So, starting conditions. I’m 33, I work as the head of a structural unit at a Gazprom branch in a remote village in one of the central regions of Russia. All you have is a wife, an apartment, a car, a good salary for this area and complete professional burnout. With such introductions, I decided to change my profession, and my institute passion for programming and the desire to see and use the fruits of my labors determined the direction towards android development. It would seem that you should sit down and teach, but it’s not that simple. First, I looked at the labor market in the three nearest regional centers and made disappointing conclusions: with such a demand for newcomers, there is nothing to do there. This means that to find a job you need to move to the capital. Therefore, he intensively saved his finances, neglecting the seas and other goodies. And this is the first nuance: if you want to achieve something, be ready and don’t be afraid to sacrifice something. Next is study. At first there were books and videos, then I learned about JavaRush and purchased a subscription . The goal is simple: as much practice as possible , since there was little time due to work. I stopped at level 21: further I studied only android. In reality, I only read books and listened (in the form of podcasts) to Golovach’s videos. I wrote a couple of programs for Android, took several courses, and filled out github. This neglect of reality later did not work in my favor. In fact, JavaRush is lying. They will not make you a programmer, they will just give you a tool, but a good tool. And you must become programmers yourself. And this is the second nuance: only your own desire and discipline can change something - the tools are secondary. They may not be useful at all if you have a methodical approach to learning and put in enough effort. After a year of preparation, settling all the nuances with work, housing and my own fear, the move took place. And the fun part began - searching for a job. More precisely, collecting refusals. Somewhere in the second month and 26th refusal, I lost my way. Only these were refusals to respond: I only got to interviews in the third month. And here is nuance number three: prepare your resume very carefully . Don’t write too much, but don’t belittle what you can either. In my case, I was embarrassed to indicate the year of study as self-employment. And although in fact this experience means nothing for a technical specialist, for many HR it will be at least some reason to cling to the resume. Well, having a profile on github is simply a must . For example, at the current place of work, resumes without a profile are immediately rejected, but this is only for juniors. Then there was a completely failed first interview with a good company, since I firmly believed that to be an Android developer you only need to know Android and didn’t think at all about how to properly repeat Java. Remember to neglect Java, this is the result. Later it turned out thatin most places, the Android June is required first of all to have fundamental knowledge, and only then - frameworks and libraries . There is one unpleasant moment that many people go through. The requirements for the knowledge necessary to enter the profession are constantly growing, and along with this there is an awareness that it is impossible to learn everything in a reasonable time. And now we move on to the next nuance: programming is constant self-learning . Or in the future you will not have a competitive advantage. But if you purposefully devote enough time to learning, very soon you can catch yourself thinking that you already know this technology, worked with this one on a previous project, and in the next you yourself volunteered to implement a new one. Isn't it time to update your resume? This failure was enough for me to completely reconsider my approach to interviewing in a couple of weeks and a dozen more refusals. And the next step is to answer most of the questions well enough to immediately receive an offer. And then, in short, there’s even more training, only this time in combat conditions. I’m not sure that this opus will help anyone, but if it at least gives food for thought, that’s good. Thank you for your attention!
It would seem that you should sit down and teach, but it’s not that simple. First, I looked at the labor market in the three nearest regional centers and made disappointing conclusions: with such a demand for newcomers, there is nothing to do there. This means that to find a job you need to move to the capital. Therefore, he intensively saved his finances, neglecting the seas and other goodies. And this is the first nuance: if you want to achieve something, be ready and don’t be afraid to sacrifice something. Next is study. At first there were books and videos, then I learned about JavaRush and purchased a subscription . The goal is simple: as much practice as possible , since there was little time due to work. I stopped at level 21: further I studied only android. In reality, I only read books and listened (in the form of podcasts) to Golovach’s videos. I wrote a couple of programs for Android, took several courses, and filled out github. This neglect of reality later did not work in my favor. In fact, JavaRush is lying. They will not make you a programmer, they will just give you a tool, but a good tool. And you must become programmers yourself. And this is the second nuance: only your own desire and discipline can change something - the tools are secondary. They may not be useful at all if you have a methodical approach to learning and put in enough effort. After a year of preparation, settling all the nuances with work, housing and my own fear, the move took place. And the fun part began - searching for a job. More precisely, collecting refusals. Somewhere in the second month and 26th refusal, I lost my way. Only these were refusals to respond: I only got to interviews in the third month. And here is nuance number three: prepare your resume very carefully . Don’t write too much, but don’t belittle what you can either. In my case, I was embarrassed to indicate the year of study as self-employment. And although in fact this experience means nothing for a technical specialist, for many HR it will be at least some reason to cling to the resume. Well, having a profile on github is simply a must . For example, at the current place of work, resumes without a profile are immediately rejected, but this is only for juniors. Then there was a completely failed first interview with a good company, since I firmly believed that to be an Android developer you only need to know Android and didn’t think at all about how to properly repeat Java. Remember to neglect Java, this is the result. Later it turned out thatin most places, the Android June is required first of all to have fundamental knowledge, and only then - frameworks and libraries . There is one unpleasant moment that many people go through. The requirements for the knowledge necessary to enter the profession are constantly growing, and along with this there is an awareness that it is impossible to learn everything in a reasonable time. And now we move on to the next nuance: programming is constant self-learning . Or in the future you will not have a competitive advantage. But if you purposefully devote enough time to learning, very soon you can catch yourself thinking that you already know this technology, worked with this one on a previous project, and in the next you yourself volunteered to implement a new one. Isn't it time to update your resume? This failure was enough for me to completely reconsider my approach to interviewing in a couple of weeks and a dozen more refusals. And the next step is to answer most of the questions well enough to immediately receive an offer. And then, in short, there’s even more training, only this time in combat conditions. I’m not sure that this opus will help anyone, but if it at least gives food for thought, that’s good. Thank you for your attention!
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