Over 8 years, thousands of graduates have taken the CodeGym course. Today, the project website has more than 1.5 million registered users from 106 countries. Not all graduates had time to talk about their successes: about how they studied, passed interviews and started working as developers. But current students are interested in learning the stories of those who already work in IT. We took matters into our own hands and launched a new special series about developers from different countries and companies who have been trained on CodeGym. Our eighth story is about Masha, who used to work in personnel management. The path to development for Masha began when her boyfriend offered to solve programming problems. She liked it so much that she decided to learn Java and become a developer.
“For the first time in 15 years, I felt happy in some business”
I am from Nizhny Novgorod, now I am 31 years old, I started studying development 2 years ago. As a child, I went to a mathematical special school and, in parallel, to mathematical Olympiads. But my mother always told me that since I am a girl, a technical specialty is not a profession for me. Like, I will learn and I will repair old computers. I entered where my mother wanted, I received a diploma in the specialty “culturologist”. After university, I worked in HR for 8 years in companies such as Procter & Gamble (FMCG), UCB Pharma. I have a mathematical mindset, so even in personnel management I was engaged in analytics: the level of employee satisfaction, staff performance assessment, salary and benefits planning. I thought so: they pay well, the company is prestigious. The last position I held in HR was as a business partner. But it didn't give me much pleasure. So I thought about changing my profession. My boyfriend is engaged in programming and preparing problems for olympiads. Once, when I got sick, he offered me to solve programming problems. They say that I do not get bored at home. He also suggested a site where I could learn, where I took a short course in Java. About half a year I solved these problems, I really liked it. I realized that for the first time in 15 years I feel happy in some business. Before, I just went to work, earned money, but I didn’t like the job and I took it for granted. In order to devote more time to my favorite pastime, I decided to take a chance and change my profession to programming, but my friends who worked in this field said that puzzles are cool, But at work, programmers do other things. It was necessary to learn the theory about classes, methods, object-oriented programming.
“I managed to study both at work and in the evenings at home”
My boyfriend writes in Java, so I also started learning Java. Initially, I did not know that there were different programming languages, and when I already found out, I realized that I did not want to start from scratch to learn something else. Therefore, I purposefully looked for Java courses and stumbled upon CodeGym, read the reviews, the young man said that at their work the guys were solving problems in parallel and saying what was good for them. At that time, I found an easier job for myself and could combine my studies with it. Since I had a small workload, I managed to study both at work and in the evenings at home. In addition to CodeGym, I read books on programming, wrote a pet project - an expense calculator. It took about a year and a half for everything. Somewhere after level 32 of the quest, I started looking for a job. This knowledge was enough to go to interviews. I went to three interviews (I sent my resume to only three companies, but since I met the set criteria, I was called for an interview in all companies) and went everywhere. One of the companies in which they made an offer to me is a well-known bank, but they gave feedback for a long time and I thought that this did not suit me. The second company I went to is EPAM. I did a test for them, passed two interviews with theory and tasks. But, firstly, I did not like the projects that they offered, and secondly, I did not like the corporate culture. The second company I went to is EPAM. I did a test for them, passed two interviews with theory and tasks. But, firstly, I did not like the projects that they offered, and secondly, I did not like the corporate culture. The second company I went to is EPAM. I did a test for them, passed two interviews with theory and tasks. But, firstly, I did not like the projects that they offered, and secondly, I did not like the corporate culture.
“My income has not increased, but decreased by 3 times, but I like my profession”
I chose one large grocery company ( the heroine asked not to name the company she works for - ed.). The company approached me in terms of corporate culture: I cared where I worked and what projects I was involved in. First, I was a trainee for 3 months and did a new service for the company, and then I was promoted to junior. We have a very large team (only our development team has more than 20 people). We deal with content for one service, we make a service for managing business processes of partners. My tasks practically do not differ from ordinary developers, the only thing is that for now I do them longer and my code is checked more often and more thoroughly. Each group in the company has its own technology stack, which depends on the tasks. The company is very large, there are very few universal processes. I am still a junior. The difficulty at the beginning of work was that we were remote, and in messengers colleagues do not respond as quickly as they do live. I had no other difficulties in fitting into the work. It is interesting that my income did not increase, but decreased by 3 times, but I like my profession. It's much easier, no need to force yourself. As I got older, my values have changed - before it was making money and a career in a cool company, and now it's a job that I like.
Tips for a novice developer:
Find out what you really like. It's just that if you don't like programming, it will be difficult, as in any job. And if you have already understood what you like, then do not be afraid of stereotypes and age. I know that many people want to go into IT for the money, but this is probably not the best way.
Learn the basic principles of programming. Very often in interviews, questions are asked for understanding, not for knowledge. It is important to understand what is under the hood of the program, how it works, why.
Focus on yourself in building a training schedule. Everything is individual. Some people need to learn quickly, others go at a measured pace.
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