Josh Kilgore

My Coding Journey

After graduating from Nashville School of Law and passing the BAR in 2012, I was excited to start practicing law and utilizing my shiny new license. I transitioned to an attorney role with the State of Tennessee within the same department where I had been working as an Administrative Assistant while attending law school. I enjoyed the work, but felt that there was not much room for growth. I loved the idea of changing the world through the application of logic and reason. I thought that I could most positively impact the world through the law.

I began to become a bit disillusioned and did some soul searching while continuing to serve as Associate General Counsel for the State and decided to seek some way to join my passion for knowledge, problem solving and continuous growth with my love for technology. My answer came when, through mutual friends, I met a seasoned software developer in 2015 who encouraged me to look into Nashville Software School. After discussing coding and tech and my desires for a change in career and work culture, I was ready to make the leap.

From the moment I met my instructors and classmates I knew I had found my tribe. Nashville has been my home my whole life, but it has certainly exploded onto the tech scene in recent years. I feel that my journey has evolved along with the city. I love digging in and really understanding the nuances of the technology and languages that we use. NSS provided an environment that encouraged experimentation and pushing my understanding while working in a simulated work environment that utilized Agile practices including standups and sprints.

My first role as a developer outside of NSS has been working as a contractor for Ingram Content Group on a large internal application which has allowed myself and some fellow NSS alumni to swim in the deep part of the ocean by thrusting us into a high-profile project with a tight timeline and really put our skills to the test. I had the opportunity to work with the full-stack utilizing mainly SQL, Angular 4, and C#/.NET while doing everything from fixing stubborn UI bugs, to code-hardening and improving my TDD skils, to learning asynchronous programming, to building tables in the database and exposing data to various API endpoints that we built from the ground-up. I couldn't have asked for a better team and environment to be able to lean on and learn from as I continue to grow my skills as a coder.