Interview Ft. Mario Hoyos, Pharm.D. | From Pharmacist to Software Engineer

Hi Everyone!

Before I proceed with the interview, I have 3 announcements.

1. Giveaway: If you don’t already know, I’m doing a giveaway. The cut off to fill out the google form is tomorrow, August 19, 2020 11:59 PM PST. Thanks to those who already filled the google form already! I enjoyed reading your responses. I’ll select a winner by the end of this week. If you don’t win, I’ll be working on sending you a recipe if I have a recipe that fits what you like and your dietary restrictions.
2. Instagram: You can follow me at my newly created Instagram account HelloCatherine.PharmD for when I send those recipes out. If you use Instagram, please DM or tag me and let me know how how the recipe turned out!
3. Fetch Rewards: I end most of my posts about Fetch Rewards. I’m not sponsored, but I’ve enjoyed the perks since I’ve joined and want to encourage you all to join. Perks: Recently I’ve received email notifications and signed up for 2 free magazine subscriptions. I’m currently receiving People magazines. I love them. There’s some pharmacy sprinkled in with ads about recently approved specialty drugs like Palforzia. Towards the end of the magazine, there’s a few recipes, a crossword puzzle, and a fun activity to identify 10 differences between 2 pictures. What is Fetch Rewards? Fetch Rewards is a rebate app. You can take a picture of your recent grocery receipt with the app and earn points for gift cards to a number of retailers including Amazon, CVS, Target, Walmart, Whole Foods, Safeway, Macy’s, Nordstrom, and Sephora. If you do decide to join, enter my referral promo code Q8EMM when you download the app and than scan your first receipt to earn 2,000 bonus points (that’s equivalent to a $2 bonus).

I alluded to how saturated pharmacy job market has become since I’ve graduated in my previous post. For those who don’t find job satisfaction in their current job or those who are struggling to find a pharmacist job and just wondering what else is out there, you’ll want to continue reading. I sometimes check out the pharmacy subreddit. That’s where I stumbled upon Mario Hoyos who made a career change. I reached out to him and asked some questions.

For those who don’t know about who you are, tell me about yourself. 

Hello!

For the information you probably care about in this context, I graduated from Purdue University College of Pharmacy in 2017. I went to work at CVS right after graduation in May, and by October I had quit, because I hated it so deeply. I then went to a coding bootcamp and have been working as a software engineer ever since! I currently work at leafly.com, so in a way I’m still working with drugs lol.

For the stuff that might not be quite as pertinent to this context: I am currently living in Las Vegas where I work from home full-time (even before the pandemic!) I have a lovely dog who you can find on instagram https://www.instagram.com/hankloveslife/, and two kitties. I am engaged to be married, to a lovely lady I graduated pharmacy school with (she is still a full-time residency-trained pharmacist kicking ass in pharmarcy-land). I love playing sports- just tore my meniscus though 😦 – hiking, playing Rocket League, and cooking.

I never would have thought three years ago that I would have let my license expire (I never even removed it from the tube the Texas Board of Pharmacy sent it in), but it’s been one of, if not THEE, best decisions of my life.

To be clear, I’m not here to talk down on pharmacy. The profession is a key part of the healthcare system, and what y’all do is gravely important. I just found out the hard way that it wasn’t for me, at least not in the way that I was able to practice, and that programming fit my lifestyle preferences much better. For anybody interested in exploring programming as a career, please please please use me as a reference. I want to help everybody that I can make the transition, if it’s something they’re wanting to do.

You outlined your professional background on reddit. That’s a risky move to just quit your pharmacist job and pursue something within a span of 5 months post graduation from pharmacy school. 

– Quit CVS In Dallas in October of 2017 (I graduated May of 2017 lol)

– Started DevMountain immersive webdev that same month

– Graduated in January 2018, stayed at bootcamp for 4 months to help teach next cohort at $20/hr

– Got first “real” job at a e-prescribing startup in Austin making ~ $30/hr

– Got surprise laid off when startup ran out of money 4 months later

– Took up a contract job for 4 months at $45/hr

– After that contract took up another contract at $75/hr

– That contract ended abruptly after 6 months when the company surprise laid everybody off

– I’m now working remotely at a mid-size startup based in Seattle (I live in Las Vegas) at ~145k/yr salary, with benefits.

I’m curious how you were able to jump from one contract job to the next and then land a remote job making a decent salary. Was it through connections or just applying online like Indeed? 

My biggest piece of advice is to try and avoid the route of spamming your resume on job sites. It’s a lot of work, for pretty low chances of success. After my gig working at the bootcamp as a mentor, I got the first next job by finding a startup where my pharmacy domain knowledge could be useful, and messaging the founders directly on LinkedIn. 

For the contract I took up after that, the founder of that startup reached out to ME on Linkedin after seeing my post that I was looking for new opportunities. 

For my final contract before this job, it was through a personal connection who was working at the company, and when they decided they needed more hands on deck he was able to advocate for me (I didn’t even have to interview)!

Much like the pharmacy world, it’s not always what you know as much as who you know. This can seem unfair, but if you accept it’s the truth you can play the game. Put yourself out there, and try to reach out to folks at companies directly, because as a bootcamp grad it’s VERY hard to stand out in a pile of resumes.

How do you go about finding a job? 

If I was going to start looking for a new job today, it would look something like this:

1. Tap into network on Linkedin/twitter/old coworkers and see if any place is hiring that I already have a foot in the door.
2. Look for jobs that match my skillset in my area and/or remote on Glassdoor or Linkedin.
3. Reach out to recruiters that have been in my inbox and see what opportunities they might have.

To be honest, getting that first job out of bootcamp is by far the most difficult job search you’re likely to endure as a programmer, particularly if you’re average or above average. The field can feel saturated when you’re just starting out because there’s so many people looking for the first job, but once one employer has taken a risk on you, and you have any sort of work to reference that you’ve been paid for, it gets MUCH easier from there.

Several times a week I have recruiters reaching out to me, trying to sell me on some position. The reason that good engineers have such nice salaries/benefits is because if they didn’t it would be easy for these recruiters to steal talent. For a lot of folks, it’s not so much about finding a job but letting a job find you.

If you work on your online presence, and learn in public, it’s even easier for companies to find you. I’ve been surprised that even with the ongoing pandemic, I’ve still had recruiters reaching out.

Again, I must emphasize, breaking into the field is NOT EASY. It takes a lot of hard work, perseverance, networking, and a little luck. Once you’re in though, so long as you keep developing your skillset, the market is still in favor of the engineers, at least for the time being.

Are there a lot of software engineer jobs available for those who decide to go the boot camp route rather than pursuing a B.S. in computer science?

Graduating with any sort of CS degree is still going to be the easiest way to land a job. Getting that first job as a bootcamp grad is TOUGH, but like I mentioned above, after the first one, your degree matters a lot less because you have hard proof that you can do the job.

I work with at least 5 other people who don’t have formal CS degrees. 

At the end of the day, it’s all about tradeoffs. You have a higher chance of easily landing a job with a CS degree, but is it worth 4 years of time and tuition? Even if you didn’t get a job within a year of graduating a bootcamp, you’d still be coming out years and thousands of dollars ahead. 

That being said, for a lot of the really big players, like Facebook and Netflix, it’s going to be drastically easier if you have a degree than if you don’t. It’s not impossible to get there without one, just much less likely.

Is the boot camp demanding? For those who don’t want to quit their current job, is it possible to work and also do the boot camp?

Bootcamps are definitely demanding (or if you find one that isn’t, it’s likely not very good). On top of them being inherently demanding, in order to stand out from your peers you need to take it upon yourself to dive deeper and get extra practice, in order to set yourself up for the best chance at getting employed.

There are part-time or fully-online bootcamps, and though I never attended one, it could be a viable option. You will likely need a longer timeline before you make the transition, since it’ll take you longer to develop the same level of skill, but I imagine it can be done if a person is self-motivated enough (and I know most people in pharmacy probably are).

Programming is an exercise in frustration, and will demand a lot of your brainpower. This is going to be harder to get through if you just stood on your feet for 12 hours in a hectic retail environment. It’s likely possible but it will be more difficult.

I was extremely privileged to be able to focus full-time on the bootcamp, but I know that won’t be the case for everybody. I don’t have kids, I was still living in a college student mindset for the most part, and I had enough saved up from my pharmacist job to last me a while. This definitely provided some psychological safety that allowed me to really go all-in during my bootcamp. That being said, there were people in my cohort that DID have kids and other obligations, and were also able to pull it off in the long run.

I can’t guarantee success, but the opportunities are definitely there.

Is there anything else you wanted to add?

Please keep in mind that I am very biased as you read this. Not everybody hates their pharmacy job like I hated mine. Not everybody is going to enjoy programming as much as I do. Even if you do enjoy programming, there’s no guarantee that your career path will end up like mine, and if mine had gone differently the picture maybe wouldn’t look so rosy.

Like all jobs, working in software comes with its own set of frustrations and downsides. It’s not a silver bullet. For me, personally, the tradeoffs are beyond worth it, but like any job it’s not all sunshine.

Thanks so much for sharing and taking the time to answer all of my questions. If anyone is interested in reaching out to you, where can people find you (e.g., social media handles)?

I’m a pretty open book. I really am here to help whoever I can, however I can. I’m pretty easy to get a hold of and I encourage you to reach out if you have questions! Here’s contact info for me:

1.Twitter https://twitter.com/marioahoyos
2. Linkedin https://www.linkedin.com/in/mario-hoyos/
3. Email mario@mariohoyos.io
4. Personal Site https://mariohoyos.io/
5. Reddit https://www.reddit.com/user/mariohoyos
6. Phone number 574-215-3266 (I don’t answer calls anymore thanks to scammers, but you can always text 🙂 )

Look forward to hearing from you!

Feel free to reach out to Mario if you have any questions. I hope you find this post helpful. Please let me know what you want me to write about next.

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Thank you!