I figured I’d write a short introductory post to tell you a bit about myself and why I created this website. This will be followed by a longer post detailing my backstory in programming.

My name is Nicolás, I’m 34 years old, and I’m from Chile. I wrote my first line of code around 2009, and I’ve been doing web development for about 10 years now. I’ll go into more detail about the languages I’ve studied in my next post, but long story short: I started with Java, then learned JavaScript, and now I’ve been focusing on Python web development for about a year.

Since graduating college, I’ve worked a couple of management jobs. I’ve also been a professional gambler my entire adult life—I actually started playing online poker while I was underage. I plan on writing more about poker and gambling in the future, but for now, let’s just say I’ve recently decided to step away from what has been my main career for the past 15 years.

Currently, I work as a night auditor in a hotel, while I pursue web development on the side. But quite honestly, I’ve never enjoyed traditional office jobs: I find them boring and unfulfilling. I enjoy work that is complex and challenging, but that also leaves room for creativity. The simplest HTML + CSS page has always felt more fun to me than a 9-to-6 office job (Chilean work culture, right?).

I’ve always had the idea of transitioning to coding full-time, and last year I realized that if I didn’t go for it now, I never would. That’s one of the reasons I started this blog: I thought it could help me land a web development job—or at least wouldn’t hurt. I plan on posting at least a couple of times a week, if time allows, and I’ll cover a variety of topics.

I mainly work with Django now. I’ve also been learning Wagtail, a Django-based CMS, and that inspired me to create this blog as a project. I’ll also be writing more about Django and Wagtail in future posts.

If you want to see some of the work I’ve done, here’s a link to a portfolio page I made for myself. It’s a simple HTML file with a bit of Bootstrap and some Alpine.js for a SPA-like feel:

https://nicoferreira90.github.io/

That’s it for now. In my second post, I’ll dive into my entire journey with coding. See you then!