Jade Hayes was clicking through her newly launched app, eFoilSpots, watching her husband test every feature, trying his best to break it. He couldn’t. As a computer vision engineer, he knew what to look for. But the app held up.
For most people, this would be a triumphant moment. For Jade, it was something deeper: proof that the voice in her head from high school (the one that whispered “you’re not smart enough”) had been lying all along.
The Life Before Code
Jade’s life moved with the seasons. Winters found her carving down the mountains of Lake Tahoe, snowboard strapped to her feet. Summers meant directing camps in the Bay Area. In between, she competed in martial arts tournaments, channeling the same fighting spirit that once got her expelled from high school for, well, fighting.
It was exhilarating. It was fun. But something was missing.
“I felt like I was not utilizing my potential as far as ‘thinky’ stuff goes,” Jade admits. “I hadn’t really challenged myself mentally, and I really wanted to take that on.”
There was also the less romantic reality: a mountain of student debt that grew while she bounced between seasonal jobs. She needed a change, one that would challenge her mind the way martial arts had challenged her body.
The Leap Into the Unknown
When Jade decided to learn software development, she didn’t wrestle with fear or doubt. Not because she was fearless, but because of what she now laughingly calls “pure ignorance.”
“A lot of people told me how difficult it was going to be to learn,” she says. “But I didn’t listen and honestly, I think that helped me. I just dove in and took action.”
That Dunning-Kruger confidence (not yet knowing what you don’t know) became her superpower. While others hesitated at the threshold, paralyzed by the enormity of what lay ahead, Jade simply started.
Finding the Right Guide
A friend who worked as an engineering director mentioned his company might be hiring iOS engineers. His recommendation? CodeWithChris.
What struck Jade immediately wasn’t flashy marketing or promises of overnight success. It was Chris’s approach to teaching.
“You can tell Chris has a very low ego and he does a very good job of explaining things,” she explains. “It feels like he actually cares if you learn the material. I also appreciate he’s a parent and very low-key/down to earth!”
But more than personality, it was the structure that made the difference. Unlike tutorials that jump into high-level concepts, CodeWithChris met Jade exactly where she was (at the foundation) and built from there.
“I felt like I was learning the foundational building blocks,” she says. “My journey with CodeWithChris was great because it met me where I was in my software understanding and helped me grow.”
Before the Breakthrough
Learning to code wasn’t a smooth upward trajectory. Jade developed a pattern she came to recognize: a few days to a week of pure frustration, feeling completely lost, followed by that magical click when everything suddenly made sense.
“The first steps are often really confusing,” she says. “And that allows me to sort of lean into that feeling and know that it will all come out in the wash in due time.”
Her lightbulb moment came while wrestling with MVC architecture, a foundational pattern in iOS development. For days, it felt like trying to see a 3D image in one of those magic eye posters. Then, suddenly, the pattern emerged.
That understanding paid off faster than she expected. During a job interview, when asked about MVC architecture, her answer (grounded in the knowledge from CodeWithChris) helped her land a better position with a better offer.
The Moment She Almost Quit
The real test came during coding bootcamp. An instructor (someone Jade considered a friend) pulled her aside with a question that felt more like an ultimatum: Did she want to learn software or go for a new position? The implication was clear: she was too slow to make it.
“That moment had me thinking, maybe this is a waste of time,” Jade admits.
But she’d already invested too much money in the bootcamp to stop. And looking back now, from her position as a senior software engineer, she’s grateful she pushed through.
“I think it’s a good reminder that people might have the best intentions, but don’t listen to them. Listen to yourself and keep going.”
It’s advice born from experience. Even now, when family members look at her app with confusion and ask, “Is your plan to have people pay for this?” Jade recognizes the protective instinct behind the skepticism. But she’s learned to tune it out.
Building Something Real
The idea for eFoil Spots came from a practical problem. E-foiling, an activity where a motorized board with wings lifts you above the water, had become Jade’s new adventure with her husband. But finding good locations was a challenge. More critically, traveling with the battery was expensive and complicated, sometimes costing hundreds of dollars in shipping and labeling fees.
“I was going to build this just for us as a fun activity to learn Swift,” Jade explains. “But through the CodeWithChris tutorials, I felt like it would be a good opportunity to extend it and add things like RevenueCat, newsletter opt-in integration, and subscriptions.”
She wasn’t building it to make money (at least not yet). She was building it to gain experience with real-world app features that would serve her in future projects.
The app now helps people find e-foil locations worldwide, with plans to integrate battery rental services. It includes map functionality, newsletter integration, subscriptions, and ads: a full-featured app that proves she can build products with revenue potential.
“I don’t anticipate anyone paying for the app,” she says honestly, “but just knowing that I can build something with ads and subscriptions makes me feel like I want to build more things that could potentially allow me more freedom.”
The Victory That Changed Everything
When Jade finally tackled a “LeetCode hard” problem (the same problem her brilliant computer vision engineer husband had solved to land a job in the space industry) and her solution ran faster than his, something shifted.
“He’s one of the smartest people I know, so the fact that I solved it was a very proud moment for me,” she says. “I also remember struggling with LeetCode easy problems, so this hard problem took all day and was a huge win.”
But here’s what’s remarkable: even as a senior software engineer, Jade doesn’t walk around calling herself a developer with chest-puffed confidence.
“Honestly, I never feel like a developer,” she admits. “Even as a senior software engineer I still feel like I’ve tricked everyone and I’m the best imposter you’ll ever meet.”
It’s a refreshingly honest perspective in an industry that often demands performative confidence. But beneath the humor is something powerful: someone who went from being expelled from high school and fighting professionally to landing a senior engineering role at an observability company.
The Unexpected Doors
Learning to code didn’t just give Jade a new career. It rewired her understanding of what she was capable of.
“I had spent a lot of my life challenging myself physically and I think there was a part of myself that thought learning was really tough,” she reflects. “I was expelled from high school for fighting and then I ended up getting paid to fight professionally in college. In high school, I think I internally labeled myself stupid.”
Becoming an engineer helped her unravel those false beliefs.
Now, she looks at apps and thinks, “Oh, I can build that.” When she spots bugs in the wild, she chuckles, understanding exactly why they’re happening. Her eFoil Spots app even became the testing ground for auto-instrumenting observability at her day job, making her better at what she does professionally.
“The biggest change is my belief in what’s possible,” Jade says. “I’ve always believed things are possible but now I feel it at a deeper level. I really do think having the ability to think critically out of a difficult situation or problem like you do every day with coding helps.”
Her Message to You
Jade’s advice cuts through the noise with characteristic directness:
If you’re interested but have no experience: “Nobody has experience until they do. Go for it. Things might feel confusing for a long while, but that’s okay and that’s normal. Find a group of people you trust. And again, just don’t listen to people who are negative.”
If you’re struggling and want to give up: “There’s a difference between giving up and taking a break. Maybe things are really hard right now and it’s time for a break, but you don’t need to decide in the moment if you want to give it up for good.”
And perhaps most importantly, she wants you to understand something about those negative feelings: “When I’m having negative emotions about something it’s usually because I care a lot and I want a good outcome. Doubt, negativity, all those negative emotions are totally normal and it’s a sign that you care a lot about the outcome, which is super important to getting to where you want to go.”
What’s Next
Jade isn’t slowing down. She wants to build more iOS apps, continuing to expand her skills while excelling in her current role. The tools she gained from CodeWithChris have made her more effective at her day job, where she works with mobile observability.
But more than apps or job titles, Jade has something more valuable: proof that the labels we assign ourselves (or that others assign to us) aren’t permanent. The girl who got expelled for fighting is now a senior software engineer. The person who once thought she wasn’t cut out for mental challenges now solves complex problems for a living.
“I think the biggest regrets I have in life were moments of not believing in my potential and what I was capable of,” she reflects. “So I tell people to work on that in whatever form helps them best.”
Your potential isn’t determined by where you’ve been or what anyone has told you about yourself. It’s determined by what you’re willing to learn, how you handle frustration, and whether you keep going when someone suggests maybe you should stop.
Jade Hayes is proof that sometimes the best thing you can do is not listen to the doubts (even the ones in your own head) and just start. Download eFoilSpots on the App Store today.
Ready to start your own coding journey? Join CodeWithChris and discover the same hands-on, foundational approach that helped Jade go from complete beginner to senior software engineer. Start learning today!