Hi, I’m Jose Islava. My path into software development has been anything but traditional. I come from construction and previously served in the United States Marine Corps, completing two deployments before leaving as a Sergeant.

After four years welding in Tucson, I realized I wanted more. I remembered a web development class from high school — learning HTML and CSS sparked a lasting curiosity for building things with code.

I enrolled at the University of Arizona as an Applied Computing major, focusing on software development. Since then, I’ve gained experience in Python, C, C#, Kotlin, and R, and built projects like BookHub, a Flask-based REST API for managing personal bookshelves.

The transition hasn’t been easy, but if the military taught me anything, it’s to tackle challenges head-on. I’m passionate about solving real-world problems through code and continuously growing my skills in backend and full-stack development.

My Journey in Pictures

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