10 Outliers who Switched Careers to Become Developers
At Masai - We've witnessed careers being transformed - From an uber driver transitioning into tech, to chefs becoming developers, and so on.
How often have we come across people who have pursued careers totally different from what they studied? We've seen engineers become marketers, college dropouts who started companies, and if we look around - We will notice there are many people who want to follow this pursuit but they stick to the norm and continue to study/work where their minds and soul are not invested.
At Masai - We've witnessed careers being transformed - From an uber driver transitioning into tech, to chefs becoming developers, and so on.
There are 100s of stories of people who have turned around their careers with Masai. In this article, we will share the stories of 10 Masai graduates who made outrageous career decisions to become competent developers. Let's get started-
Ashish Huddar (5-star Chef to a Software Engineer)
Starting his career as a chef working part-time jobs in Pune, he went on to work for top hotel franchises such as ITC Maratha Hotels, and Michellin-star world-class restaurants in Denmark.
But something wasn't right. Ashish wasn't satisfied with the work-life balance in the hospitality sector. He wanted software development to be his next stop where he could keep himself intellectually active. And, that's when he came across Masai School and decided to join the Full-Stack Web Development course, leaving his previous venture behind.
After the course completion, to his surprise, he got placed in just the first week of the placement cycles. He's currently working as a Software Developer at Zomentum, a Bengaluru-based company, and earns almost double the salary he received from his previous stint as a chef.
(Know Ashish's full story here)
Chandan Gupta (Govt job aspirant to a Software Developer)
Chandan Gupta was pursuing a Bachelor's in Political Science before he decided to take up coding as a career.
He had been preparing for SSC and other competitive govt exams. But after a few failed attempts, he realized that it would take quite long to find success in this sector.
So, he decided to try his hands at coding upon his brother’s suggestion. Chandan started learning programming languages and DSA from random sources on YouTube. But he knew it wasn't enough for a career. After a bit of research, he found Masai School and was convinced by the Pay After Placement setup.
During the placement cycles, Chandan was shortlisted by top tech-based companies like Ola, Dream11, and Junglee Games. After a failed attempt at the interview for Ola, he corrected his mistakes and cracked the three interview rounds for Dream11, and got the offer. The 22-year-old developer is making a 7-digit salary and absolutely loves his newfound passion for Software Development.
Mahesh Gupta (Street salesman turned developer)
Mahesh's life had been full of hardships. With family debts looming on his head, he worked as a mill supervisor and a street salesman after a diploma in mechanical engineering.
Mahesh had almost given up on the hopes for a high-paying career. He was stuck in a loop of low-paying jobs and financial struggles.
But one day, he bumped into an ad by Masai that featured Sahil Shah, an influencer he trusted. He liked the idea of zero upfront fee and thoughts of a well-paid career started flashing before his eyes.
Mahesh decided to rent a laptop from a guy in town at Rs 2000/month for the first month until he got selected for the Glide Program at Masai.
During placements, he was rejected by Dream11 after reaching the last round. But soon he made up for it and got an offer from LeapFinance as an SDE-1.
He now earns almost 6 times his previous salary and has brought his family into a comfortable position.
(Know the inspiring tale of Mahesh)
Manideep Pullalachervu (UPSC aspirant to a Software Developer)
Manideep Pullalachervu, born and brought up in Kadapa, Andhra Pradesh has always had varied interests during school days.
Though he wanted to go for Computer Science in graduation, he ended up taking the ECE branch because of misdirected guidance by his people.
He realized that he didn't like the ECE stream, and instead prepared for UPSC and other govt exams for the next 3-4 years. After numerous failed attempts, Manideep decided to move toward web development and enrolled in the full-stack developer course citing the 9-9-6 schedule as the primary reason to join Masai.
He was so impressed with Masai's initiative for outcome-driven education that after completing the course, he chose to work as a Software Developer at Masai, contributing to its cause.
(Know Manideep's full story here)
Ayushi Shah (Finance Intern to a Software Developer)
Coming from a commerce background, Ayushi Shah was working as an investment analyst intern when she stumbled upon programming to understand the quantitative side of stocks.
Her coding journey began with learning Python. While listening to a coding podcast, she got to know about Coding Bootcamps and the prospect of becoming a developer in a short time excited her.
Also, she came across a Masai alumnus' story of Mohammed Hassan who had left his job to learn coding at Masai and started earning 10X his previous salary. Inspired by his story, Ayushi joined the Apache batch at Masai.
Though she had a few initial hiccups in finishing assignments on time, having switched from commerce, Ayushi overcame those hurdles quickly. By the time she moved to JavaScript and React, she had evolved into a proficient learner.
As a coincidence would have it, Ayushi got placed in the same company as Mohammed Hassan - ShareChat as a software developer and is living the life of her dreams now.
Nishtha Arya (From Humanities to Web Development)
Hailing from New Delhi, Nishtha wasn't really inclined to academics in her early days. Instead, she wanted to explore her creative interests which led her to found a fashion-related start-up at the age of 16. Her start-up was centered around designing customized outfits for individuals
During her B.A. (Humanities) in college, Nishtha explored various fields such as sales, marketing, HR, etc. but none of them could hold her interest.
Later, when she was on a vacation in Bali, she noticed a lot of people living the digital nomad life, working on their laptops from different locations. She liked the lifestyle and started looking for a similar career.
In the process, she bumped into coding. While researching, she came across Masai School and was immediately impressed with the vision and mission of the institute.
After studying full-stack web development for 7 months, Nishtha got placed in a New York-based start-up 1sm.io for a high package. Currently, she is working remotely for the same company, exactly how she'd wished for, and enjoying the digital nomad life.
(Know everything about Nishtha's journey)
Ashish raj ( Cab driver to an Implementation Engineer)
How many times have you heard of an uber cab driver becoming a Software engineer?
This incredible career transformation happened with Ashish Raj who hails from Munger, Bihar.
Ashish had moved to Bhopal to pursue a Diploma in Electrical Engineering. Struggling to make ends meet, he started working part-time as a cab driver with Uber. This went on for two and a half years until one day it hit him that he wasn't going to go far in his career with this trajectory.
That was the turning moment for Ashish's career. Luckily at the right time, he came across a story on Google which introduced him to Masai. A breakthrough opportunity like this was exactly what Ashish needed and he wasted no time in getting enrolled in the Full-Stack Web Development course in April 2020.
The next 7 months at Masai turned his life around and today he's working as an Implementation Engineer at WebEngage - a marketing automation company.
(Read Ashish's life-changing story here)
Thummar Hardik Babubhai (Rubber Technology to Web Development)
Born and brought up in a farming family in Charaniya, Rajkot, Hardik had opted for Rubber technology in his B.Tech. After graduation, Hardik started working as an assistant engineer in research & development for a tire manufacturing company. But the low salary he received from that job didn't sit well with Hardik as he wasn't able to manage his expenses.
After a few conversations with his ex-roommates, Hardik decided to pursue web development at Masai School. Hardik was in a fix initially whether to leave his job and pursue a full-time course at Masai or not. But he finally decided to leave his job and joined Masai in 2021.
He had a journey full of ups and downs at Masai but he stayed persistent and cracked a Software Engineer role at Tracxn during the placement cycles.
Avinash Nadkar (From a B.com dropout to a Front-end Developer)
Avinash has had an interesting journey so far.
Coming from the small town of Raigarh, Maharashtra, Avinash had opted for commerce after 10th. While in his first year of B.com he decided to drop out of college as he felt like he wasn't learning anything resourceful.
He wanted to walk in the footsteps of visionaries like Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates and build something on his own.
Taking the first step, Avinash started an online grocery business during the COVID-19 pandemic. But the start-up wasn't catching speed and Avinash started looking for other alternatives to support his struggling family.
He came across Masai on YouTube and found the Income Share Agreement model worth investing his time into.
Upon joining Masai, he fell in love with programming and enjoyed every bit of the 1200+ hours of coding he practiced.
Within a month of the course completion, Avinash bagged an opportunity with SalesKen as a front-end developer and has been comfortably working there since.
(Avinash talks about his journey)
Abdul Jabbar Peer (Customer Service Executive turned Technical Mentor)
Abdul had aspirations of becoming an airline pilot since childhood. But due to his family's financial conditions, he couldn't chase his dream.
For his bachelor's he opted for a branch closer to his first goal- Aeronautical Engineering, at a local college in Vijaywada, Andhra Pradesh.
But soon he lost interest owing to the poor quality of teaching at his college.
After graduating, Abdul skipped the service-based IT jobs and instead started working as an operations agent at SpiceJet Airlines in Hyderabad. He felt somewhat stuck there for 3 years and finally came back to Vijaywada to start his career afresh. A disaster ensued in the form of his father's demise and he spent the next 8 months managing the crisis at home.
Sometimes all things come together in life. And so it happened with Abdul as he found an article about Masai School on Google.
At Masai, the 9-9-6 schedule impacted Abdul and turned his lifestyle for the better. 7 months later, the 27-year-old joined Masai itself as a technical faculty and has been mentoring students ever since, trying to have the same positive impact on their lives that he once experienced.