The internet version of a career switch goes like this: quit job, do a bootcamp, land a six-figure role, post a triumphant thread. The real version, the one I lived, was a lot lumpier — and I think the lumpy version is actually more encouraging.
It took longer than I expected. I studied around a full-time job, mostly in the evenings when I was already tired. There were weeks I made no visible progress at all. And that turned out to be completely normal, not a sign I wasn't cut out for it.
The part that surprised me
My old career wasn't wasted — it was an advantage. Knowing how a business actually runs, how to talk to people, how to hit a deadline: those things mattered more than I'd been led to believe. You're not starting from zero. You're bringing everything you already know and pointing it in a new direction.
If you're in the messy, slow, unglamorous middle of a switch right now, that's not a detour. That's the road.
