We continue the special series under the heading "Success Stories" - in it we will talk about developers who studied at CodeGym and now work in this company, developing the product. Our fourth hero is Artem. After school, he became a rehabilitation specialist, helping people restore their health, but he realized that he liked to solve more complex problems in his work. At CodeGym, he is involved in the development of the Android version of the application and improves the tasks for the course.
“There was a feeling that there was nowhere to go further”
Before programming, I was a rehabilitation therapist for people with musculoskeletal disorders. My parents are doctors. Dad is a surgeon, mom is a rehabilitation specialist. It was they who advised me to go to a specialty related to medicine and people. How could I have an opinion in the 11th grade? I figured that as a rehabilitator I could always earn my bread and butter. I myself am from a small town in the Kherson region, I studied at the Kiev Polytechnic Institute at the Faculty of Medical Engineering. He started working while still a student. He even received the medal "The Best Rehabilitator of 2013" within the clinic where he worked. Worked for about a year. The salary at that time was about $ 330, and there was a feeling that there was nowhere to go further. It seemed that everything that is possible, I have already taken from this profession. It got boring. After rehab, I did different things: set up advertising on the Internet, launched an online store, opened a massage parlor with friends. A lot of my friends were into programming, and I noticed that they like the profession: they went around happy and enjoyed the work. I also decided to try to learn programming. Even at school, in computer science classes, I taught BASIC, I succeeded, I also pulled mathematics.
“I studied from 13 to 16 hours 7 days a week”
Therefore, I moved out of the apartment where I lived, left my things with a friend and went home to the Kherson region to learn programming. I woke up at 7-8 in the morning, had breakfast, took a laptop and went to another apartment so that no one bothered me. I worked out from 13 to 16 hours a day, 7 days a week. At first I watched tutorials on Youtube and read books, but after two weeks of my training, a friend dropped the link to CodeGym. I poklatsal and realized that cool. Then the first 10 levels were free, I went up to the 10th, I liked it, bought a subscription and began to study further. At the 16th or 17th level, I ran into difficulties - I had to master the work with files. I just sat and re-read until I understood the topic. In general, for me, the more difficult, the more interesting. During these three months I learned Java. Wrote the game "snake".
“I was immediately offered a salary twice as much”
By the end of my training, I knew that my friend was starting a company in Kyiv that would develop Android applications for stores around the world. We talked and I was hired for an internship. I was immediately offered a salary twice as much as at work as a rehabilitologist. By the way, before getting this job, I could go to study as a programmer at a Polish institute, but I chose a job because practice is more important. For the first 2-3 months I worked seven days a week, returning home on the last trolleybus around midnight. I even knew all the guards of the hub where our team was located, because they closed the door behind me. I spent 8 hours working, and then I studied something new on Android. At my first job as a programmer, I worked for about two years. Then the company ran out of money and we stopped doing projects. I took a break and started sending out resumes. I went through several interviews and realized that I need to tighten up the algorithms and data structures. I knew how to write an application, but I didn't know the basic algorithms that could come in handy. For about a month, I continued to send out resumes and learn what was missing.
“There is no limit in programming and you can always learn something new”
At some point, I received an email saying that CodeGym was looking for an employee and asked me to tell about myself in the answer. I was so happy then: this was the company that created the course through which I learned to program. I was invited for an interview. A big plus is that there were practical tasks on it - that's what I could talk about. At the same time, I was invited to another company, where they offered me to develop Android applications. It so happened that the person who was supposed to interview me there did not come. I thought I didn't want to work with such people. The team is important. Then I called CodeGym and said that I agree. It's been 2 years and 3 months since I've been working in CodeGym - in a team that improves the tasks on the course. So that's one of my main tasks at work. Sometimes I do tasks on the course's Android app. The most interesting tasks for me are fixing errors on the server and adding additions to the code. When I came to work, I had to learn testing: I knew the basics, but I had to refine it. I also had to learn the Spring framework - I did not know it. I am happy with the change of my profession: there is no limit in programming and you can always learn something new. I've definitely grown in the time I've been here. Although there is room to grow: so far there is not enough knowledge of English. there is no limit in programming and you can always learn something new. I've definitely grown in the time I've been here. Although there is room to grow: so far there is not enough knowledge of English. there is no limit in programming and you can always learn something new. I've definitely grown in the time I've been here. Although there is room to grow: so far there is not enough knowledge of English.
Tips for a novice developer:
Get started. As weird as it sounds, sometimes the hardest part is getting started. So start learning programming.
Learn programming purposefully. Make a plan and stick to it. Two hours a day is very little, and the training will stretch for a long time. My three months of training went by very quickly. I was very motivated.
Learn English. It will come in handy throughout a developer's career.
Get your first internship experience on projects. You can take an internship at CodeGym .
When answering interviews, it is better to start not from bare theory , but from your own experience, which you will gain during the internship.
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