About Brian

Hi, I'm Brian DeVries. Thanks for checking out my site!

You probably landed on this page because you want to learn a little more about me and perhaps about how I made the transition into a software career.

Some Background

I was introduced to programming during my sophomore year of college (2014).

At the time I was working toward a Bachelor's Degree in Electrical Engineering.

I enjoyed it but saw my engineering degree through to the end and started my engineering career.

I graduated with ~$80,000 in student loans (not including my wife's...). Once the student loan payments started in the fall of 2017, I felt enslaved.

I could afford the payments, but I was staring down the barrel of a 20+ year payback period if I didn't do something about it.

My solution was to start a side hustle to make extra money to put towards paying back loans.

I tried all kinds of things.

The results were always the same: make little to no money and despise working the extra time.

One year into my career (2018), I landed a job where I wrote a little software to talk with the circuits I was building. I was psyched!

But another year after that, I felt drained by the hardware part of my job.

I was less interested in the electrical engineering aspect, but I LOVED the programming.

And I was still trying to find a way to make money on the side.

My wife asked, "Why don't you try to do a side hustle with programming?"

This was a turning point for me.

I knew enough about software to be dangerous. So rather than just doing something on the side, why couldn't I become a full-time software developer?

Writing software again brought back all the excitement I originally had experienced back in college.

I was interested in web development so I taught myself how to build websites through online resources.

Almost 3 years out of college, I transitioned from engineering into a full time software programming job.

Now I'm able to pay more towards my student loans and save more money doing the thing I love to do.

Since I've graduated college, I've learned a lot about programming, self-teaching, money management, and much more.

I built this website to share what I've learned on my journey. Take a look through the content here to help you learn.

I hope you enjoy it. Send me a message to let me know what you think or if you'd like to learn something I haven't written about yet!