5 stories that prove that it is never too late to switch careers and find your dream job
A customs agent, a chef, a college lecturer, a businessman, sales managers, BPO executives, ecommerce delivery executives. We have seen graduates from all kinds of unique and diverse backgrounds at Masai School.
Even some of our team members are asked by their parents and relatives if they can join Masai School and become software developers themselves, some of them even after retirement.
For some, it is the joy of breaking their own notions. For some, it is the joy of finally pursuing their dream jobs after spending a long time in a redundant career due to unavoidable circumstances. Above everything, it is never impossible and certainly not too late to break into technology and software development.
Here are 5 such inspiring stories from the classes of Masai School.
Ashish Huddar, Professional Chef
Ashish Huddar holds a Bachelor of Science in Hospitality from Pune University. He interned at some world-class continental restaurants as a professional Chef, which even includes a michelin-star Scandinavian restaurant in Denmark.
However, this interesting life came with its own fair share of challenges and hiccups. The job would get stressful with long hours with little or no work-life balance. He left the career altogether, which he was so passionate about ever since he was a child. Ashish wanted to switch careers and move to doing something more meaningful and keep himself intellectually active.
“I wanted to apply and use my brain and put it to problem solving, I wanted a career where I could challenge myself intellectually. Software Development was my answer.”
Ashish started searching for coding bootcamps in India and he recalls that there was no other option since he wasn’t a typical engineering graduate. After spending 7 months at Masai School, today, he makes a 7-figure salary as a Software Developer at Bengaluru-based Zomentum.
Read his story here.
Mihir Kumar, a Decade in Logistics
Mihir has a BE Computer Science from the 2004-2008 batch. He worked in Tech Mahindra soon after college. A year later, he had to come back home due to family issues. It also meant that he had to leave his career in tech and enter another in Customs and Clearance. For over a decade, he was working in the same industry as a Customs agent.
Wanting to come back to Software Development, he heard of Masai School and its military-style coding through a friend. It was a hard switch to make, personally and professionally. But Mihir decided to take a leap of faith and enter a new career anyway.
Today, Mihir expresses his confidence that he would be able to double his salary in the coming years ahead, and make as much money as he made in logistics by the end of this year. He works as a Developer at Edstem Technologies today.
Read his story here.
Rohit Goyal, Bank Manager, Growth Strategy, Coal Corporation
Rohit went to Punjab University to pursue engineering in Biotechnology and graduated in 2013. Finding it difficult to cope up with this stream of education, Rohit started his career as an Operations Manager, and decided to stay away from Biotechnology. Thereafter, career took multiple turns before arriving at Software Development. He was a Growth Strategist at a startup, an Assistant Manager in a Bank, an Operations Manager at a Coal Corporation. It took him almost 8 years to figure out that he wanted to be a developer all along
Learning about Masai School from his elder brother who constantly encouraged Rohit to learn to code, he went on to take a break from his career and give it a shot. Today, he works as a Web Developer at Bengaluru-based Unlu.
Read his story here.
Rajeswari Subramanian, a Decade as an Assistant Professor
Rajeswari Subramanian is a Computer Science graduate from the 1997-01 batch. She finished her M.Tech in Computer Science from RV College of Engineering, Bengaluru. Back in 1994-95, the only trend in technology was to choose Math and Science and apply for engineering colleges. It was quite a prestige at the time to become a Software Engineer and work in IT companies. Rajeswari’s parents too, encouraged her to pursue the same. But she landed herself a job as a college lecturer and worked in teaching for more than a decade.
After a while, she was at a crossroads between taking up Research through a PhD and pursuing a career as a Software Developer. Though she had nothing to do with the rapidly evolving technology trends in the IT industry since she was on the teaching side, Rajeswari was keen to know what was really happening on the other side. She chose the latter.
However, the assistant professor also knew that she needed to upskill herself with plenty of industry-relevant skills. The structure at Masai School seemed just about right. Cut to 2021, Rajeswari now works as a Frontend Web Developer at SuperProcure.
Read her story here.
Rahul Tulasyan, Textiles Business
Wanted to crack the JEE and get into IITs and NITs, Rahul Tulasyan could manage to find an engineering seat in VIT, Pune. However, the 29-year-old’s family wanted him to assist his father in his textile business. Rahul had no choice but to choose his family over career, and he decided to take charge of the sales of his family business for the next 4 years. Always wanting to become a Software Developer, he had to push his dream aside for the time-being.
“As I left his firm to start afresh, I realised that by then the knowledge I had received in college was outdated. The tech industry is on a constant rise and it changes very rapidly every single day. It became difficult for me to get myself a decent job.”
After leaving the family business, he went on to author solutions for Computer Science textbooks at Chegg India. However, this stint only got him as far as solving problems with some theoretical knowledge that he already had. He could not learn anything new but he needed to learn things practically to make himself job-ready.
After 6 months at Masai School, Rahul had finally realised his dream and works as junior SDE at Bengaluru-based Pagarbook.
Read his story here.