From Barista to iOS Developer - #1

A little bit about me. I'm Brittany, a 28-year old freelance/indie iOS developer. I have an incredible husband and family. My faith is what motivates me. I love helping the community, spending time with family/friends, watching Manchester United (sometimes) win, watching The Office (over & over again, of course), along with all my other random hobbies. (Also I'm very comma happy, so I apologize ahead of time)

Prior to mid-2019, the most code I had written was whatever I copied/pasted to make my Myspace look cool (what a fun time). Up until mid-2023, I was working as a barista. I absolutely LOVED my job! It was my high school dream job lol. Nothing better than getting to drink coffee, make coffee, and chat with people at a coffee shop! I loved my co-workers and our regular customers.

Then 2020 hit... The pandemic closed our coffee shop for a few months. After about two weeks of binge-watching random shows and basically being a couch potato, I found myself bored out of my MIND! I downloaded Blender and started tinkering around with 3D design. I needed something productive to do & I love learning new things. I was convinced I was gonna work for Pixar in no time! After a few months I realized this was a good hobby for me but probably not a good career change for me (know your strengths right?)

One thing I was coming to realize was that I didn't want to work in coffee forever. I dreamed of sitting on the other side of the counter, ordering coffee, and working on my laptop instead of serving customers. I wanted a career change, but just wasn't sure what I wanted to do. My dad has always worked in IT and software related jobs, & I have other friends who recently got great jobs after going through coding bootcamps. After a few calls to friends of mine in the tech field, I found myself using Freecodecamp learning web development, which I didn't enjoy a ton. I honestly thought "maybe this 'tech thing' isn't for me." That was until I realized that anyone can make an iOS app. I'm a MASSIVE Apple fan. I hadn't even thought about creating apps. (I just assumed Apple made them all lol)

That led me to downloading Xcode, looking up cheap/free SwiftUI courses, and I haven't looked back since.

In July of 2023 I was able to quit my job as a barista. I now have 4 apps available on the App Store and work as a freelance iOS developer. Though I try to drink coffee at home since I don't get a discount anymore, I occasionally find myself sitting on the other side of the counter at a coffee shop & remember where this journey began.

As I continue this indie dev journey, I thought I'd bring you along. I hope to encourage and inspire someone else out there to take and step towards their goals. In these articles you will be sure to hear about the apps I'm building, my failures, successes, and more random things I'm sure.

Thanks for reading,

Brit