When I’m fixing a pesky time-sensitive bug in my software, when the clock is ticking and a weary client is waiting, I often reassure them by saying something like, “Don’t worry. I have a master’s degree in poetry. I got this.”

Imagine a surgeon echoing that same sentiment. Or a lawyer. Imagine if everyone in every profession effectively stayed at a Holiday Inn Express last night. Ebola and missed Senate hearings would be the least of our worries.

But there’s something special about software development.

Flickr user IntelFreePress

Okay, okay. Set aside the haughty world-changing claims of the valley gurus and the tech evangelists. Dig past all that hullabaloo and what you’ll find is that “dev” as a profession, in its humblest form, can be a real life-saver, especially for folks like myself blessed with crushing student debt and liberal arts degrees.

It pays well, it’s stimulating, it requires very little musculature, you probably won’t accidentally kill anyone (including yourself), and, most importantly, everyone is welcome to the party, young and old. It’s a profession that rewards experimentation over mastery and thus lends opportunities where other more rigid fields simply can’t.

Hence, Uncle Sam applies here: even you (whoever you are) can be a software developer. Background in anesthesiology not required.

After all, companies of all sizes need web work done, they need it now, and in most cases, the foundational skills required to complete such jobs can be honed quickly and on the fly.

Visiting Dev League: Hawaii’s First Developer Boot Camp

In a place like Hawaii, where the cost of living is high and the opportunities for professional growth are limited, dev can have even more of an impact.

Hawaii’s first web developer training boot camp, Dev League, is helping local residents, young and old, seize the opportunities provided by tech — to transform their eagerness to learn into a career change or a new entrepreneurial endeavor.

Dev League is a bootstrapped startup co-founded by Russel Cheng and Jason Sewell. The company is cash-flow positive in its first year, and Cheng, already having two successful exits, is optimistic about the company’s future.

“We’re building Dev League our own way,” Cheng said.

With no state funding and no private investors, Dev League is a refreshingly grassroots approach to stimulating tech growth here in Hawaii, and, at such an early age, it’s already yielding very promising results.

Thus far, 100 percent of Dev League graduates — 10 students in all — snagged a programming job within 60 days of finishing the classes. One student now works for Uber, a ridesharing service based in Silicon Valley. Another is working as a consultant for a government agency. Two graduates were hired by Sewell’s own tech company, Sudokrew.

Dev League isn’t an accredited, degree-doling school, which would likely be a death blow for any other well-paying profession, but in the world of tech, hands-on skill still trumps expensive, framed diplomas.

The course-load is intense: 12 weeks, 11 hours per day, six days per week. And the $10K tuition cost is nothing to sneeze at. But Dev League offers scholarships for women and for other applicants who are in need, and they offer a part-time course-load that can be completed while working a full-time job.

For younger learners, Dev League also offers a 16-week, after-school coding bootcamp at MidPac. And next month, they’ll be collaborating with Purple Mai’a, a new non-profit organization focused on tech education in Hawaii, to create an engineering class at Jarret Middle School in Palolo.

Long term, Sewell hopes to create a much larger youth program, called Jr. Dev League, that will offer after school courses at a number of public and private Hawaii middle schools.

The Future Is Bright

The full-time Dev League students I talked with all shared a passion for coding and a passion for lifelong learning.

Their reason for joining Dev League was a universally understandable one: they loved Hawaii, but they were disgruntled with their former jobs (or lack thereof), and they wanted their careers to be more stimulating, meaningful, and impactful.

Dev League is a strong step in that right direction.

As I’ve said before, it’s important that Hawaii focuses on developing a tech environment unique to Hawaii, with diversity and opportunity at its core, empowering as many people as possible to build software, break software, and be heard.