After struggling to find work in mechanical engineering, James pivoted to software engineering through Codesmith, encouraged by his cousin and a free workshop.
He completed the Part-Time Immersive , built a GraphQL caching tool called DenoStore , and gained confidence through teaching in the Fellowship . Now a Software Development Engineer I at Amazon , he passed multiple rounds of interviews and contributes to major projects.
His top advice: “Know your why—this path is tough, but worth it if you’re committed.” Most proud of: Earning his team’s trust and becoming a go-to engineer.
We checked in with Codesmith alum James Kim recently to discuss life almost a year after graduating from the Software Engineering Immersive! Learn about James’ career trajectory from mechanical engineering to software engineering, experience in the part-time program, and career as a software development engineer at Amazon ⬇️
What led you to pivot from mechanical engineering to software engineering?
I started with CS Prep , not JavaScript for Beginners, because I had some coding experience from mechanical engineering. I had studied MATLAB and a little bit of C++. So, I thought I would start at CS Prep and see if JavaScript was for me. And if not, then it's just a good two weeks of learning. When I got to software engineering, the thing that interested me the most was problem solving. All I do is problem solve now - and that's interesting.
Why did you choose to attend the Codesmith Software Engineering Immersive program?
I came to Codesmith because it was a really hard recommendation from my cousin and, when I went to CS Prep, I felt like there was a lot of hard learning being done. It wasn't like high school, where you are given the answer. For me, the hard learning was the key point that I took away, and the fact that I would have to work my butt off to pull it off. I knew that this program would help me to steer my learning path and my learning goals at the time.
Tell me a bit about your Open Source Product ?
We built DenoStore. It's a GraphQL caching solution in a Deno runtime. Basically, we created this middleware-esque tool where we can store commonly called API calls. And, the thing that really makes our tool unique is it’s developer friendly. We give the control to the developer of what they want to cache and what they don't want to cache, and how long they want to cache it for.
So, if a developer knows that there's an API call that doesn't change often, they can just cache it forever. But, if there's an API that changes every day, every 30 minutes, or every month, then they can set that time for that cache to expire. That was the main intention for us – that we wanted the tool to be easy to use, but also very developer friendly so that the developer had control over what they wanted to do with the data.
You were a Codesmith Engineering Fellow. Tell me about the Codesmith Fellowship and what you learned? You work as a Software Development Engineer I at Amazon. Tell me about the job search and interview process post-Codesmith?
During my job search, Amazon was reaching out to people every week because they were on a hiring spree. Once I passed the phone screen, there was an online assessment – it was two hours and covered two algos and some behavioral questions. I passed that, and then I moved on to the technical phone interview. That was about an hour, and I passed that, too. I went to the final four hour interview, which was back-to-back-to-back. And I got the offer.
What does a day in your life as a software development engineer look like? What advice do you have for aspiring software engineers trying to break into the industry? What are you most proud of in your career so far?