From P&L Sheets to DeFi Dashboards: My Journey to Start a Tech Career

For years, I was that junior banker glued to endless spreadsheets, chasing the daily rise and fall of profit and loss (P&L) sheets. Numbers were my world, and the market’s pulse my rhythm. Yet, despite the stability, a quiet restlessness grew. Watching the fintech world innovate felt like standing on the edge of a vast ocean — thrilling but terrifying. Could I really leave the comfort of finance for the unknown shores of tech?

The Fear of Change: Leaving Finance Behind

It wasn’t an overnight decision. The banking sector was familiar and secure, even if monotonous. But the cracks started to show. My curiosity about blockchain and decentralized finance (DeFi) grew. I began to realize the future wasn’t in just analyzing financial data but building tools that could change how people interact with money itself.

Leaving the banking world was scary. The jargon, the steep learning curve of coding, and the thought of starting from zero in a new field were daunting. I felt lost — like I was back at square one in school, struggling with concepts I thought I’d never face. The thought, What if I fail? hovered constantly.

Discovering Coding for Finance Professionals

One night, while researching ways to transition, I stumbled on a full stack developer course. The course promised a bridge for people like me — finance professionals who wanted to break into web development. What caught my attention was the focus on real-world projects and clear, jargon-free teaching. This was my “aha” moment.

Full stack development means building both the front-end (what users see) and the back-end (the logic behind the scenes) of web applications. For someone coming from finance, it felt like learning a new language to describe a familiar story: how data flows and transforms into actionable insights.

Small Wins: First Steps in Web Development

The first few weeks were humbling. I remember the thrill when I wrote my first lines of code and saw a simple webpage come to life. It was like learning to walk again, but every small success — a working button, a responsive design — fueled my confidence.

I dove deeper into blockchain basics, learning what a “smart contract” is — essentially a self-executing agreement coded on the blockchain that doesn’t need intermediaries like banks. This was revolutionary to me. Suddenly, the cryptic world of DeFi wasn’t so distant.

Deploying My First DeFi Dashboard

Months later, after countless hours of coding and debugging, I built a DeFi dashboard that could track cryptocurrency portfolios and real-time transaction data. Seeing this tool in action — live, functional, and accessible to anyone — was a breakthrough.

This dashboard wasn’t just a project; it symbolized my transformation. From someone who only analyzed data passively, I became a creator, shaping how data could be visualized and understood in decentralized finance.

Encouragement for Aspiring Tech Career Starters

If you’re a finance professional wondering whether you can start a tech career, know this: the fear and confusion are natural. But with the right guidance, patience, and willingness to embrace change, you can build a future you’re passionate about. Coding is a skill, not a secret code. Every expert started as a beginner.

My journey from banking to deploying DeFi dashboards wasn’t smooth or quick, but every challenge was worth it. Your small wins will compound, and soon you’ll be creating tools that matter, just like I did.