We continue the special series in the section "Success Stories" - in it we talk about developers who studied at CodeGym and now work in this company, developing the product. Our sixth hero is Roman Prishchepa. Roma had an interest in programming from his youth, but he did not manage to enter the university for the chosen specialty. Despite this, after a few years and work (including a computer science teacher!), Roma mastered Java on his own. He has been working at CodeGym for three years already: he helps improve tasks and writes updates for the site.
“Literally 2 points were not enough to enter the “Informatics”
My acquaintance with programming began with the Soviet microcalculator "Electronics MK-61". At first I just played with it, later I came across a book on writing programs on this calculator: you could write a program to the device’s memory, run it and execute it. In the seventh grade, I went to study at the Physics and Mathematics Lyceum, and in the eighth grade we began to study computer science. As life later showed, computer science gave me a basis in understanding the basics of programming, common to all languages: what are data structures, functions, procedures, conditions. After graduating from school, I wanted to enter the Kiev Polytechnic University at the Faculty of Informatics and Computer Engineering: I had a craving for computers. It must be understood that at that time the faculties were divided into levels: the higher the level, the more points you need to enter it. The Faculty of Informatics was at the first level, and literally 2 points were not enough for me to enter. I was offered to enter the Faculty of Electronics: they said that famous programmers also studied there, a poor student spoke up and I went there. At the university, programming was taught for only one semester, we studied Pascal. I passed it by inertia, I had enough knowledge of the school curriculum. While studying at the institute, I went to work at a school as a computer science teacher. Considering that the school program was not more complicated than what I knew, I agreed. I worked at the school for about 3 years. I think this job gave me at least the ability to use the Internet, because then it was not everywhere. Everything was good at school, except for the salary. Therefore, when the child was born, I went to work in commerce.
“I started writing the first programs for entertainment”
I got a job in one of the large banks as a specialist in the department of external security. In this bank, the external Internet was closed, for communication it was possible to use only corporate mail. This was done to prevent employees from transferring data outside the bank. During that period, I began to write for fun at a boring job the first "programs" in Excel spreadsheets using formulas. For example, I wrote a formula for calculating the cost of a mobile phone call. It was not an easy formula, because then there was a connection fee, the first minute cost one amount, the next a little cheaper, and so on. Accordingly, I calculated the cost of the connection, the first minute, the cost of subsequent minutes. Then I complicated the "program": I made it so that it could calculate how many minutes you can talk for a certain amount. That is, it was necessary to drive the amount into a certain cell, and the formula counted the number of minutes, taking into account the cost of the connection and other nuances of the tariff. A little later, I got a job at another bank, in the department for working with terminals and ATMs. This work was more interesting than the previous one. We can say that this bank was a turning point in my career. At that bank, I met a guy who programmed in Delphi. This programming language is a dialect of the Object Pascal language. Since I knew Pascal, it was quite easy for me to understand Delphi as well. Thanks to a friend, I also started writing code on it. It was then that I began to create programs that helped me in my work. An interesting point is related to this. Once, on the first working day of the bank in the new year, when we were not working with clients, I wrote a program. My work was related to the collection of terminals and ATMs. There were a lot of collections, I filled out reports on them. Actually, these reports usually took the whole working day. So, this program I wrote allowed me to reduce the daily work from eight hours to one. Yes, it was crude and did not check for errors, but in the future I improved it. Thanks to the program, I freed up a lot of working time, and I began to write programs for my colleagues. For example, reports were sent to our department in Excel that needed to be processed. Each employee filled out the tables in his own way. I wrote a program that generated reports itself. This program was even sent to bank branches, which then successfully used it. these reports usually took the whole working day. So, this program I wrote allowed me to reduce the daily work from eight hours to one. Yes, it was crude and did not check for errors, but in the future I improved it. Thanks to the program, I freed up a lot of working time, and I began to write programs for my colleagues. For example, reports were sent to our department in Excel that needed to be processed. Each employee filled out the tables in his own way. I wrote a program that generated reports itself. This program was even sent to bank branches, which then successfully used it. these reports usually took the whole working day. So, this program I wrote allowed me to reduce the daily work from eight hours to one. Yes, it was crude and did not check for errors, but in the future I improved it. Thanks to the program, I freed up a lot of working time, and I began to write programs for my colleagues. For example, reports were sent to our department in Excel that needed to be processed. Each employee filled out the tables in his own way. I wrote a program that generated reports itself. This program was even sent to bank branches, which then successfully used it. Thanks to the program, I freed up a lot of working time, and I began to write programs for my colleagues. For example, reports were sent to our department in Excel that needed to be processed. Each employee filled out the tables in his own way. I wrote a program that generated reports itself. This program was even sent to bank branches, which then successfully used it. Thanks to the program, I freed up a lot of working time, and I began to write programs for my colleagues. For example, reports were sent to our department in Excel that needed to be processed. Each employee filled out the tables in his own way. I wrote a program that generated reports itself. This program was even sent to bank branches, which then successfully used it.
“I was thrown from side to side: I thought about JavaScript, then about Python, then about Java”
From the bank, I moved to work in the terminal business. It was a small company with much less bureaucracy than a large bank. In this company, I already did programming more closely, improved my SQL skills. At first, these were small programs that helped to simplify the work with terminals, and later, when our company changed its profile a bit, we were completely engaged in writing software for terminals. Then I wrote the user interface for terminals. We used HTML, CSS, JavaScript. Around the same time that I was working with software, I began to learn programming on my own. I started watching courses, mostly free. For a long time I could not decide on the language, I was thrown from side to side: I thought about JavaScript, then about Python, then about Java. It couldn't go on like this I had to choose. Then I approached the head of the department and said: “What will be in demand in the company next: JavaScript or Java? He answered me that Java. In the same period, a colleague, a self-taught programmer, once in a conversation remembered CodeGym, said that the first 10 free levels would be enough for me. I got through them in less than a month. After some time, I tried to get a job in one company as a Java developer, but both experience and knowledge were not enough. I passed the interview, we talked well, but they saw that I was not ready to work as a junior. After an unsuccessful interview, I decided to buy a subscription to CodeGym, just as there was a New Year's promotion. I didn’t have a special training schedule, but I was lucky with the work: I could give lectures, solve problems at the workplace. Basically, of course, the training was at home, in the evenings, on weekends, to the detriment of the family. Sometimes I took a laptop with me to the country, I studied there.
“I received an email from CodeGym saying we are looking for people”
While I was studying, the company I worked for began to slowly decline. This was the period when banks began to close en masse in Ukraine (in 2016-2017, banks were closed in Ukraine due to insolvency due to the economic crisis - ed.). Since the company's income depended on banks, I received a salary every other time, unpaid money was written down for debts. The number grew, and one day I decided it was time to leave. Then I already had a rather difficult financial situation, and it had to be somehow corrected. By acquaintance, I got a job in a company that was engaged in payment processing: this is when they take money from terminals and send it to various suppliers, to mobile phones, to electronic games, and so on. Due to commissions, the company lived and quite well. Alas, there was a heavy morale in the company, I only stayed there for 3 months. I worked very hard: there were overtimes, we were asked to be in touch all the time on weekends. This connection turned into the fact that my partner and I had to take turns being constantly online and helping users. I realized that I was starting to fly by with CodeGym, because the subscription was ending. I began to study more actively in order to have time to complete the entire course before the end of the year. Just at that time, I received a letter from CodeGym, they say, we are looking for people, with you a story about yourself and a resume. I decided to answer, although there was no hope of getting a job at all. For me it was the most difficult to write about myself. For a very long time, I remember, I wrote, rewrote, but in the end I “made” something, sent it and ... they called me and invited me for an interview. I remember that at that moment I was solving the last big problem of the course. I had a regular and technical interview. There were both simple and tricky questions. We talked, then I was invited to a second interview, where we discussed when I could already go to work. That's how I got into CodeGym and have been working for over three years now. I started working in the company with simple things: it was to help users in solving problems. We looked at user questions in the “Help” section and tried to understand why the user cannot solve the problem. I worked with a partner: we improved tests, corrected tasks, did quite a lot of work in this direction. A large piece of work was related to the translation of our site into other languages: we had to insert "translations", fix translation bugs in tasks and lectures. Slowly, they began to involve me in working on the server (backend). I added new features to the site, corrected errors. Now I already do almost any work:
Tips for a novice developer:
Get started.
In education, as in many things, the hardest thing is to start. Sometimes it seems that it is easier to watch videos on Youtube. But when you start, you get involved in the process, it becomes interesting to deal with the task. Thus, solving the problem, you can spend 3-4 hours in the evening.
Believe in your strength.
It is important to get rid of the impostor syndrome. The first days at the first place of work are hard. But if they took you, they saw potential in you. But do not relax, you need to work and show your interest.
Ask questions if it's not clear.
I encourage you to ask anything you don't understand. In theory, colleagues should be interested in helping you, because then you will become an assistant, perhaps both for them and for beginners.
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