I'll start with the cliché: 'Hello world!'

The goal of this blog is to document my evolution as a software developer and data analyst. I will mostly write about more technical subjects, but before that an introduction and a foreword are appropriate.

I’m 31 years old and I’ve recently decided to change careers, after being a lawyer in Brazil for five years. I was growing more and more unhappy and dissatisfied with my job and with the legal field in general, and the thought of leaving everything behind started occurring to me a few months ago.

Back in 2016 I’d already taken an ‘Introduction to Computer Science and Programming Using Python’ course from MIT at edX. I’m currently enrolled in a Master in Legal Tech program at IE University, where technology plays a big part, including programming classes. So I know the fundamentals.

But it wasn’t until a few weeks back that something finally clicked and I realized that ‘hey, software development and data analysis are subjects that I’ve always been interested in, I already know some of the basics, and I’m confident I can become great at it — what’s stopping me from making that my profession?’ It turns out there was nothing to stop me and that was when I started planning the change.

But to turn this into a job, I started researching more: I wanted to make sure I had a better understanding of what I was getting myself into and focus on a more specific path. I narrowed things down to web development and data science. I realize this is still broad, but I need a better overview before narrowing it down further.

I started to learn more about the basics of both, reading broadly, watching a number of YouTube videos, and finally enrolling in a free introductory web development program by The Odin Project and watching a series of videos about artificial intelligence by Diogo Cortiz, a technology and neuroscience researcher.

I’m only taking the first steps and there is a long journey in front of me, but it was enough to give me the courage to actually quit my current job. I gave notice about two weeks ago.

Anyway, now the idea is to get a better grasp of the fields I’m interested in, so I I'll likely try other sources of information along the way, or even different areas within the tech field, before I choose a more specific path. In the next posts I’ll write more about my progress so far and in the future.