“I’m Jae, a Software Engineer at Joyous. I graduated university with a degree in Education with hopes of being a primary school teacher. Unfortunately, a job shortage in the teaching profession left a lot of graduate teachers like me with no luck.

I spent over a year working as a relief teacher while applying for jobs in schools and failing hard. I eventually took on a teaching position at an after-school tuition centre where I helped children in maths. I really loved working with children and seeing the improvement in them, but I also had to do a lot of other non-teaching work to help the small business.

Four years in, I started feeling like I was stuck. I was teaching the same curriculum and I was doing something that I didn’t enjoy. That’s when my partner suggested exploring the idea of changing my career into tech as a Software Engineer.

It sounded scary. In my mind, tech was where nerds were. The kind of people who are super smart, (usually white boys) who spent their childhood at their computers. I didn’t know if I’d like it. So, I took baby steps. I found some free online courses and taught myself basic web development skills in my free time, and soon I was thrilled at the fact that I could make a web page.

I then heard about Dev Academy Aotearoa, and after a lot of consideration, I decided to quit my job and enrol. The course was challenging. I was learning new concepts every day and those concepts built on top of one another.

Four years in again, but this time as a software engineer, I am so happy that I shifted my career path. I love that I solve problems, help build an awesome product, meet and work with other inspiring people and learn new things (and get paid to do it!)”.

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