From 2018 to 2024 I served in the Royal Danish Air Force, first doing my national service (værnepligt), then four years as a Special Military Logistics Expert at the Joint Movement and Transportation Organization (JMTO), and finally as a military administrative assistant. The work meant moving cargo by air, sea, road and rail, two major deployments, and many trips to international operations areas.
Today I'm a software architect. It sounds like a big jump. It wasn't as big as it looks.
gantt
dateFormat YYYY-MM
axisFormat %Y
section Military
National service :2018-02, 2018-06
Logistics expert (JMTO) :2018-06, 2022-09
Administrative assistant :2022-08, 2024-02
section Tech
IT Architecture bachelor :2022-08, 2026-01
Developer at Oscilla :2023-06, 2026-01
Software Architect :2026-01, 2026-10
- Systems thinking: a supply chain is a distributed system with queues, bottlenecks and failure modes
- Working to regulations: reading dense specs like ADR or IATA DGR is good practice for reading standards and RFCs
- Planning for failure: what happens when the plane doesn't arrive? What happens when the service is down?
- Clear communication under pressure
- Discipline and ownership: finishing what you start
- Working across nations: cooperating with partners from other countries and organisations
- A different culture. Starting over with a new group of "colleagues", my classmates, who did not share the culture I came from. Going from a military unit to a classroom is a bigger change than going from logistics to code
- Your background is an asset. Domain knowledge and the habits you bring are things many developers lack
- Get a student job early. Real work makes the theory stick
- Build things. Small personal projects teach you more than any course