From Chef to Software Engineer: Sohum’s Career Change with Codesmith

Sohum transitioned into tech at the market’s lowest point in 2023, amid hundreds of thousands of layoffs as the industry corrected after the COVID-era hiring boom.

It took him over a year and 1,000+ applications to land his first software engineer role, but his perseverance epitomizes what’s required to succeed in today’s competitive market.

Like many graduates of Codesmith’s Software Engineering + AI/ML Immersive program, Sohum came from a wildly different background: the food industry. He was working as a chef, a baker, and then working on food supply chains.

Despite the disparity between the professions, it was in the food industry where Sohum spotted a gap for software engineering tools and decided to be the one to build them.

From Kitchen to Code: A Background in Food and Math

“After college, I worked as a chef and a baker. But I also had a math degree, so I wanted to do something that paired both together. So I then did supply chain work for a big food and beverage company in New York City.”

This included all the purchasing, getting into ingredients, recipes, food costs, “really important things for thin margin businesses,” Sohum says.

“Through that experience, I realized there's a big gap in the industry for software-related tooling and analytical driven thinking. So I thought software would be a pretty good start for me to sort of get my feet wet.”

During this time, Sohum did build some open source software tools for the food and beverage industry but was still keen to go further into software engineering. He decided on Codesmith’s Software Engineering + AI/ML Immersive, which was 180% away from his experience during his Math degree at UCLA.

UCLA and Codesmith

Community

At UCLA, Sohum admits he often felt “lost at sea” in a large, prestigious academic environment:

“If you’re not careful with your community, both academic and friend groups, you can get lost. The way that manifested for me was I felt overwhelmed, and couldn’t take advantage of the campus resources because there was so much going on.”

Sohum says that because of these two things, he didn’t feel the accountability of having a close-knit cohort, and he lacked connection to the course and structure.

“Codesmith was an awesome transition for me. I’m very social, I like being around people and knowing their stories because that motivates me.”

The contrast between his experiences at both UCLA and Codesmith was chalk and cheese.

“It was the perfect learning environment for me to transition into software engineering. I had a really tight cohort, you’re with the same people each day, and your struggles become a collective struggle.”

‍

Mentorship and Support

Another defining feature of Codesmith for Sohum was the mentorship from instructors and peers:

“The three onsite instructors were incredible. I had a great relationship with all of them. And also, folks in my cohort were mentors, because everyone comes from different life experiences. So many people have varied professional experiences already when they come to Codesmith.”

He recalls how often his peers helped him combat self-doubt and push forward when challenges felt overwhelming.

Overcoming Imposter Syndrome

Despite a degree in Math and having built some open-source tools while in the food and beverage industry, like most engineers, Sohum felt the pressure of imposter syndrome while at Codesmith.

“I’m not going to lie, at that moment, it was intense. I didn’t know what a linked list was, a depth-first search, and I was thinking ‘Oh God, I’m never going to get this.’ So that was very tough, getting used to new things and then applying immediately.”

Sohum acknowledges that the imposter syndrome that can come on when rushing into new concepts and having to act on them quickly is part of the pedagogy of hard learning that Codesmith is built upon.

“It’s an intentional exercise and one of the reasons their curriculum is so fast. As an engineer, you need to spike something for a day and then put it into production, knowing that it’s not going to break something else. Perhaps that’s a bit of a cowboy mentality, but when you’re working in a fast-paced environment, it’s the expectation,” Sohum says.

The Job Search: Persistence Pays Off

Sohum says it was made very clear to him and his fellow residents that the job search would be challenging given the state of the job market.

“I stayed positive despite the market. I needed to job hunt, but I also needed to pay rent. So I wanted to do something software adjacent while hunting for that big software fish.”

Teaching While Searching

This led Sohum to go into teaching software engineering to children of all ages, from elementary school to middle and high school students, through a tutoring company, which he did for the duration of his job search that lasted over one year.

“Some students really saw a future for themselves in coding, and the most enjoyable part was teaching high school students. They were learning Java and C#, so using industry standard languages and making real projects.”

Applications and Networking

Sohum’s experience in applying for jobs reflects the difficulty the market faces today. Regarding Easy Applys, Sohum stopped doing them after sending out 1100 applications with no success.

“I had to learn how to be more targeted with what I was doing,” he says, yet it still took a huge effort with this change. “Codesmith-style applications, that I spent at least 30 to 45 minutes on, I sent out over 500,” Sohum says.

This is largely in line with wider job market trends in tech today, as software engineering job seekers have seen the average time to a job offer increase substantially in the past few years.

However, as Sohum’s experience demonstrates, simply firing out endless applications alone may not be enough. While it is a numbers game, it is also about who you know, and networking and the referrals that result from it can make all the difference.

“Making sure you go to networking events is essential. Referrals are really important, and watering your referrals is too. Not just follow-up messages, but making sure you’re prepared when they come through.”

This means also keeping yourself on top of the industry movements and new tools and stacks, Sohum explains.

“Make sure you’re staying sharp with the materials. It’s tricky, doing extra work on the side, but all it takes is for one light to go green, and then you feel you’re on top of the world. And you think ‘Codesmith actually did prepare me for this.’ ”

‍

To begin your own journey into tech today, check out Codesmith’s Software Engineering + AI/ML Immersive program.

If you’re looking to focus on building up your AI and ML capacities, explore our AI/ML Technical Leadership program.