Well, I wanted to start the story with something inspiring and easy to understand... But again it all came down to typical patterns about age that everyone talks about, but you personally never feel. Hello colleagues. My name is Danil, I'm 35 years old and I'm a programmer. The background of my career is similar to thousands and millions of others like them in our country, and perhaps throughout the world. Growing up, having fun, not thinking about anything. I was interested in something, read something, respected something. I thought I was on to something. Then I went to study somewhere. Because I couldn’t get into another place. And if you think about it - did you want to? Was there an understanding at that moment of what you wanted? Real dreams? Not just to earn a lot of money, but to do something that you would want to do?! No, of course not. I studied somehow at school. Ever since I met the computer science club in the 6th grade, there was some kind of craving for computers... Even an interest in programming, in understanding something. But now, after so many years, it seems ridiculously strange that there was no desire to go deeper then. Understand, find out and feel... In those distant 95s, we programmed in QBasic and dreamed of releasing “our own version of Windows” (which we didn’t even see then), in VGA mode :) Or make a computer game, like Command & Conquer or something like the then fashionable quests, but only where the main character is Bill Gay (Shhh!). We looked at Pascal, but everything was so complicated there... We heard something about C, but we weren’t able to run a single program. We studied and played on the first x386, under the black eye of MS DOS, the weight of boxes with a dozen floppy disks and jokes about terrabyte hard drives. So, all this was there, but there was no desire and understanding that one could dive deeper into all this. To be honest, in subsequent years there were even cases when programming made it possible to escape, and sometimes even earn a little extra money. In my life, I have written 1 program for a thesis and several for coursework, although I never studied in such a specialty :) And all this without immersion, on sheer enthusiasm. Of course, I wouldn’t want to work with that code now :D I entered a construction technical school, studied to be a builder passably, but, fortunately, did not get a job in distribution. Being very passive in finding work, I got a job as a mechanic in a company servicing heating networks. Then, also through an acquaintance, he entered the sphere of consumer services, where he was reliably mired in for the next 12 years. And now I’m already a mobile equipment repair engineer! This work is, of course, not bad. And it seems that you can get a good income, and there is room for development... But all this was not the case. The feeling of an amateur began to appear everywhere. There is enough work, regular clients return, but everything is not the same. It feels like you don't fully understand how it all works. And at the same time, the understanding that paid education for 5 years will also not lead to anything. After 5 or 6 years, repairing phones was already making me feel significantly nauseous. I wanted, if not to change my profession, then at least to go “free swimming”. But, of course, these passive desires were not destined to come true. The years have flown by, and now I’m already 33. Anyone who is 10 years younger might say that this is almost old age, but he Anyone who is 10 years older, of course, will disagree with him, just as I will not agree either :) But out of boredom and monotony in repairing phones, I began to get involved in various creative activities. And so I already imagined that my calling was design or, at worst, website building, 3D modeling or video editing! Fortunately, this passion of mine has truly brought about changes in my life. Within a couple of years, part-time jobs and significant prizes in creative competitions appeared. And so I was called to another job - as a designer at a local manufacturing company. Suddenly a wind of change appeared in my life, like in the famous Scorpions song. Having changed jobs for the first time in a long time, I suddenly felt like I could change everything if I wanted. I realized that when every minute of my life will not be filled with fiddling with someone's phone or talking with friends of friends of friends of acquaintances about what they should do to make their phone work, or fruitlessly relaxing playing tanks, or sitting at work and the fear that some careless action would force me to spend my already small salary on buying a broken part - I realized that I could change. Change to actually do what I want. And when I started working as a designer, it turned out that I didn’t want to do design. Of course, drawing, design, webmastering, modeling and video editing are all interesting professions. But something was missing in them, creativity of some other level. When I saw the advertisement “Java Courses” and the salary that was promised after training, I understood what it was like :) Yes, of course! All my life I dreamed of becoming a programmer! A salary that is three or four times higher than mine, and a job where you need to think! A job where you are not tied to anything but your head! This is what I always dreamed of, but God, how long I didn’t understand it! “You know,” I said to my wife. - what if I become a programmer? They get 100-200 thousand. “Of course,” she said. - Stand up. And we will go to Brazil. - But this is not a matter of one month. Of the year! And in the evenings I will always be very busy! - Well... what can you do? This is how it all would have started, but... For some reason, the bank did not approve a loan of 30 thousand for the training of a designer who had recently entered the labor market. And, as it turned out, not in vain :) All accidents are not accidental, as old Oogway used to tell Master Shifu. The desire to quickly join the ranks of programmers could turn out sadly. After all, what matters in training is not the amount you pay for it, but the knowledge you receive. Despite the fact that I didn’t get into expensive courses, I didn’t give up my desire to become a programmer. The situation contributed to this. A calm, peaceful environment where you could think and relax. Salary! Over the next month, I scoured the Internet, looking for the best (and of course free!) way to become a Java programmer. Why Java? After all, they have the highest salaries! That's how I got into JavaRush . Then it had an old design, so reminiscent of the once beloved cartoon Futurama. With 10 free levels and some kind of tacky, “techy” Javarush I was immediately attracted to. I eagerly rushed to study. I thought that after 10 levels, with parallel study of free courses like those on Youtube, various seminars like Geekbrain’s and applications like SoloLearn, I would probably become so skilled that I would definitely achieve something in my career! I completed the first 10 levels in what seemed like a week or less. It was so simple, exciting, complex and at the same time intoxicating - beyond words. Of course, there were also deep misunderstandings. Can you imagine what it’s like to think for almost 20 years that you understand programming well, and that a program is a file that is executed from top to bottom... and to be faced with the fact that the program is not a file at all, but a whole project, and there are still a bunch of files in the project, and when you click on the “run” button (in the then unusual IntellijIDEA), it is not necessarily the file that you see on the screen that is launched... It was painfully incomprehensible, so somewhere in the wilds of the old Discussions still include my angry and abusive comments about the short-sightedness of the creators, who did not think that their users were completely new and did not understand anything about these newfangled “ideas” =) This is how the free 10 levels ended - quickly, in one breath. It was so good that I almost immediately purchased a paid continuation for a month. This was a significant purchase for me. At first things went well, but subsequent levels were much more difficult. In addition, I came to the understanding that up to level 10 there were relatively simple algorithmic problems, and I never developed a deep understanding of “modern programming”. A month has passed and I have made no significant progress. Probably closer to level 20 or something. But every day there was a feeling that I wasn’t keeping up. The money was invested, but I am not able to justify it. Under the weight of realizing my powerlessness, I abandoned classes for a month or two. Only occasionally did I watch some interesting videos on the topic, but without details. New Year 2017 is approaching. And along with it, a huge gift that all JavaRush students are waiting for - a huge 50% discount on tuition. The self-torment subsided, but the dream still lived. And I bought it. It was not cosmic, but also very significant money that needed to be justified. Immediately after the New Year holidays, I set to work with renewed vigor. I remember that everything went well until I came across a seemingly simple, but at the same time very difficult problem for a beginner with my “background.” I think it's called "Restaurant". She was not comfortable with washing or riding, she did not want to make up her mind either through prolonged study or in short bursts of “five minutes.” Classes and methods floated around in my head, getting confused and clinging to one another, and I definitely couldn’t tell which one was which. I fought with her for probably a week. The old fear was already beginning to loom on the horizon of consciousness; and only a toad threatening to strangle me for a gigantic 6 thousand rubles forced me not to quit the game I got involved in... And then a great grief happened in my family... Huge and, as always happens, unexpected... For a whole week I didn’t I could think about nothing at all. I couldn’t do anything, think, live... I just stopped at some point in the Universe and flew somewhere where we are all flying... I’m glad, reader, that you got to this place. Because this is the most important thing in my story. This is the main reason why I can now say that I live and do not exist. And although it is sad, every end is a beginning. That's how I started. For real. After a week of ignorance and apathy, melancholy gave way to desire and desire to live. A realization appeared in my head. Every parent dreams of his children living. We lived as long as we lived. And then they will live in us... Returning to the “Restaurant”, I suddenly felt an amazing lightness. Classes that use classes, create instances of classes, and implement interfaces suddenly seemed like a simple task of untangling strings. You pull one, see what moves - and there it is! It turned out to be just one typo-level error! :) I recommend everyone to unravel this “nutritious” knot. Then it was more difficult and significantly more complicated. But all this no longer seemed like the end of the world or a death sentence. Every riddle had an answer. If it was not resolved for a long time, it could be postponed and returned to it later with renewed vigor. And then she could no longer resist! Of course, there were wars with validators, and a boiling of incomprehensibility in my head, but everything already fit into some kind of structure. Everything seemed to have decided to change, and the hard granite had already turned into sandstone. And any block of sandstone can be worn down, it just takes time. Another 4 or 5 months passed. And I already felt my strength. Numerous tests for knowledge of Java Core, puzzles, a huge number of videos (what a blessing that now we have the Internet, where you can find everything!) on a variety of programming topics.Истории успеха, encouraging or not, but equally curious, revealing this unknown sphere of IT. Or maybe I can already? At some point, my head was literally spinning from all these stories. So, heeding numerous advice, I decided to go for interviews. After all, in almost every success story it was recommended to go around at least a dozen of them before you find your destiny. I looked at a very famous job search resource. I didn’t even think that in our small, modest Izhevsk there was a great demand for programmers. But having noticed the rather interesting position of a junior, I decided to take a risk. Having indicated a rather modest amount in the resume, I applied for the vacancy. But how surprised I was when the next Monday (I submitted my resume, if I’m not mistaken, on Friday), recruiters started calling me. And not at all from the company where I submitted my resume. Of course, I could assume that someone would find my resume and find it quite interesting, but mentally I was ready to go for interviews once a month and hardly more. So, frightened by such sudden attention, I quickly hid my resume. But out of curiosity, I decided to go to both interviews that they managed to schedule for me. I didn’t prepare at all technically for the first interview. The stories said that interviews are divided into stages, and first there is usually a simple introduction, without testing. Nevertheless, I did not count on success and mentally prepared myself, first of all, not to be upset by a refusal or something good from a bewildered “how dare you with such a level?” I have never been to the offices of IT companies before, I only saw in pictures these fabulous “gingerbread houses” of Google, Facebook, etc. Yes, I didn’t expect to see something like that. It seemed that in our outback there would be some kind of downtrodden, bespectacled people sitting behind wooden chairs, buried close to CRT monitors with a protective filter. But no. Of course, I didn’t see the splendor and chic of Google there, but the table football in the office made an impression on me. In a certain sense, it was a challenge to my entire previous way of working life, where the number of hours spent at work was directly related to the amount of pay. A quick interview with HR, then a questionnaire filled out with a trembling hand (I was not ready for testing). Then a short conversation with the head of the department and now I was offered a job. Yes Yes! Despite the fact that I did not answer all the questions in the test, in general my knowledge of Java was really good, so I was immediately offered a job. The salary they offered was a little, but more than what I asked for in my resume. In addition, after the probationary period it was supposed to increase. And then they immediately invested in raises and even greater salary increases! I was a little stunned by this temptation. But he also became bolder. I no longer deliberately prepared for my next interview. And we shouldn’t immediately agree to the first job offer either—success stories teach us. In some ways this is true. Therefore, of course, I did not refuse the second recruiter and went for a second interview after the job was offered. But at this interview I had to feel somewhat ashamed of my self-confidence. The simplest questions, which now don’t even seem like tasks to me, then caused complete confusion in my head. I was crushed, exhausted and (oh my god!) I even confused HTML with HTTP when talking to leads! After such destruction, I was no longer sure that I was ready to become a programmer. HR from the company where I had my first interview persistently asked for an answer and even sent me an offer (another buzzword that I had to encounter for the first time). They were even ready to wait for my return from a very long-planned vacation, but I still hesitated. After all, it was still necessary to inform the new-old boss that their new-old designer was leaving them, so unexpectedly for himself and for them. Still, I couldn't help but agree. I agreed, talked to the new-old boss, and everything went smoothly. That's how I turned into an autotester. Perhaps someone will say that autotesters are not programmers at all, and their work must be very boring. But I completely disagree with them here. Besides, I myself once thought that testers were programmers who lacked something to become “full-fledged” (may my colleagues not beat me if they read these lines and recognize me! Hello to you all, by the way! ) But everything turned out completely wrong. When I stepped over the first step and began to fully develop pieces of the framework, an epiphany came. I felt like a programmer who not only wants to make some programs, but also knows where a critical error may lie in them. I understood how Javarush validators work and why they don't always seem logical. I realized many of the technical intricacies of programming, and I plunged into this new world more smoothly than if I had immediately gotten into IT as a junior developer. You ask, can I now become a “full-fledged” programmer? Easily! But now I have a wider choice: I can choose a job not only because of the salary, but also because of the team, the environment, the project. In addition to mental insights, a completely different working world unfolded around me. The job wanted me. She wanted to feed me, give me something to drink, entertain me, relax me, and at the same time pay me a salary. These first six months were like a dream. I just couldn’t believe that all these decades, while I was languishing in my old jobs, all this was developing and blooming here. And of course it was waiting for me! And everyone who strives there :) It was also surprising to see how dozens of colleagues for some reason did not notice all these riches of the IT sphere, all this charm of life that is right here, right in front of you. As if this is all so commonplace and ubiquitous that there is nothing to notice here. But here you live for real, work for real and earn real money. Colleagues are each a unique personality, intellectuals and passionate people; many of them are creative people and absolutely all of them are just nice people! I can hardly convey that entire cosmos of feelings in this tiny paragraph. I just really hope, reader, that you will believe me how real and blessed everything has become in this new area for me. And I came to this on my own, purposefully. Over the course of a year, I became familiar with all the technologies used. Once again I rethought my attitude towards understanding programming in general and Java in particular. I was hunted dozens of times, which has never happened before! For me, life became an unimaginable pleasure - I received real pleasure from work, came home and continued to study new things with pleasure. I was already 34. In previous years, sometimes it clearly seemed to me that my brain was fading. Somewhere memory is lost, words are forgotten. The thought becomes inflexible, somewhat wooden. But this is amazing! When I began to study such a huge area as programming, my brain at first shrank as if from a beating, but then gradually it seemed to stretch. The thought became light, quick. In recent years, such grandiose ideas have come to mind that I’m simply surprised whether I came up with them myself or unconsciously pulled them together somewhere. At the new workplace, I immediately had about fifty colleagues in the open space. I admit, at first I fell into a panic, trying to remember who and what their name was. But my brain had already started to quickly learn, and very soon I knew everyone’s name and all sorts of details that stuck like sharp thorns into the mental model of each of my colleagues (yes, OOP is very easily transferred to life and vice versa). All this still surprises me. With some incomprehensible ease, I wrote a full-fledged large desktop application (I had never completed large projects before), for which I received a good reward. Suddenly I began to understand patterns and even understand other people's programs just by looking at their code. All these incomprehensible magic words Spring, JDBC, Hibernate, Git, SQL and hundreds of others have gained meaning and become understandable. Any other language other than Java, even with not very similar syntax, suddenly became understandable. It was as if I couldn’t read and suddenly I learned. I felt how deeply I was immersed in the world around me in a new way, as if I had taken root in every object and entity that surrounded me. Thanks to work, new knowledge and my own efforts, I began to look at everything around me differently. I felt how easy it is to implement your plans and achieve everything you want if you make very specific and understandable efforts. And this is the most surprising thing for me in my rapid transformation. And it’s not at all that I received some kind of huge salary, and not that at the same time I fulfilled some kind of childhood dream of mine. The most amazing thing is that this desire gave me enormous strength and confidence that everything in life can be changed for the better. Sometimes I meet old colleagues, who are also smart people. I say: look, I put in six months of effort and got what you can’t achieve in ten years! Come to us, in IT! And they answer me: “No, what are you talking about? I’m not smart enough (smart), I won’t be able to master all this.” But I believe in people, because I already believed in myself and checked. I am the most ordinary person. I have achieved it, which means that everything is achievable for other ordinary people! But it is always more difficult to convince someone else’s way of thinking than to sayyourself , and do it yourself . But I believe in you, reader. You are like me, maybe better. I could do it and you can too if you want! I hope by this point no one has fallen asleep or died from too much foreplay. In truth, I just wanted to share my observations and everything that helped me develop quickly and, it seems to me, quite effectively. But without an emotional component, any instructions for me seem divorced from life and incomparable with personal difficulties. Therefore, here I finally move on to the most important thing - the principles that, it seems to me, will make your training as fast and effective as possible (I hope I don’t forget anything from my principles, which I constantly try to promote among my padawans):
learn with JavaRush . There are, of course, disadvantages here. Where would we be without them? JavaRush is not at all as fast and not as magical as they promise in various glamorous courses. But here there is the most important thing that is not found in other places - at JavaRush you will learn to understand the code. In a lot of code. Good and different. At the time I was studying, Java 8 and all these delights in the form of lambdas and streams were absent from the training program. But 1.7 was tough.
use many sources , do not limit yourself to one source for anything. I highly praise Javarush, but many of the topics here are presented in a way that is unclear. Sometimes it very much depends on the person in whose presentation he will be able to perceive and understand the information. You may need to read the lesson, then re-watch Golovach, and Tkach, and Nemchinsky, then read Horstmann, read Eckel, and only then will the understanding dawn: aah, this is how it works! And perhaps one of them will be clear to you. By the way, Horstmann is better than Eckel for my taste, and Bloch is simply incomparable (in the original) :)
learn english . Of course, everyone should be guided by finances. Personally, an annual subscription to Lingualeo and a toad threatening asphyxia worked well for me. Although here it is better to choose from personal preferences. For example, I was sometimes terribly infuriated by the outdated interface, but then competitors (PuzzleEnglish) were terribly lacking in what Leo had. Moreover, while the subscription to Leo lasted, I looked at the puzzles and dreamed of jumping to them, only the aforementioned toad did not allow it. I won’t say anything about phone apps, since I haven’t used them, but most likely they also have their fans and probably deservedly so. Anki? I also liked it, many unusual words were reinforced on them.
изучи сочетания клавиш IntellijIdea. Вообще на мой взгляд это лучшая IDE из всех существующих. И признаться мне очень не хватает шорткеев идеи в других программах. Сделай две главные вещи: Help -> Keymap reference (Распечатать, сложить втрое, скрепить и поставить на рабочем столе) и почаще нажимай в codeе Ctrl + Alt + L =) Этот совет я особенно люблю повторять для коллег.
начни использовать Git How можно раньше. Это действительно необходимый навык. Чем раньше вы с ним столкнётесь, чем больше набьёте шишек, тем лучше будет результат. Я советую использовать встроенный в Идею плагин. В планах у меня подробное видео с туториалом How со всем этим работать. Более того. Меня однажды хантor в одну очень крупную компанию, просто найдя мой профиль на github, причём на тогда на нём был всего лишь проект с решениями задач JavaRush
не бойся признаться, что ты чего-то не знаешь. Бойся не хотеть узнавать. Как я уже писал раньше, что относительно простая терминология классы-методы-функции-свойства-поля вызывал в моей голове жуткую чехарду и путаницу, но с течением времени всё встало на свои места. Для непонятных вещей иногда просто нужно время.
не бойся ошибаться. Допустив ошибку, исправь её и постарайся не допускать впредь. Ошибки это только то, что нельзя исправить.
ходи пешком. Может показаться что вы будете тратить время впустую, но это не так. Час пешей прогулки с работы (и на работу тоже!) может оказаться невероятно эффективным для усваивания новой информации. Конечно, лучше всего слушать в наушниках по пути аудиокниги or подкасты на тему IT. Просто представить не могу, смог бы я научиться чему-то столь целенаправленно, если бы не прослушал во время таких пеших прогулок "Сила воли — How развить и укрепить" бесподобной Келли Макгонигал.
отдыхай от компьютера чаще. Лично я использую программу WorkRave, которая каждые 25 minutes выгоняет меня из-за компьютера на пять minutes. Может быть это слишком часто? Но у каждого здоровье своё и в определённый момент жизни начинаешь понимать, что тебе дороже — лишняя minutesка в дописывании цикла, or отсутствие боли в спине и других рабочих поверхностях. Кстати, есть очень популярная техника повышения эффективности труда Pomodoro (Помидора) основанная на точно таком же тайминге.
exercise regularly . Personally, it was a great pleasure for me, after a walk from work, to sit down at my laptop, devote half an hour to English, two to puzzles from Javarush. When something incomprehensible accumulated, I watched videos and read articles on the topics until the topic became clear. I especially remember how I tried to understand what generics are (when I first encountered the problem of generics, I didn’t even know what they were called). Even though it seemed to me that I understood what and how, about a year later I realized that this was not so. And in general, I’m not entirely sure that many of those who claim what it is understand all the nuances. In general, everyday life turned out to be eventful and filled with the desire to achieve the goal. But on weekends it was difficult to plan the day and I had to constantly push myself. Of course, all this time I borrowed from a family with whom I spent almost no time, but now these expenses have paid off. And the evenings are filled with family and I even manage to write something in Javarush =)
Do not deny yourself the pleasure of studying related and completely incomprehensible technologies . UML? HTML? XML? CSS? XPATH? Maven? Hosting? Docker? TCP? How does the processor add numbers? Yes! Give me two! :)
That's all. I guess this is the end of my story today. I hope my experience will be useful to someone and with this long post I was able to support someone on their chosen path: give advice that will be useful or simply lift their spirits. In any case, the experience is never negative. After all, experience is the only thing that appears when it is not there. Good luck! And see you in IT, colleagues! PS By a terrible coincidence, while typing in the browser form, I almost lost the fruits of my two-hour labors. Thank God that there is Google and a wonderful article How to recover text lost in form So it’s never too late to learn, even if you are 35 years old, you have no education, but you are already a programmer, and even though it’s four o’clock in the morning outside, you and I spent 6 hours on this chaotic article, which not even everyone is able to finish reading, and your eye is already twitching from fatigue, but still you are very pleased, because tomorrow your favorite job awaits you and someone still read your opus to the end and smiled on this line.
This is how the free 10 levels ended - quickly, in one breath. It was so good that I almost immediately purchased a paid continuation for a month. This was a significant purchase for me. At first things went well, but subsequent levels were much more difficult. In addition, I came to the understanding that up to level 10 there were relatively simple algorithmic problems, and I never developed a deep understanding of “modern programming”. A month has passed and I have made no significant progress. Probably closer to level 20 or something. But every day there was a feeling that I wasn’t keeping up. The money was invested, but I am not able to justify it. Under the weight of realizing my powerlessness, I abandoned classes for a month or two. Only occasionally did I watch some interesting videos on the topic, but without details. New Year 2017 is approaching. And along with it, a huge gift that all JavaRush students are waiting for - a huge 50% discount on tuition. The self-torment subsided, but the dream still lived. And I bought it. It was not cosmic, but also very significant money that needed to be justified. Immediately after the New Year holidays, I set to work with renewed vigor. I remember that everything went well until I came across a seemingly simple, but at the same time very difficult problem for a beginner with my “background.” I think it's called "Restaurant". She was not comfortable with washing or riding, she did not want to make up her mind either through prolonged study or in short bursts of “five minutes.” Classes and methods floated around in my head, getting confused and clinging to one another, and I definitely couldn’t tell which one was which. I fought with her for probably a week. The old fear was already beginning to loom on the horizon of consciousness; and only a toad threatening to strangle me for a gigantic 6 thousand rubles forced me not to quit the game I got involved in... And then a great grief happened in my family... Huge and, as always happens, unexpected... For a whole week I didn’t I could think about nothing at all. I couldn’t do anything, think, live... I just stopped at some point in the Universe and flew somewhere where we are all flying... I’m glad, reader, that you got to this place. Because this is the most important thing in my story. This is the main reason why I can now say that I live and do not exist. And although it is sad, every end is a beginning. That's how I started. For real. After a week of ignorance and apathy, melancholy gave way to desire and desire to live. A realization appeared in my head. Every parent dreams of his children living. We lived as long as we lived. And then they will live in us... Returning to the “Restaurant”, I suddenly felt an amazing lightness. Classes that use classes, create instances of classes, and implement interfaces suddenly seemed like a simple task of untangling strings. You pull one, see what moves - and there it is! It turned out to be just one typo-level error! :) I recommend everyone to unravel this “nutritious” knot. Then it was more difficult and significantly more complicated. But all this no longer seemed like the end of the world or a death sentence. Every riddle had an answer. If it was not resolved for a long time, it could be postponed and returned to it later with renewed vigor. And then she could no longer resist! Of course, there were wars with validators, and a boiling of incomprehensibility in my head, but everything already fit into some kind of structure. Everything seemed to have decided to change, and the hard granite had already turned into sandstone. And any block of sandstone can be worn down, it just takes time. Another 4 or 5 months passed. And I already felt my strength. Numerous tests for knowledge of Java Core, puzzles, a huge number of videos (what a blessing that now we have the Internet, where you can find everything!) on a variety of programming topics.Истории успеха, encouraging or not, but equally curious, revealing this unknown sphere of IT. Or maybe I can already? At some point, my head was literally spinning from all these stories. So, heeding numerous advice, I decided to go for interviews. After all, in almost every success story it was recommended to go around at least a dozen of them before you find your destiny. I looked at a very famous job search resource. I didn’t even think that in our small, modest Izhevsk there was a great demand for programmers. But having noticed the rather interesting position of a junior, I decided to take a risk. Having indicated a rather modest amount in the resume, I applied for the vacancy. But how surprised I was when the next Monday (I submitted my resume, if I’m not mistaken, on Friday), recruiters started calling me. And not at all from the company where I submitted my resume. Of course, I could assume that someone would find my resume and find it quite interesting, but mentally I was ready to go for interviews once a month and hardly more. So, frightened by such sudden attention, I quickly hid my resume. But out of curiosity, I decided to go to both interviews that they managed to schedule for me. I didn’t prepare at all technically for the first interview. The stories said that interviews are divided into stages, and first there is usually a simple introduction, without testing. Nevertheless, I did not count on success and mentally prepared myself, first of all, not to be upset by a refusal or something good from a bewildered “how dare you with such a level?” I have never been to the offices of IT companies before, I only saw in pictures these fabulous “gingerbread houses” of Google, Facebook, etc. Yes, I didn’t expect to see something like that. It seemed that in our outback there would be some kind of downtrodden, bespectacled people sitting behind wooden chairs, buried close to CRT monitors with a protective filter. But no. Of course, I didn’t see the splendor and chic of Google there, but the table football in the office made an impression on me. In a certain sense, it was a challenge to my entire previous way of working life, where the number of hours spent at work was directly related to the amount of pay. A quick interview with HR, then a questionnaire filled out with a trembling hand (I was not ready for testing). Then a short conversation with the head of the department and now I was offered a job. Yes Yes! Despite the fact that I did not answer all the questions in the test, in general my knowledge of Java was really good, so I was immediately offered a job. The salary they offered was a little, but more than what I asked for in my resume. In addition, after the probationary period it was supposed to increase. And then they immediately invested in raises and even greater salary increases! I was a little stunned by this temptation. But he also became bolder. I no longer deliberately prepared for my next interview. And we shouldn’t immediately agree to the first job offer either—success stories teach us. In some ways this is true. Therefore, of course, I did not refuse the second recruiter and went for a second interview after the job was offered. But at this interview I had to feel somewhat ashamed of my self-confidence. The simplest questions, which now don’t even seem like tasks to me, then caused complete confusion in my head. I was crushed, exhausted and (oh my god!) I even confused HTML with HTTP when talking to leads! After such destruction, I was no longer sure that I was ready to become a programmer. HR from the company where I had my first interview persistently asked for an answer and even sent me an offer (another buzzword that I had to encounter for the first time). They were even ready to wait for my return from a very long-planned vacation, but I still hesitated. After all, it was still necessary to inform the new-old boss that their new-old designer was leaving them, so unexpectedly for himself and for them. Still, I couldn't help but agree. I agreed, talked to the new-old boss, and everything went smoothly. That's how I turned into an autotester. Perhaps someone will say that autotesters are not programmers at all, and their work must be very boring. But I completely disagree with them here. Besides, I myself once thought that testers were programmers who lacked something to become “full-fledged” (may my colleagues not beat me if they read these lines and recognize me! Hello to you all, by the way! ) But everything turned out completely wrong. When I stepped over the first step and began to fully develop pieces of the framework, an epiphany came. I felt like a programmer who not only wants to make some programs, but also knows where a critical error may lie in them. I understood how Javarush validators work and why they don't always seem logical. I realized many of the technical intricacies of programming, and I plunged into this new world more smoothly than if I had immediately gotten into IT as a junior developer. You ask, can I now become a “full-fledged” programmer? Easily! But now I have a wider choice: I can choose a job not only because of the salary, but also because of the team, the environment, the project. In addition to mental insights, a completely different working world unfolded around me. The job wanted me. She wanted to feed me, give me something to drink, entertain me, relax me, and at the same time pay me a salary. These first six months were like a dream. I just couldn’t believe that all these decades, while I was languishing in my old jobs, all this was developing and blooming here. And of course it was waiting for me! And everyone who strives there :) It was also surprising to see how dozens of colleagues for some reason did not notice all these riches of the IT sphere, all this charm of life that is right here, right in front of you. As if this is all so commonplace and ubiquitous that there is nothing to notice here. But here you live for real, work for real and earn real money. Colleagues are each a unique personality, intellectuals and passionate people; many of them are creative people and absolutely all of them are just nice people! I can hardly convey that entire cosmos of feelings in this tiny paragraph. I just really hope, reader, that you will believe me how real and blessed everything has become in this new area for me. And I came to this on my own, purposefully. Over the course of a year, I became familiar with all the technologies used. Once again I rethought my attitude towards understanding programming in general and Java in particular. I was hunted dozens of times, which has never happened before! For me, life became an unimaginable pleasure - I received real pleasure from work, came home and continued to study new things with pleasure. I was already 34. In previous years, sometimes it clearly seemed to me that my brain was fading. Somewhere memory is lost, words are forgotten. The thought becomes inflexible, somewhat wooden. But this is amazing! When I began to study such a huge area as programming, my brain at first shrank as if from a beating, but then gradually it seemed to stretch. The thought became light, quick. In recent years, such grandiose ideas have come to mind that I’m simply surprised whether I came up with them myself or unconsciously pulled them together somewhere. At the new workplace, I immediately had about fifty colleagues in the open space. I admit, at first I fell into a panic, trying to remember who and what their name was. But my brain had already started to quickly learn, and very soon I knew everyone’s name and all sorts of details that stuck like sharp thorns into the mental model of each of my colleagues (yes, OOP is very easily transferred to life and vice versa). All this still surprises me. With some incomprehensible ease, I wrote a full-fledged large desktop application (I had never completed large projects before), for which I received a good reward. Suddenly I began to understand patterns and even understand other people's programs just by looking at their code. All these incomprehensible magic words Spring, JDBC, Hibernate, Git, SQL and hundreds of others have gained meaning and become understandable. Any other language other than Java, even with not very similar syntax, suddenly became understandable. It was as if I couldn’t read and suddenly I learned. I felt how deeply I was immersed in the world around me in a new way, as if I had taken root in every object and entity that surrounded me. Thanks to work, new knowledge and my own efforts, I began to look at everything around me differently. I felt how easy it is to implement your plans and achieve everything you want if you make very specific and understandable efforts. And this is the most surprising thing for me in my rapid transformation. And it’s not at all that I received some kind of huge salary, and not that at the same time I fulfilled some kind of childhood dream of mine. The most amazing thing is that this desire gave me enormous strength and confidence that everything in life can be changed for the better. Sometimes I meet old colleagues, who are also smart people. I say: look, I put in six months of effort and got what you can’t achieve in ten years! Come to us, in IT! And they answer me: “No, what are you talking about? I’m not smart enough (smart), I won’t be able to master all this.” But I believe in people, because I already believed in myself and checked. I am the most ordinary person. I have achieved it, which means that everything is achievable for other ordinary people! But it is always more difficult to convince someone else’s way of thinking than to sayyourself , and do it yourself . But I believe in you, reader. You are like me, maybe better. I could do it and you can too if you want! I hope by this point no one has fallen asleep or died from too much foreplay. In truth, I just wanted to share my observations and everything that helped me develop quickly and, it seems to me, quite effectively. But without an emotional component, any instructions for me seem divorced from life and incomparable with personal difficulties. Therefore, here I finally move on to the most important thing - the principles that, it seems to me, will make your training as fast and effective as possible (I hope I don’t forget anything from my principles, which I constantly try to promote among my padawans):
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