scene was taking hold. I got involved, taught myself how to code mostly in Ruby. I had learned QBasic and VBA when I was a kid, and plenty of Matlab at the trading firm, so you could say I had some knowledge, but nothing career worthy at the time. I did the Michael Hartl tutorial for Rails. Started working on an overly ambitious startup idea that went no where. At some point I stopped applying for trading jobs. It occurred to me that I've never been so passionate about anything in my life. I could spend 24 hours straight trying to solve a problem like it was some kind of puzzle that needed to be solved. I redid my resume and quickly went from getting 1-2 hits on my resume a week for trading, to 6-7 hits a day for programming. Ruby on Rails had taken off and demand was soaring. I took a bunch of contract jobs, making $40 an hour. I still remember reporting that I worked on something for 4 hours even though it really took me 12 hours or more. I faked it until I made it. And it worked. Now, I know some 6-7 different languages quite well, and I'm respected by all of my peers.
The thrill of solving a problem still hasn't gotten old for me. Maybe some of the juvenile bro-ish culture has, but the challenges are getting more and more exciting by the day. I'm experimenting with home automation and AWS lambda on my free time, dabbling in hardware.
Now, 6+ years later I have the title of Senior Software Engineer. I've been a lead, I've mentored other developers. I work from home, have the flexibility to live and travel anywhere I please. I couldn't ask for a better career. I've made it a point to learn as much about all the little things that graduate students like to lord over us non CS wielding engineers' heads. I can hold my own and I'm proud of the choices and dumb luck that got me here. To me it is an incredibly rewarding and creative endeavor and I'm still as curious to learn as I was when I started some 6-7 years ago.
I work full-time right now, but my dream is to have total geographic flexibility like you.
Every day we will discuss new developments and how they affect our valuations for these businesses. These decisions are then factored into a portfolio model, which is then implemented by the dealer.
All in all, you have a lot of freedom, you aren't accountable for your time. I could be gone for the week and nobody would bat an eyelid, but the work is honestly so interesting you wouldn't squander your time like that.