JavaRush: learn once, use everywhere

Dossier

• Who: Vitaly Evtekhov
• Worked as: bartender
• Place of residence: Stary Oskol, Russia
• Age at the start of Java training: 22
• First job as a programmer: a year after starting training
  Original success story

Hi all! At the age of 22, I graduated from the STI Institute NUST MISIS with a degree in Information Systems and Technologies in the city of Stary Oskol. Frankly speaking, I did not think that I would work in my specialty. I didn’t take my studies seriously, fortunately it was easy. There was little interesting during my studies. After graduating from the institute, the question arose of what exactly I would like to do. Besides, I wanted to leave my hometown for a bigger one. At the time of graduation, I was working as a bartender. And everything would be fine, but I wanted something else - to work more with my brain, to master something more rational. So I quit and started looking for “ something IT related .” A month of searching - and I got a job proudly called “ software engineer ”. In fact, it was a very boring system administration for a meager salary. Two weeks passed, and I decided that I still wanted to try my hand at programming. I started Googling language choices and ways to learn. That's when I came across Java Rush , signed up, and started bingeing on tasks one by one. By the tenth level, I was already taking part in the life of the forum, actively reading articles, and trying not to lose motivation. I didn’t have any finances as such, the salary at my position was very meager, so the choice fell on monthly payment. As promised at Java Rush , by level 30 I had a strong feeling that I was ready to look for a job.

Job search and shadow of doubt

Learning was not always easy. Sometimes I wanted to give up everything, sometimes - on the contrary, it seemed that I didn’t have enough and needed more. After three months of training ( level 30 ), I started looking for a job . Two months of searching for vacancies in neighboring cities (Belgorod, Voronezh) on HeadHunter and other sites were exhausting. There simply weren’t any vacancies that suited me. People with experience were needed everywhere, and even if I had the necessary knowledge, I was refused. To be honest, at some point I gave up. The crisis was in full swing, the dollar was growing, and I had already stopped believing in my successful transformation into a programmer. So I decided to quit and move, at least as a system administrator, but to a larger city. And suddenly, at the very last moment, I was lucky: I found a vacancy without any work experience requirement. I decided to send them my resume through Headhunter , they responded to it and called me. I explained that I was finalizing the last few days and would be moving to their city next week. We agreed on a date and time for the meeting.

There is work!

The interview was very specific: there were no difficult questions on Java that required any deep knowledge of the language. They didn't offer me any tricky logic puzzles either. This small company ( essentially a startup, and the people in it were not the most experienced ) needed an intern to do part of the work. Therefore, the guys tried more to find out personal qualities and only briefly glanced at the points indicated in the resume. After the conversation, I was given a task:

1. Write a class that reads certain data from an XML file.
2. Localize and display a message with support for two languages ​​of information within XML (Russian, English).
3. Correctly format the code.

I received the task late in the evening, the deadline was until noon the next day. I decided everything, tested it, made one minor adjustment at the last moment and sent it off. Everything worked, this ill-fated adjustment of mine caused the cancellation of support for the Russian language :). Fortunately, I noticed, immediately corrected it and sent a new version. As part of the assignment, they also asked me, in particular, why I completed the task in this particular way and not otherwise. In answering, I applied my knowledge from Java Rush about OOP . A day later I was informed that I was being hired for a probationary period of 3 months (by the way, it was closed twice as fast for my efforts :)).

Six months

At the time of writing this review, it was my sixth month working for the company. I am very happy with my new profession and life! I would like to tell everyone who is learning Java Rush the following: everything that is written on the site is true. Every motivating slogan, every statement - all this is justified and supported by real experience. Yes, sometimes it will be difficult, but you need to climb further. Thanks to JavaRush, I not only changed my profession and found myself, but moved to another city. Thanks to the creators, thanks to the authors of articles with interview questions and a list of technologies to study, thanks to the community. I believe that Java Rush is the best solution at the moment for teaching people programming in Java ( and other languages ​​do not have courses at this level at all ). Previously, I would never have believed that in order to change my life so dramatically it would be enough to earn $80 , money for the first month of living in a new city and register for Java Rush . " Java Rush : learn once - use anywhere ." To anyone and everyone who wants to learn Java , my answer is one - Java Rush !

PS : A year and a half later

15 months have passed since I wrote my “ Success Story ”. During this time, I managed to learn even more and also change companies. Let me start with an important note: if you think programming is an easy job ( whether physically or otherwise ), then you are seriously mistaken. I took part in hardcore business trips ( 4 hours of sleep a day ), when the product was sawed “ on the lap ” of the customer. I also had to manage a fairly large number of completely different projects, performing the roles of not only a developer, but a tester, consultant, technical support specialist, and so on. I realized that this state of affairs was due to the catastrophically small size of the company. After working in this mode for some time, I felt that I was running out of steam. In addition, despite the psychological support of managers, my financial situation did not change. I worked on all holidays, for long hours.

If you think you are worth more, stick to your line.

I'm definitely grateful for my first company. Thanks to her and this wildly difficult regime, I quickly learned many new things ( some Enterprise technologies, front-end design, studied a bunch of JS libraries and several HTML frameworks, deepened my understanding of Java ). At some point, I realized that my skills had seriously grown and I was no longer ready to work for the same money ( I had a really meager salary ) in such hardcore conditions. I asked my boss about my promotion, while simultaneously creating a resume and posting it on HeadHunter . Then began a series of various interviews. The managers didn’t want me to leave, but they never made an offer. By chance, an HR manager at Wrike found my resume and offered to consider the vacancy of a QA-Automation Engineer . I successfully passed the interview ( a little better/a little worse than in other companies ). I was impressed by the speed of HR ! I had barely walked 200 meters from the office when they called me and said that they would send me an offer within an hour. As a result, I was assessed at a radically different salary amount, and also (as I realized later) invited to one of the best companies in Voronezh with an excellent reputation. The work of a programmer never ceases to amaze me. At Wrike , I discovered that the IT world is even larger and more diverse than I thought. I learned that there are many types of IT specialists, and employees can be treated very differently... opportunities opened up for me on a different scale. Today my life as a programmer means a free schedule, ample opportunities for self-realization, a wonderful team, interesting tasks and, of course, financial independence. Don't give up, develop and love what you do, work with full dedication, and you will definitely find yourself in a world that will always surprise you. Thank you so much Java Rush ! For 30 levels that changed my life .