Commercial Underwriter to Software Engineer II

I worked for Chicago Title Insurance Company for about 7 years in various roles. My last and longest role was National Commercial Underwriter.

I was unhappy in my job and looking for a career change. In my teens, I was very much interested in coding and technology. I took a couple of coding classes, enrolled in a pre-engineering program, and create my own primitive websites. Ultimately, I decided not to continue this path when I went off to college. When I started looking into a new job, I found the idea of a coding boot camp intriguing and a way to quickly get the skills I needed for a new career instead of spending years taking part time classes in computer science.

I had heard of coding boot camps, and I was overwhelmed by choices. A few months before I enrolled, my wife met a woman whose husband was a Coding Temple alumnus. After talking with him, I felt confident that not only was a boot camp the right choice for me, but Coding Temple seemed like the right boot camp for me too.

I think one of the biggest challenges for me was the pressure to do well. I’m lucky that I’m married and my wife and I had the savings for me to essentially be jobless for 5-6 months. Not everyone has that luxury.

Don’t be afraid to ask questions. Coding is often a collaborative process and nobody knows all of the answers all of the time. Professionally, the most valuable skill I learned was working with APIs. In my current role, I build APIs to integrate with various internal and external systems.

I made contact with a lot of recruiters, but I didn’t land many interviews. It was also a tough time of year because the program ended in early December. I was hopeful that I would land a job in January. Some time in January, an internal recruiter for a company reached out to me and I ended up getting the job. I’m glad Coding Temple helped with my resume and some interview prep, and I have no doubt that I would have received more assistance if I continued to have difficulty finding a job.

I’m still with the same company that hired me five years ago. I’m being considered for a promotion to a senior engineer and have received multiple raises. I do think about moving on though as I am looking for a new challenge. I hope to become a senior engineer and mentor others. I don’t have much interest in management.

I think Coding Temple was a bit more lax and less time intensive than I expected, but I think I probably came in with more base knowledge than others. It’s been over five years now, so I can’t really think of much else at the moment.

I think you get out what you put in. If you do the bare minimum on your assignments, don’t be surprised if you don’t feel like you’re prepared for a coding job.

Don’t be afraid to ask questions!

Do as much prep work before starting the course. While I was considering the idea of quitting my job, I was already learning on platforms like CodeAcademy.com and others like it.