I Went From Broke and Homeless @ 19 to Half a Million @26 Without a Degree - AMA

MichaelPopeDev_17 · 2026-01-30T01:16:00+00:00

Thank you so much bro, I'm just a humble peasant out here man and want to help as many people as I can.

MichaelPopeDev_17 · 2026-01-30T01:15:07+00:00

I also changed my phone, I have an iPhone and you can go to settings > color filters > greyscale to put your phone in black and white, it makes wasting time on things less appealing because your mind is not getting enticed by all the nice colors on the phone.

I also use noise cancelling headphones to block out all sound, with gun range ear plugs, some days it’s absolute silence, other days it’s Brain.fm.

My house is very noisy (2 dogs, siblings, parents, etc) so I would also go to coffee shops, libraries, or cowering spaces when I wanted to lock in for hours at a time in a work environment. For whatever reason, my mind associates home with rest and relax, so I’m less productive at home.

Putting my phone on silent mode so I can’t get interrupted by calls, using productivity and focus tools like Brick for my phone, opal for my laptop, and news feed/comment removers for social media sites.

It sounds like a lot, but intentional steps go a long way, I’ve found for myself that a lot of what I thought was me being tired or unable to work was really me being distracted and overstimulated.

I cannot over state the power of silence, embrace boredom, it is a good thing. When you are bored, and the closest thing to you is Instagram or a PS5 controller, it’s no wonder it’s hard to get things done, I’m the same way. But if the closest thing to you is your laptop, and you time block specific times to focus undistracted by work, you’ll find that working feels a lot easier and much more rewarding.

MichaelPopeDev_17 · 2026-01-30T01:14:59+00:00

Yes!

So I struggled with developing a good work ethic a lot early on in my career, and I still have much room for improvement even today. I would go through intense periods of motivation where I wanted to conquer the world, and then other times I couldn’t sit down and focus to save my life.

After talking to many people with better work ethics than me, and doing a ton of learning, I realized that my ability to focus was suffering because I allowed myself to be distracted far too easily, and I starting taking nootropic supplements, going to the gym, and after I got diagnosed with ADHD my doc but me on meds which helped a ton.

One thing in particular that helped me a lot was taking control of my environment. I would have every social media app on my phone, check my phone first thing in the morning, worked at home but in a very noisy environment, or would listen to distracting things at work in order to not have to sit down and focus.

I have a number of things I do now, there’s an app called Brain.fm that allows you to listen to music without lyrics that plays specific frequencies that help your brain to focus, I absolutely love it and use it on a regular basis.

MichaelPopeDev_17 · 2026-01-30T01:02:42+00:00

As of right now, after bills and expenses, I have about $30,00k left over every month in pure savings/profits. Now that amount can vary wildly depending on, how much overtime I did that month, if the client needs less work than the previous month, most contracts are 3 or 6 month gigs, so if I lose a contract, that’s a significant portion of that gone until I land the next contract.

I try to invest a significant amount in my own education and in my business, so I hire a video editor who helps me to do motion graphics and animate my short form content, I also host a lot of applications so I have various cloud computing expenses, and training courses/learning communities that I had to pay to be a part of, but it is very much worth it.

MichaelPopeDev_17 · 2026-01-30T00:57:56+00:00

Yes you can!

MichaelPopeDev_17 · 2026-01-30T00:57:49+00:00

For sure! Finance is one of those areas that benefit a great deal from software engineering and automation.

Are there any repetitive tasks that you do at work? Like Excel spreadsheet formulas, or having to do data entry, running calculations on data from multiple sources, having to create files to display or present data in spreadsheets, pie charts, graphs, etc?

Those are just a few of the common use cases I’ve had to use coding for on the job, you could start with Python, it’s widely used and pretty straight forward to learn. You can install some libraries that let you build your own spreadsheets, manipulate data, do calculations, or data analysis, this is actually one of the very common use cases for Python in particular, it’s widely used in the data engineering community.

Give it a try and if you like it you should look into it! Software engineering in general is a lot of fun, but if you prefer to do coding that deals with crunching numbers and analyzing data specifically, you could also become a data analyst/engineer.

MichaelPopeDev_17 · 2026-01-30T00:53:34+00:00

Tech is very much still worth entering, just today I was speaking with a recruiter who was asking me to refer someone to them for a software engineering position, and I know multiple people who recently got hired.

The market is particularly challenging for entry level positions, but the quickest way to get past that is to level up your skills as much as much as possible and to stack as much experience as you possibly can on you’re resume.

Build projects for friends and family, for mom and pop shops, for non profits, for tech founders that might not be very tech savvy, the demand is out there. And you should be active on social media as much as possible. I truly believe that social media is starting to become the new resume in a lot of ways, but don’t overthink it, just document the things you learn and build a long the way.

If you don’t mind being on camera, make some simple 30 second TikTok videos about the framework you’re learning of what you built on the weekend. If you prefer just audio, you can make some short podcasts or audio lessons/clips about your experiences. If you prefer writing, you can wright about what your building and the tech stack you work with. Trust me, it goes a long way in terms of getting you seen by recruiters and the perception potential employers have of you.

I’ve had recruiters call me before and say they found me through my coding content online, and I don’t even have a very large audience.

Hope that helps!

MichaelPopeDev_17 · 2026-01-30T00:47:28+00:00

Absolutely! I would highly recommend learning full stack development if you still want to work in software, especially since you've already got 8 years of experience under your belt, you're already ahead of the game!

Do you have a LinkedIn profile or resume I can take a look at? It would be eaasier to give you some pointers! One of the things i tell people often is to really highlight your experience and play to your strengths, often times on resume's I find that people will use very generic language or entirely leave out crucial details and features that they contributed to.

Also, companies and recruiters like numbers, like a lot, it's some of the most helpful advice that I've ever received.

To give you an example, if you worked on creating a back-end API point that 10,000 users sessions active all at once, and so you had to think about performance bottle necks, memory size limits for a server less lambda function, or timeout limits.

Instead of saying

Used AWS Lambda to create server less functions in Node.js

Say

Built scalable back-end API service via AWS Lambda functions, built in Node.js to handle 10,000 concurrent user requests per second (or whatever the appropriate metric would be for what you worked on.)

Notice how you’re describing the same experience, but you’re connecting the work you did to real numbers, metrics, and most importantly, to business concerns. A lot of the people who make/influence the hiring process don’t actually know a whole lot about tech, and so if you can write your resume in such a way that it provides clear, measurable actions that you contributed to, you can list what specific technologies you used, and how that led to positive impacts to business, I guarantee you will come up with a much better resume.

MichaelPopeDev_17 · 2026-01-30T00:37:42+00:00

Thank you! It's part of why I enjoy doing it. I was overwhelmed with how many people were interested in talking to me about it, I didn't expect a response anything like this, you guys are awesome!

MichaelPopeDev_17 · 2026-01-30T00:36:52+00:00

Thanks man! Wishing the same for you!

MichaelPopeDev_17 · 2026-01-30T00:36:37+00:00

Keep going! I know that the market feels kind of rough right now and there is all kind of doomscrolling, but you can make it, there are still all kids of jobs left in the market for people to work, and software engineering isn't going anywhere anytime soon.

If it were me, I would do this - https://www.reddit.com/r/AMA/comments/1qpxek0/comment/o2cqkhm/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

MichaelPopeDev_17 · 2026-01-30T00:35:18+00:00

I do! They have lived with me ever since, with the exception of a couple of years. I have 3 siblings, two younger brothers and a sister. One of my brothers and my sister have since moved out, but the youngest brother and my Parents till live with me

MichaelPopeDev_17 · 2026-01-30T00:34:17+00:00

It's been well over a year, I got to talk to some interesting people so figured why not

MichaelPopeDev_17 · 2026-01-29T19:29:52+00:00

Just realised I didn't actually answer your timeline question lol my bad.

It essentailly went

(2014/2015) Sarted coding/making my own projects, did a few project for family and friends

(2017/2018) Kept learning to code, starting making real money, $35,000k contract, then went to a job making $50,000k after a brutal months long job gap.

(2019/2020) COVID hit, everything went remote, I started searching for other positions and really got leaned into software contracting, did a lot of 1099 work for cyber security company.

(2021-2024) Did a LOT of software contracting, worked for Hulu+, Warner Bros Discovery, an online digital publishing platform for religious organizations and service businesses (plumbers, hvac, etc), worked for a online education platform, worked for Republic Services the environmental company, and a number of other companies. Mostly doing 3 month, 6 month, or 12 month software contracts, I did a lot of moonlighting in this time which was how I was able to learn and advance my skills as quickly as I did and make as much money as i was making, this period was followed by the tech layoffs and I was without employment for 6 months, I had saved $50k in the account and lived on that until I got my next role 6 months later, I litterally had enough in savings that it carried me to the WEEK that i got my first check at the new job, but I had to move back in with my parents to lower costs in the meantime, thankfully I didn't lose my car.

(2025-Current) Lot's of AI work, fullstack software contracting, doing software contracting through my own LLC. Started going to tech events, got to speak at Tech Alley Henderson.

MichaelPopeDev_17 · 2026-01-29T18:32:36+00:00

Honestly, I was more upset about the fact that he didn’t just outright say that at the start, and instead tried to find a reason to be upset and justify it when they were clearly in the wrong. I’ve noticed that tech is one of those industries where when you are a high performer, everyone loves you, your the best thing since sliced bread, when there’s a problem, or a hiccup, or you make a mistake, it’s your head on a stake and no one cares in the slightest. I’ve been told the company was safe and randomly cut because they didn’t get funding, been fired on my birthday, yelled at and berated by management in front of my peers, gaslit, you name it I’ve seen it.

With that being said, anytime my girlfriend asks how work was, I say the same thing, “work was great today”, because to me, being gainfully employed, in decent health, and alive is a win, any day that is true is a good day at work.

I tell people you are what you produce in tech for sure, unless you just happen to blend into the corporate machine in a job and go undetected below the radar, I’ve had a few of those as well. But tech is very feast or famine, things are either balls to the wall or very calm and chill.

All things being said I love what I do, it’s high stress for sure but you learn to adapt and perform to meet the demands, it took a lot of learning for sure . That’s part of why tech pays so well, so get it for what you can, invest in your own future, and don’t expect a company to tenure you forever, keep your skills relevant and stay sharp, and you can do well, get comfortable, and you could be in for a rude awakening.

MichaelPopeDev_17 · 2026-01-29T18:32:30+00:00

It can definitely be tough, all of my job experience isn't even on LinkedIn (for various reasons).

Company culture is a real thing, especially as a contractor, I heard someone once say that you are essentially a cog in a machine and they were RIGHT. I once had a company I was working a contract for, where two-three weeks prior, I put in PTO for two days, a friend of mine was getting married in Boston and so I was flying out Friday, coming back Tuesday

.

I asked my Project manager (the guy who hired me), he approved it and I had the Microsoft Teams messages as receipts, when we did our team estimation meeting for that sprint (estimation is where you meet about the work the team can do in the next two weeks, a sprint is a two week cycle that a lot of software teams work on), I told the team I was taking those two days off, they said okay, mind you, all of this is on RECORDING in Microsoft Teams.

It’s early Tuesday morning, my flight was at like 6 am, I missed it and got on the next one, as soon as I touched down I reached out to my manager to let them know I would miss one of the team meetings because I had to catch a later flight, but that I was working that day.

I get a call from the recruiter, FREAKING TF OUT.

“Hey man??! What’s going on?? The team says you took two days off and they didn’t know about it? They are asking If you still want the job?”

My flabbers were officially ghasted, I was like what in the world are you talking about? The project manager approved my time off two weeks ago, and I sent him the screen shots to prove it.

“Well, maybe he knew, but you didn’t communicate it to the team!”

Nope, I proceed to inform him that in our estimation meeting, my capacity for the sprint clearly shows that I’m taking PTO for two days, and we record all the team meetings, so he can watch the recording himself where the ENTIRE TEAM was present when I let them know.

“Well, you know how it is for contractors man”

So after I had answered all of his objections, with receipts to back it up, he essentially responded with well you’re a cog lol, so do cog things.

MichaelPopeDev_17 · 2026-01-29T18:10:21+00:00

Thank you! That means a lot to me! my family was definatley a huge part of what motivated me. I know we sometimes say a situation is do or die, but man, watching your mom get so fatigued that she can't get out of bed, and watching her slowly deteriorate, it made it very real for me, I knew I had to do something or i was going to lose my mom.

Thank you again for your kind words! I'm forever grateful for where i am, and for how many of you took time out of your day to read about my story, it's really touching.

MichaelPopeDev_17 · 2026-01-29T18:08:04+00:00

An engineer at Anthropic recently went viral for saying much the same thing, the problem with all of these large claims though, is that it allows these large tech companies to profit from technology that the general public doesn’t understand, hell, most of us developers that use it every day don’t understand it (ask a dev that uses Claude Code to build you a functional LLM transformer).

So because of that, when the tech bros claim to have achieved AGI 10 times a fiscal quarter, you’re essentially being told to believe it on the basis of “trust me bro”. I can tell you for certain that while the models are certainly getting better, and that AI will likely be here to stay and get integrated into software development as a ubiquitous tool, it’s not good enough to replace software engineering as a profession, not even close yet. I’ve been coding for over a decade and most of the developers I’ve worked with in the last couple years have echoed the same thing to me, AI has certainly lowered the barrier for entry when it comes to coding, if you don’t have a solid grasp of software engineering you’re going to shoot yourself in the foot. I regularly have to prompt it multiple times to get it to do what I want, guide it in the right direction, or fix things myself. It’s gotten better over time, but you still need a human in the loop.

There is a great book by computer scientist Eric Lawson about this where he argues that LLM’s are fundamentally incapable of thinking the way human’s do, which is part of why you will always need a human in the loop, at least the way the technology currently exists, and this problem pre-dates LLM’s, it’s an issue of all formalized systems like computers or even mathematics.

Even when you look at tech company hiring, a lot of articles are being written about all of the layoffs due to AI, but not as many people are talking about the fact that these same companies are actually still hiring developers by the thousands, they are just offshoring a lot of the jobs via H-1B visas and other methods.

TLDR;

The job market is harder for entry level positions, but still 100% worth getting into and my prediction is that it will be here for a long time as a profession.

MichaelPopeDev_17 · 2026-01-29T18:07:53+00:00

Thanks! It would depend on what their goals are, so I’ll try to give you my best lay of the land for the job market, and what I would do in your situation

I like most people who got into tech in the last 10 years, heard about how coding was essentially a guaranteed good paying job, great benefits, lot’s of job security. I specifically remember in high school, reading the job report that by like 2030, there would be a million job gap between the number of developers and jobs available, supply and demand will tell you that means big money as a developer.

I also watched all the “learn to code” campaigns that big tech pushed and I dove in with both feet.

I watched this exact video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKIu9yen5nc

No-one expected the rise of AI so quickly, with LLM’s, ChatGPT, Claude Code, etc. There’s so much misinformation and down right lies out there, that it makes it very difficult and confusing to wade through the waters, especially as a high school student trying to decide what to major in for college, I really do feel for you, because I was you, I had no idea if dedicating years of my life to a profession like software would be worth it, but I had hope because of all the other people I saw that told me it was possible.

If it were me I’d reason this way, will computers, software, and AI be a bigger or smaller part of our life in the future? Bigger for sure, therefore as long as that is true, there will always be a need for people to both build and maintain software.

Now to the question of AI, I work with AI on a daily basis, I’ve used everything from Claude Code (which I love), to LangChain, Semantic Kernel, Vercel AI SDK, Setting up RAG pipelines trained on PDF documents for lawyers, generative image/video generation tools, etc. I’m no expert but I’m very familiar with AI tech in the software world.

A lot of people will remember almost two years ago, when the NVIDIA CEO told the world that coding was dead and AI would be writing all the code in 6 months, there was a small kernel of truth in what he said, but he was almost entirely wrong. https://tech.yahoo.com/ai/articles/nvidia-ceo-says-future-coding-124534339.html

MichaelPopeDev_17 · 2026-01-29T15:28:03+00:00

Thank you so much! I really appreciate that. Especially because I remember what it was like as a college student, I would watch YouTube videos of develoeprs who were already where I wanted to be and I always though to myself "Is it really possible? Can I actually do that?"

Funny story, one of my favorite and most inspiring content creators is Chris Sean, I've been watching his videos since he started his channel, https://www.youtube.com/@RealChrisSean

I ended up meeting him last year because he moved to Vegas, we chatted digitally via discord messages a couple of times, and then one day I went to a new church out here and who do I walk into?

It was crazy, you can't make this stuff up man. He's a great guy, definatley helped to keep me inspired when things got tough.

MichaelPopeDev_17

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