Start a new journey
Hey everyone! I'm excited to share my journey from being a BIM engineer to becoming a full-time developer.
In modern construction, digital technologies are being used more and more. A big development is Building Information Modeling (BIM), which involves putting a lot of information about things like materials, planning, costs and more into 3D models.
As a BIM engineer, my main job was to make sure this process worked well, fast, and effectively for different construction teams, like architects, engineers, and planners. My aim was to keep high-quality models that each team could use again, reducing the need to do things over. We mainly used a software named Revit for this.
To do high-quality work, I used my skills in programming to make processes automatic. So, I spent time writing scripts and plugins in languages like VBA, C#, and Python to make things easier for my company.
Balancing two different roles at the same time was complicated. Since learning programming is a big challenge, it made me rethink what I wanted to do.
I considered my future goals and what I truly enjoyed. While advancing to a BIM manager role within the next 1 or 2 years seemed like a natural progression, I realized my passion lay elsewhere. Even though I was good at BIM, I found myself liking programming more. I liked solving problems, finding information easily, and helping with open-source projects. So, I started thinking about becoming a full-time developer. It was a big decision because it meant going down a different path after studying for 7 years.
At first, I looked for developer jobs in construction since I knew a lot about it. But there weren't many opportunities. Companies wanted construction experts, not much developers. So, I decided to step out of my comfort zone and explore new areas like making games, software, websites, and working with data, AI, and ML. That seemed interesting to me.
Because I worked a lot at developing the scripting and plugins, I decided to focus on backend development. I liked working with algorithms more than designing how things look.
To improve my coding skills, I dedicated many evenings and weekends to diving into the world of computers, databases, and designing APIs. I experimented with various programming languages like Ruby, Python, JavaScript, and TypeScript. Eventually, I found Node.js and TypeScript to be my favorites because they have great communities and can do a lot of different things.
Even though the COVID-19 pandemic made things difficult, I kept working on open-source projects and my side projects. But trying to do both jobs at once was hard.So, I made a big decision: I took a break from my BIM job for a year without getting paid. In France, you can do that. It gave me time to focus on coding completely.
During my break, I got a job offer to work as a backend developer at Ekino. I'll be using Node.js and TypeScript, which I'm really excited about. I'll be working on projects like the backend of CANAL+, one of France's biggest film platforms.
This feels like the start of a new journey for me. I'm excited to start working ful-time as a developer and see where it takes me. I'm looking forward to learning new things and working with a great team at Ekino. This is just the beginning, and I can't wait to see what's next.
