Settled!

And now the great hour has come and I’m publishing the story!))) I’ll probably start it with studying, or rather entering university. As usual, after school you don’t really know anything, you don’t know how, you’re not able to decide anything on your own, but somehow I decided that I wanted to become a programmer. This is even surprising back in 2002. Having neither a computer nor the Internet. Information was spread through acquaintances, acquaintances, acquaintances. In general, my classmate’s neighbor was just studying this specialty and it seems like after graduating from university you are a Software Engineer! Now it seems like I googled it, found it for myself, read it, found out, and there are no problems. If you want it in Europe, you want it in Moscow, Minsk, Kyiv, etc. I collected my documents and hit the road! Even I can’t imagine how we lived without phones, how we met each other at the station without a mobile phone. Nowadays all or almost all information can be found on the Internet. To be honest, my studies at the university weren’t going very well either. It seems that I studied where I wanted, and I had the ability (I still got there, albeit after 10 years)))) As one of my friends later described studying at the university - “at the university you did everything, just didn’t study.” But in vain! If I knew the university program well, it would be much easier. But I would say the matter is a little different. I gained knowledge at the university, but it took time to figure out what was what (all these abstractions, inheritance, why this is so). At the university, as everywhere else, there were “excellent students” and “low students.” So, I graduated from university (on the second try :)) And I wouldn’t say that “excellent” students know everything better than “low” students. About 50/50. Everything depends on the person. Of course, not all the “B” students received a diploma, but even the “A” students did not later become programmers. Recently, one classmate asked me how I became a programmer, but he studied well and even got into courses for programmers at Epam. I would say a lot depends on the city. So - let's move on. The job search in my city wasn’t going particularly well. First I got a job at a service center. A classmate was in charge there. I had to administrate computers, but at the same time travel all over the city. Then I moved to another office, where I also had to administrate computers, but mostly in place. AND I WORKED THERE FOR MORE THAN 7 YEARS! IT'S LOCKED! There were attempts to become programmers several times. But it came in influxes. I read books, tried to get a job, had interviews, took tests, but they didn’t hire me. Now I understand why they didn’t hire me. Describing the work situation in the city, I think many will recognize their city in this description. In general, it’s not the capital, but it’s not like Mukhosransk, it’s a regional center after all, but work is a little tight. And give it to everyone with experience, with at least 3 years of experience. There were a couple of offices that recruited juniors, but as those who got the job said, after university they only started programming after 6 months. I was very surprised - why do they pay a salary if they do nothing. Continuous training as at a university or in courses like GO-IT. While I was working in a government office, I was spinning computers, taking photos and doing all the admin (in that office there were such responsibilities). At that time (2008) we didn’t even have job tests like we do now. Epama included a job placement program after the courses. And even then, one (or maybe more) of my classmates didn’t get into EPAM after the course, and I didn’t even get into the course. There were options to get there while studying at the university - to become an intern, but this is also more for excellent students because there are a lot of people willing (not about Epam). In general, there were a couple of other offices and they simply wrote tests with answer options. The demand was mainly for C++. You write tests, and after a couple of days they tell you the results. If you wrote it poorly, teach it, come back in a month and write again. (My classmates told me exactly the same story about “come back in a month.” Now I already understand how it works: a personnel officer or HR manager must keep people on hand so that they can get someone a job at any time. And so they post vacancies in advertisements, although in reality 1. no one needs you. 2. in addition to your resume, there are still a bunch of similar applicants there. 3. You just misjudged the timing, you hired a specialist last week or you will need him in a week, but tomorrow Vasya will write test with the same result and his profile will be “at the top”) After a while, when I got a job as an admin, I somehow gave up on these tests. Some work matters, personal matters, etc. appeared. A couple of years later I came to my senses and again started reading a book on Java, tried to write tests, get into courses at EPAM - again it was a miss. Scored again. And so 7 years passed. After this time, I realized that I didn’t want to work in an office where you do useless work, although I said that you need to do it differently. Then you redo it again, and then it turns out that no one needs it at all. And then somehow by chance I found the Java-Rush course. I was absolutely delighted! After all, I wanted to learn Java, and not C++ or Delphi, so that I could work with them later. In general, training has begun. At first everything was simple, interesting and easy. Then business trips started at work (which was the most stressful thing - you don’t know where you will be tomorrow) and I again gave up on studying. A couple of months later I returned here again. I started studying hard. I figured that if I take 2 levels a week, I’ll finish the course very soon. I even went on vacation and studied and solved problems at home all day long. But then I faced difficult challenges. The theory I read began to overtake the course. There were a lot of unsolved problems left, and simply clicking through a course with unsolved problems will not lead to success. In general, I made a lot of progress during my vacation, but I was still far from finishing my training (I still haven’t completed it yet). And I didn’t have a subscription (about subscriptions, of course, this is a separate topic, I’m showing off here on the honor board of “great schemers” :)))). Anyway. In parallel with this, I have already taken courses at 2 offices, Epam and another office. Epam took a very long time to respond. They promised to start the courses, but then they started a month later, but... “We really need specialists”, the courses were done 3 days a week. But they were free. In general, I abandoned the Epam course because I placed a bet on another company. The conditions were like: you go to courses, then you get an internship (free), and then after a while you get a job. I took other courses, which I paid for myself, and hoped to get a job there later. I was even pleased when the director stopped by and said - why are there so few people, these are our future employees! But after the courses, as far as I know, no one got a job in this office, although not only I wrote tests there and received an answer that everything was fine. I chose these courses because literally 6 months ago one of my friends got a job through these same courses. By the way, another friend of mine took courses at EPAM and also received the answer “we’ll call you later.” And this is not the friend I wrote about at the beginning, but “7 years later.” As I wrote above, it’s simply not the right moment. By this time, job offers had increased slightly, and a couple more offices appeared. Yes, and the requirements have changed. Now they have already requested the test task "CRUD web application", and this is already level 35 in JavaRush. But it was still possible to get some help from a mentor while completing the task. At some point, I “clicked” to the maximum level in JavaRush, and solved all the available problems without subscribing, but without checking, and received a ban + reset from Hubert. The web application was still a long way off; attempts to make one were unsuccessful. How to study further is also unclear. Paid courses with employment ended in nothing. The conversation with Hubert also made me somewhat wary. Hubert seemed very harsh to me, he reminded me of amateur admins - “I have power, stay banned!” - "Can you at least..." - "No, we don't work with people like that!" - "is it possible..." *you are on the black list and cannot send...* 2014 after all. Few people have encountered purchasing licenses, paying for something via the Internet, how it works and what guarantees there are. For the same, PayPal had to make a separate card at one time in order to order from ebay, and many simply did not know how to do this (a regular salary card did not allow this). And for the last 7 years, all I’ve been doing is installing pirated Windows at work, and to the question “can we at least buy it for a server?” I received the answer - “no, it’s too expensive, solve this issue differently.” Later I talked to Zap and he assured me that there was nothing wrong, just buy an unlimited subscription and there would be no problems. But there was little time for subscription at that time. I was planning to move and needed a job. The course should have been completed yesterday. In general, I moved to another city/country. Still reading the book on Java-core. A lot of incomprehensible material. I saved up some money, bought a subscription, wrote to Hubert (at least I didn’t get banned everywhere :)) and he reinstated me. I started taking the course again. In addition, the subscription included the option “preparing a resume.” In general, I compiled a resume and sent it to Javarush so that they could evaluate it. I received a couple of tips on what to fix, what to highlight, what to add. A very good option for someone to evaluate your resume. I wrote a cover letter for my resume and started sending it out everywhere (Javarush also advised how and where to send it), but few interviews were scheduled, or I didn’t pass them. The city sometimes hosted various IT events: free lectures, rallies with employers, etc. I attended these lectures and interviews and realized something important: 1. You need to prepare for interviews. When you find yourself at an interview, you experience stress, you begin to worry and become very dull. What you would have decided in a couple of minutes, you just can’t do at an interview. In general, you need to train communication. 2. Salary. You need to know the real prices, although everywhere they write that salaries are not discussed. If you indicate too large an amount, then you must offer some knowledge on your part (or you will simply be bombarded with questions). If the amount is too small (and it seems that the less you agree to work for, the better), then there is another point of view: a person with too little salary either knows nothing, or will work to his own detriment -> you will train a specialist and teach him everything -> because he works to his own detriment, one fine day he will leave you -> you wasted a lot of expensive time of your specialists who trained him and were left with nothing. In principle, everything is logical. 3. English. You need to write a couple of essays about yourself, what you did before, and what they might ask at the interview. You won’t tell “London is the capital of Great Br...” :))). 4. When you go for an interview, you need to look at what kind of company it is and what it does. There may be questions - you know what our company does. (But you don’t know, and in principle you don’t care, just to get a job) 5. Each response to a vacancy needs to be given time. It won't work here like in Java. (Resume resume = ResumeFactory.createResume(); resume.send();) There is no point in sending out resumes with errors if you don’t want to get blacklisted (send your resume to the same epam, and say luxoft in the title) Each submission must be given due attention about an hour of time, write a story about why I want to work for you, read about the company and insert suitable phrases, etc. Quality is very important. 6. Here I would add another point about the vacancy for which you are applying. If you go for an interview to become a tester, you should say - “how I dream of becoming a tester”, a programmer - “how I dream of becoming a programmer”. If you are asked a question like where do you see yourself in 5 years and you say a programmer, although you are interviewing for a tester, your resume ends up in the trash. The company is not happy with the “take it from someone else” option. 7. I once read a story about the incompatibility of people. The interview is usually attended by your future boss or at least present. And if your communication with him is not going well at all, then you can pack your things and leave. I had this and then I thought it was good that I didn’t get to them and the question was asked: why aren’t you working now, what do you live for? what will you do when your savings run out? - I would say that it is very strange for me not to have savings if you are over 50 (as the interviewee) or to think that a person at 30 has not thought about it himself. 8. If you are interviewing, for example, in Polish and don’t know words like inheritance, polymorphism, it’s okay if you say them in English. In any case, you will be understood and it will be better than just remaining silent. 9. Sometimes they ask about SQL; it would also be good to be able to write complex queries. Let's move on. It took me about 6 months from the move to the job offer. It took a lot of time to study and solve problems. I lay at home all day and decided for a couple of months, then for 2 months I got a part-time job, which turned out to be not very good, because... it was 12 hours a day. A couple more months of unsuccessfully sending out resumes, and in the end I began to receive invitations for interviews (beginning of 2016). The first interview was a failure - I couldn’t write my linkedList class, I was very worried. There was an interview on Skype - also bad, there were also interviews over the phone. At one interview I had to parse an xml file for a website. You could look on the Internet and do whatever you wanted. Another interview was with online tests (describedHERE ) Then there was another interview, everything went great (as it seemed to me). They even worked there at Idea, and communication went well, I hoped that I would get a job there. They said they would contact me within a month. Then there was an interview with these questions that were strange to me, and finally an interview where they hired me. When I was already working, they called me from the office where I was hoping to go and said that they had chosen another candidate. So I was glad that I accepted the offer of the first ones who agreed to take me. The interview didn't go exactly as I had planned. Firstly, I was late, but there was a slightly different interview format. I just came, they took me into a room, they gave me a task on .net with an apology that the Java tests were not ready yet, but there was nothing special, try to solve it, and they left me alone in the room. In general, I decided something there, then I realized that the solution was not optimal, so I started correcting it using OO programming. The interviewer came, I explained what I had done wrong and had almost corrected it, he asked a couple more standard questions, asked about the salary and let me go in peace, saying that they would contact me in a couple of days. And literally the next day they called me and offered me a job in a week, because... The whole office is leaving on a business trip and no one will process me. It sounded a little strange but I didn’t really have a choice, I still sent out my resume, but no one else called me for interviews. Then the day came when they told me to come and get settled, but everything was postponed to the next day. Which again made me a little wary, but there wasn’t much choice. In general, I arrived on the appointed day, they processed me and began to bring me up to date. Considering that in JavaRush a large task was maybe 50 classes, then in the current project there are probably more than 5 thousand classes. About a year passed before I somehow learned to navigate these plugins and classes. Sometimes you return to your own classes that you wrote when you arrived and rewrite everything again, because... at that time I knew too little of everything, I didn’t have my bearings, I didn’t understand it well, the classes were written poorly and no one will correct them except you (and it would be better if no one had ever seen them!) Soon it will be 2 years since I’ve been working here. Initially there was a trial period of 3 months, then a contract for 6 months and then with automatic renewal or something like that. End :)