From Game Dev to Backend: My Layoff Pivot

The End

I remember on a friday noon, I was working on my task and suddenly the CEO entered the room and gathered all the employees. He said that the company had been bleeding since last year and the company needed to stop all the projects and layoff all the employees. It was a shocking news, but it is what it is.

The Reflection

Fast forward to today, I have been unemployed for a month and a half. It feels so sad but it gives me time to think what I am going to do next. First, I thought what I hated and loved for the past three years working as a programmer. The thing that I hated the most is working with UI and all of the design aspects of the game. I remember I spent a lot of time just to adjust an image’s position until the designer was satisfied. It was so frustrating and wasting time because after the designer satisfied, I didn’t see any meaning in the image’s position in the game. Maybe I just didn’t grasp the design’s purpose, but it wasn’t for me. On the other hand, I really love working with the game logic, debugging annoying bugs, or creating a new feature. I just love solving problems with code.

All of that makes me think, why don’t I try to become a backend developer? I don’t have to deal with image positions, font sizes, or any other design aspects. I can just focus on the logic and the code. I know I will be dealing with database, API, and other backend stuff, but I think it is better that dealing with UI. So I decided to learn backend development at Boot.dev.

The Beginning

I knew Boot.dev since I was working at the game company. I also followed some classes there because there was a project that required me to know about backend. I really like their concept of learning by building projects without falling into what’s known as ’tutorial hell’ – endlessly following guides without truly building and understanding projects. I can just follow the guidance and build the project step by step. I’ve already made significant progress and can see the difference in how much I enjoy this type of work. Here’s what I’ve built so far:

• pokedexcli - A command-line interface (CLI) Pokedex application written in Go
• gatorcli - A command-line RSS feed aggregator built with Go that allows users to manage RSS feeds, follow them, and browse aggregated posts through a simple CLI interface
• chirpy - A modern REST API server inspired by Twitter, built with Go. Chirpy provides a backend for creating and managing short messages (“chirps”), user authentication, and premium features

Each project has taught me something new about backend development. From working with APIs and databases to handling user authentication and building scalable systems. There’s something deeply satisfying about solving these logical problems that I never felt when spending hours adjusting image positions. Looking back, that Friday afternoon that felt like an ending was actually a beginning. The layoff forced me to confront what I really wanted from my career. And for the first time in a while, I’m genuinely excited about what comes next.