The Journey of Denzy Jones
Dr. Dennis Akpenyi
- 6 minutes readWhere It All Began
Yep, that was me in that picture, sitting in a seminar room in Florence, Italy, surrounded by fellow attendees at DjangoCon Europe 2017 - long before “vibe coding” was even a thing. My laptop screen glowed with lines of Python code I barely understood. I was debugging my very first Django app with the help of a new friend I’d just met at the conference. He leaned over, offered a few pointers, and before I knew it, the app was running. That small victory felt monumental. But that moment wasn’t just about fixing code - it was symbolic. It was proof that I could belong here, that I could start over.
Just a year earlier, I had stepped away from the consulting room: from the world of diagnoses, stethoscopes, pharmaceuticals, emergency rooms, and beeping patients’ monitors to chase a different kind of pulse. After graduating from medical school, I began my compulsory one-year housemanship at a hospital that, fortunately, ran on an electronic medical record (EMR) system. I was fascinated. The mostly seamless orchestration of patient care, personnel, and resources intrigued me deeply, and that curiosity sparked my journey into software engineering. Not long after, I enrolled for a Master’s in Medical Informatics at a university in Germany. My goal was simple: to understand how software is made, and how I could bridge my medical training with software engineering to improve lives. I wanted to master the tools that could make that transformation real. I didn’t have all the answers. But I had passion, and sometimes, that’s enough to ignite a journey.
When Passion Meets Reality
Let’s be honest, the road wasn’t smooth. It never is when you’re starting from scratch. I faced countless challenges. Back then, learning meant scavenging through Stack Overflow threads, obscure blog posts, and endless YouTube tutorials. I spent months stuck in “tutorial hell,” clawing my way toward understanding, filling knowledge gaps one frustrating step at a time. Finding a mentor who understood my unusual path was nearly impossible, so I mostly learned alone - making mistakes in the dark, piecing things together by instinct. Opportunities were scarce, too. After all, how many organizations were willing to take a chance on a medic trying to break into tech? There were days I doubted myself. Days I wondered if I’d made a terrible mistake stepping away from clinical medicine. But every time I wrote code that worked, that familiar spark returned - a quiet reminder of why I started. Eventually, I landed my first developer role. It wasn’t glamorous, but it meant the world to me. From there, I began building real systems, joining incredible teams, mentoring others, and later, stepping into entrepreneurship and tech investing.
The climb was steep - but every setback built resilience. Every “no” sharpened my focus.
The past few years have been a masterclass in persistence, curiosity, and humility:
- I started with Python, HTML/CSS, and JavaScript, and made my way into the deep boroughs of Go, C, C++, Rust, and Elixir.
- I ambled from SQL to NoSQL, and back again to SQL (yes, Postgres won my heart), learning how real-world data lives and breathes.
- I studied the foundations of computing, how operating systems work, how computers “talk” to each other through protocols, and how data structures, algorithms, and design patterns shape everything we build.
- I explored frameworks, libraries, and architectures - not just to use them, but to understand them.
And yes, I’ve bought more than 200 technical books (not even counting eBooks). Don’t ask if I’ve read them all! Each one added a small brick to the wall of understanding.
But the greatest lesson? Software engineering isn’t about memorizing syntax and semantics - it’s about how you think. It’s about clarity, structure, and solving problems that matter.
From one dreamer to another
Switching careers is like learning to walk again - awkward, uncertain, and often lonely. But passion will keep you going when logic tells you to stop. And one day, you’ll look back and realize the climb was worth it - every hour, every setback, every small win.
Changing paths isn’t about escaping your past; it’s about building on it. Clinical medicine taught me empathy, observation, and discipline - qualities that now shape the way I write code and lead teams. The truth is, your past doesn’t hold you back. It prepares you. If I had to start again, I’d take more risks, fail faster, and ask for help sooner. I’d remind my younger self that it’s okay to feel lost, every expert once did. The key is to keep moving. Because growth doesn’t happen in comfort. It happens when you show up, even when you are rejected or don’t feel ready.
Practical Advice for New Developers:
- Keep learning. Not just by reading, but by doing. Every project teaches you something new.
- Imposter syndrome will whisper that you don’t belong. Ignore it, everyone starts as a beginner.
- Go one layer deeper. Don’t just use tools, understand what’s underneath. Understanding the abstraction beneath where you operate daily gives you the clarity to debug confidently.
- Start now. Don’t wait for perfect conditions. Learn as you go. Build as you grow.
The best developers aren’t those who knew everything from day one - they’re the ones who refused to quit.
These days, AI has become the new accelerant of creativity. It helps you learn faster and experiment more. It can explain, refactor, and suggest ideas in seconds. But here’s my advice: don’t let AI do your thinking for you. Understand the basics. Because while AI can make you faster, depth comes from you. And depth is what sets great engineers apart. Use AI as a tool - not a crutch.
Looking back, my journey from clinical medicine to software engineering wasn’t just a career change - it was an evolution. Whether diagnosing a patient or debugging a program, the goal is the same: to understand complexity, to bring order out of chaos, and to make things better than they were before. If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s this: you don’t need to have it all figured out to start. You just need to begin and trust that the path will reveal itself as you move forward. So here’s to everyone standing at the edge of change, wondering if they can do it - you can. You absolutely can. And one day, you’ll look back like I do now and realize that the hardest step was the first one.
PS: And who is Denzy Jones, you ask? During my university days, I wrote under the name “Denzy Jones,” a moniker that embodied my writer’s alter ego and creative persona.