Over the past 8 years, thousands of graduates have taken the JavaRush course. Today, more than 1.5 million users from 106 countries are registered on the project website. Not all graduates had time to talk about their successes: how they studied, passed interviews and started working as developers. But today’s students are interested in learning the stories of those who already work in IT. We took matters into our own hands and launched a special series about developers from different countries and companies who were trained in JavaRush. Our tenth story is about Viktor Platonov . Having changed several jobs and specialties, Victor, by chance, settled on Java development. Thanks to his new profession, his salary has almost tripled in a year and a half, and he not only programs, but also mentors.
“I was more interested in how the programs are organized inside”
I have two secondary specialized educations and one higher education. The first - in the specialty "Auto mechanic". At the same time, I was studying to become a lawyer. Back then I was wildly in love with cars. They asked me: “Why do you need two degrees?”, and I answered: “I want to be a driver.” And if a traffic cop wants to stop me, then I have a legal education, I can get away with it.” Afterwards I went to college to get a higher education in auto mechanics, studied for a year and realized that it wasn’t for me. At the same time, I began to work little by little. I worked in a car repair shop, then as a sales representative, then as a merchandiser, and so on... Wherever it took me! After hanging around like this for three years, I managed to get a job at McDonalds. At the same time, I got a computer at home. I wasn’t particularly interested in computer games—I was more interested in how the programs worked inside. For example, what happens if a file is deleted? At that time I lived in the small town of Kumertau in Bashkiria. There was a branch of the Ufa State Aviation Technical University in the city. Realizing that I needed to settle down somehow, I entered the university to major in “Applied Informatics in Economics.” At that time, banks were gaining momentum, this specialty was covered with a veneer of money. I studied part-time and, at the same time, began to build a career in IT: I started as a disk salesman, then became an administrator in a computer club, and then got a job as a system administrator in one of the hospitals. The next job was the position of a system administrator in a company that dealt with medical equipment. While working there, I came across an advertisement for 1C courses. I thought it was close to IT and economics, and I’ll learn accounting at the same time. The courses initially taught accounting in 1C, and then the basics of programming in 1C. In general, I studied accounting and even received a certificate. Then he changed his job again and became a system administrator in a satellite transport monitoring system, and worked in this area for three years.
“Here’s your code, here’s your task, let’s drink”
Over time, I decided to retrain and go into support. And then suddenly I received a job offer in St. Petersburg. I thought: “It was there, it wasn’t,” I took the laptop on my back and went to St. Petersburg with a small backpack. On August 8, 2012, I got off the train in St. Petersburg. The first thought that I had in my head then was: “I’m home.” I didn’t get the job I was called for. But in the end I found a job in an office that also dealt with satellite monitoring. Later I was transferred to the support department of an information security company, then I changed a couple more jobs. It so happened that I smoothly moved from support to testing, then ended up at the Central Bank of Russia, where I was transferred from testers to javaists. Here is how it was. One day my boss came up to me and said: “We don’t need testers anymore.” I sit and think: “Atas! It’s time to update your CV on HeadHunter.” But he continues: “We thought about it and decided that we need Java developers. In general, from today we are transferring you to the Javistas.” I said that I had only heard about Java and didn’t know anything, to which he replied: “That’s your problem. If you can’t cope, go update your resume.” The first day after this news I walked around in shock, and the next day the boss sat me down next to him and showed me how IntelliJ IDEA and Git work. He said: “Here is your code, here is your task, let’s drink.” Naturally, I started looking for options on how to learn Java. I looked at all sorts of courses and somewhere I found JavaRush. From that moment I started learning Java.
“What saved me was that Java has a C-like syntax.”
You can say that JavaRush gave me basic knowledge of Java. I didn’t complete the course because I went too far to the side - I actively read various literature on programming. Thanks to books, JavaRush and a mentor, I became a Javaist. What saved me was that Java has a C-like syntax. I knew how to code a little in PHP, but I didn’t know object-oriented programming and such magic words as encapsulation, polymorphism, inheritance, abstraction. Thanks to the knowledge I already had, I intuitively understood some things. Plus I had a good manager: at that time he had about 20 years of programming experience. He wrote Java itself for about 4 years, but he had assembler, C, C++, and C# behind him. I came home after work and forced myself to solve at least 1-2 problems, although my brain was racing. And at that moment I almost burned out, I even had to turn to a psychologist. I came across a very cool psychologist, she clearly understood what I needed and somehow found an approach to me. I began to approach everything differently, pose questions differently, look differently at work-life balance, at rest. I stopped engaging in self-criticism. A second job also saved me. In 2013, I took up a hobby - tour guiding. I lead excursions to other countries and am listed as a freelance guide with the Silver Ring company. It turned out that on weekdays I sat stuck to the chair, and on weekends the wind blew me away. I began to understand a little Latvian, improved my English, although before that I could not speak it. Once I came to Helsinki to the Alvar Aalto Museum, and there we were told on the spot that the Russian-speaking guide was ill and only English-speaking would be there. I had to translate. Two such visits to the museum - and my conversation barrier went away. Of course, I mess up, I make mistakes, but I talk.
“I had about 40 interviews”
When the lockdown began, I had free time, and I found a cool mentor. I bought courses at some office and met a great teacher there: when he gave lectures, everyone sat with their ears hanging open. Usually I go to him with some problem, and he sits down and explains the topic to me. Now I contact you once a week: we conduct a short screening of the past week, review technologies, and questions that I have accumulated regarding a work project. It turned out that during the lockdown my salary tripled. When I started studying with a mentor, he told me: “Sign up for some interviews, walk around, see how it goes. We will look for your gaps in knowledge.” The second interview was for the position of a developer at VTB Bank. By the way, I passed this interview on a whim. But the next day after the interview, HR called me and said that I was invited to work. Six months later, HR people just started pestering me. I had about 40 interviews in April and May. It got to the point where there were 2 interviews a day. I pumped up wildly on them. In June, I received several offers, and pleasant ones: the smallest was 180 thousand rubles, the largest - 270 thousand. I chose the three projects that I liked the most, talked to them again and chose the one I am working on now. I'm at EPAM, but I work for the British company ITV. Just last week the trial period passed. From the first salary I received, I saved money and had my vision corrected. At the Central Bank, I worked on projects for the Jira project management system. We completed this system and adapted it to the needs of the bank. We wrote all sorts of plugins and integration systems for Jira. The projects were simple but interesting. At the Central Bank, I improved my Jira knowledge. This played into my hands when I came to VTB, it was also used there. At VTB, we were already writing full-fledged banking software related to the control and issuance of credit funds. There I started upgrading Spring, SQL and other technologies. On the EPAM project, the technologies are generally practically unknown to me: for example, there is a lot of front-end, a framework is used that I have never even heard of before. Little by little you have to study. We are working on a project that was written and closed in 2018, but has now been reopened. Our task is to transfer it to more modern technologies. Now I have started mentoring myself. A year ago, my friend asked: “I want to become a programmer.” He used to be a dancer, but he learned it in a year and has been working as a dancer for a month and a half now. Mentoring also helps you improve yourself, because sometimes juniors ask questions that you haven’t thought about. I have my own pet project - this is a booking system for pet hotels. I have a cat, and finding a hotel for an animal with my tourism is very important for me. I usually leave for 3-4 days, so the cat needs to be taken under care. I started looking for hotels and realized that we don't have proper software, with which you could reserve a place for a cat or dog. So I drink it little by little.
Tips for a beginner developer
I recommend reading books on development as soon as you start learning JavaRush. Here's my list:
“Java. Solving practical problems” by Angela Leonarda.
“Algorithms and Data Structures” by Allen B. Downey. JavaRush has a course “Collections”. This book is actually the essence of this course.
“Grocking Algorithms” Aditya Bhargava. It is a great introduction to algorithms and you can start reading it from the first day of learning Java.
“Learning Regular Expressions” by Ben Forta.
“Basics of the SQL language” by Evgeniy Morgunov.
“Object-Oriented Programming Techniques” by Erich Gamma and Richard Helm.
“Agile Development” by Robert Martin.
“Git for Pros” by Ben Straub.
Learn English. Considering that about 80% of all content on the web is in English, this is very important. The same IntelliJ IDEA does not have a version in Russian, only in English.
Every evening, go for a 25-30 minute walk outside. Even just around the house, or even better in the park. It really helps to just relax.
Get off social media. The absence of social networks saves a lot of time.
Starting with your first JavaRush issue, push it to Git . This is easy to do; IntelliJ IDEA already has all the tools. At first, you can use the Share-on-Github button.
Once I came to Helsinki to the Alvar Aalto Museum, and there we were told on the spot that the Russian-speaking guide was ill and only English-speaking would be there. I had to translate. Two such visits to the museum - and my conversation barrier went away. Of course, I mess up, I make mistakes, but I talk.
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