Hey everyone,
This is my first blog post, and I wanted to share a bit about how I went from working in Support to becoming a Software Engineer without any prior experience in the area. Many friends and colleagues have asked this question, and I think sharing with other people might help them on their journey too!! I will give you guys some background first, so here you go:
Early days
I started my career in 2019 at SAP as an intern on the support team for the Production Planning product. It was a great introduction to the tech world. I was also just beginning college at the time: first in Automation Engineering, and later switching to Computer Science — I'm still pursuing my Bachelor's in Computer Science by the way... classes will happen during the evening.
One thing that stood out about that experience: I was always curious about what was happening behind the scenes. I worked closely with developers, asked lots of questions, and spent time debugging issues—even though the codebase (written in ABAP) was huge and complex.
On my team, I ended up being the “techie” one. I loved getting into the details and figuring things out, and that made me better at support. I could answer customer questions more confidently, and I helped reduce the number of tickets that had to go to engineering.
Taking more
After three years, I joined a small U.S. company as their first support hire. The team was based in Brazil, so the transition was smooth. Nothing was set up yet, which gave me the chance to:
- Implement Zendesk
- Write 50+ help center articles
- Lead training sessions
- Kick off a customer success process (which didn’t continue)
- Hire a few team members
- Move into a lead role
- Help out with product work, discovery, and requirements
It was a great experience where I had a lot of ownership. Many of the tools and processes I set up are still in use today.
Even though I was focused on support, I started getting involved in product work—sprint planning, product discovery, and even a bit of coding. Not much, but enough to realize that engineering was where I wanted to be.
Joining Stable
I found Stable through Y Combinator. They were hiring for a support role, and I saw a potential path there: joining as support, and transitioning into engineering later. I knew it would be hard to land a junior engineering role directly, so I looked for a company that would support internal growth.
I did my research, applied, and asked a lot of questions during the interviews to make sure the company would be right for that kind of move.
Once I joined, I focused on becoming the best support team member I could be by learning quickly, diving deep, and contributing from day one.
The transition plan
A few months in, I started working toward my goal:
- I started chatting with engineers and learning how they worked. I prepared a buch of questions for these meetings!!
- Once I felt confident in my support responsibilities, I offered to help engineering with internal requests that were time-consuming for them.
- This was well received because:
- I was taking work off their plates
- I was gaining technical knowledge
- I could give better answers to customers thanks to the extra context
After a few weeks, I spoke to my manager about officially moving into engineering. He was super supportive and talked to the CTO. Together, we created a transition plan.
What the plan looked like
The plan was based on the CTO’s input, and it laid out what the transition would look like. It wasn’t followed to the letter, but it gave us direction. It included:
- My motivation for the transition
- A summary of conversations with managers and engineers
- Short-, mid-, and long-term responsibilities—broken down weekly with goals and outcomes
- Time management—how I’d balance support and engineering tasks
- Estimated hours I could dedicate to the transition
- A few open questions for leadership
From there, we got started. Over time, I picked up more engineering work and grew my skills. When we agreed on a final transition date, we made sure support coverage was in place and that I was ready to contribute as an engineer from day one.
What made it work based on my perspective
If you’re thinking about making a similar transition, here’s what helped me:
- Have a clear goal – Know what you want and stay committed.
- Talk to people – Build relationships with your teammates — you can learn a lot from them!!
- Do great work – Show you’re excelling in your current role.
- Come prepared – A rough plan is better than none. As I always say to my friends: done is better than perfect!!
- Be open with your manager – They are there to support you.
- Stay proactive and ambitious – Own your growth.
If you’re thinking about making a similar move or just want to chat, send me a message.