Hi, I'm Dominic (DoDo) and I'm learning to code to break into the IT industry. I have completed a DevOps course with Purple Beard under the Governments National Skills Fund Skills Bootcamp. I hope to use this knowledge to finally be able to get back to the IT industry I have been longing for since disability struck and stopped me from doing my lifelong plan of becoming a police officer.

In this blog, I will explain what a skills BootCamp is (because I couldn't find much information about it when researching it) and as I gradually learn DevOps, this blog will then broaden in subject matter to DevOps and other IT-related topics.

If you've wanted to know what a Skills Bootcamp is and potentially have the training to upskill paid for you by the UK Government, then read on and follow my journey from 0 to Dev Hero.

Plan A:

My first job when I left school was in an IT department doing very basic IT maintenance. I also helped one of the managers to test their new app for the company on as many phones as we could to make sure that it would be available to as many users as possible (this was long before the iPhone and App Store existed). Once my three-month contract was up, I left and regretted not learning more to be able to return. At the time, my goal was to join the police and rise up through the ranks. I shortly found out, however, that I was too wet behind the ears and needed some more life experience before I could really consider entering the police. Life chucked some obstacles at me, as life has a tendency of doing, and I didn't manage to enter the police for another four or five years, and even then only as a Police Community Support Officer (think of it as an officer-lite: No powers, no manual training, just a visible and friendly presence on the streets). I was there for three years, gaining experience and making connections before life through another obstacle in my way: Chronic pain, meaning I couldn't walk. If you can't walk as a PCSO, you can't really do your job. I was off work for a year before I was able to transfer to the control room, taking emergency calls and dispatching officers to jobs over the radios. I was there another 3 years till the Force Medical Officer retired me due to ill health (I had been walking when I joined the control room. I left in a wheelchair as walking was too painful).

Plan B:

By this time, I decided I needed a desk-based role I could do, preferably remotely, and IT came to mind. I tried to learn Cisco Networking to pass the Cisco Certified Network Associate exam but was unable to pursue it due to my declining health. I took up web development and then Android Development, but the same happened, the courses ended unfinished and confined to the dusty corners of my mind. But life was about to throw another curve at me I didn't expect, the ability to recover from the chronic pain with experimental drug treatment. After the drugs trial, my pain was less to the point I could touch my leg again without feeling crippling pain. I used that as a cue to retrain my leg to bend again and finally start to walk on it normally.

Plan C (superseded, see below):

Fast forward 6 years and I am now walking again, and now want to make that move to the IT industry I've been craving for the last 15 years. I've found a course funded by the UK government that will teach me DevOps with the view of becoming a DevOps engineer and finally breaking into the IT industry, but there are still obstacles in my way. I have little experience and no Computer Science degree, things that are often required for a Job in IT. This blog will track my journey through my course and beyond as a way to show the way for other people who may want to join the IT industry in a non-traditional way.

Plan D (Invoked December 2022):

After finishing my DevOps course, I learnt that being a DevOps engineer needs you to know more than "just Devops". So instead, I shifted my focus back to Web Development, something I'd started many years ago, and always enjoyed. I am now learning Front End Developer skills through the Scrimba Front End Developer Career Path. This is teaching me the basics of HTML, CSS, JavaScript and React. I will then look to get a job as a Junior Front End Developer and look at eventually going to Full Stack, which will allow me to use my new DevOps skills too. This is an ongoing journey, and I will be blogging about it here.