This is the story of how I received an offer for the position of Java Junior Developer. I once read success stories here and dreamed that someday I would have a success story too. I'll start from a little distance. I apologize for any mistakes, my spelling is not very good.
October 2019.
I am 24 years old, I live in the city of Izhevsk, I work at a factory and I have absolutely no idea what I want to be. I go to work and realize that it doesn’t give me any pleasure. But nevertheless, they paid me some money and it was very scary to go nowhere. I spent 4 years at the plant and saw how people worked there all their lives from bell to bell - of course, I didn’t want such a life and, to be honest, I modulated the situation that my life would go like this. But time passed, and at some point I simply could not stand it. I quit, quit for nothing. And so I was fired, now I am unemployed. And to be honest, this is where my first success happened. A good friend of my girlfriend (I didn’t know this person at all at that time) offered to help me with work, and this was on the day of my dismissal. He offered to help me get a job in technical support. I thought about it for a couple of days, but in the end I realized that I didn’t have much to lose, after all, it couldn’t get any worse. And then my attempts began to get a support job in several companies. An acquaintance had connections in these companies, but these connections were not always enough, because I do not have any specific knowledge in IT. Reinstalling Windows is my maximum. And I received refusals one after another, and at the same time I worked as a taxi driver in order to have at least some money. But when I came to one company and interviewed, I did not receive a response for a very long time and really hoped for a positive answer. I constantly pestered my friend and HR, trying to get at least some kind of answer. And here’s the answer - I didn’t pass again, but HR said that there was another group and I could interview there. A couple more weeks of mental suffering passed and I received a job offer.
End of November 2019.
I am a technical support employee for a very large company (those living in Russia have definitely encountered this company, perhaps even every day). To be honest, my template has broken. I always thought that technical support meant constant telephone conversations using scripts, but in reality, in my case, everything turned out to be a little different. All tasks were performed online with minimal user interaction over the phone. I had to deal with Linux and the technical systems installed in the company - it was very interesting, and in general, for the first time in a long time, work began to bring pleasure. A very comfortable office, benefits in the form of voluntary health insurance and all kinds of discounts, and, most importantly, an extremely friendly team. After working on the 1st line of support for 3 months, I realized that I wanted something more. At that time, I still didn’t have an understanding of what exactly I wanted to become, so I set myself the goal of becoming a 2nd line support specialist. But for this it was necessary to raise our technical level. At some point, the choice fell on Java, since many systems were written in this language - it made a certain sense.
End of February - beginning of March 2020
I started learning Java. I started with the book "Head First Java, Learning Java", Kathy Sierra, Bert Bates. The book is good, but I still lacked something, some clear path, perhaps practice. And my eyes fell on JavaRush, after going through several free levels, I realized that this was exactly what I was looking for. I bought a subscription for a month and began to study excitedly, spending all my free time. In 2 weeks I completed 10 levels. It was very difficult, since I had no experience with programming before (except for Pascal at school). I didn’t understand why methods were needed if everything could be written in main, I didn’t understand why getters and setters were needed, and try-catch was just a brain blast. At the same time, watching a video on YouTube, I moved forward. Then I realized that I needed to study further, and bought a subscription for a year. After about 2 months I could already write simple but useful scripts. And I wrote these scripts for my current work, automating the routine. These scripts were written very crookedly and ugly, but the main thing is that they worked. At the same time, I did not neglect my work and gave it my all - and this was noticed; at some point (after about 5 months of work) I became the best employee of the month for the best performance and automation of work. Yes, this is not a promotion, but still they noticed me, and they gave me some kind of bonus. I studied further, but I realized that I no longer had the same motivation, and by the summer I practically stopped learning anything, only occasionally reading some articles. The only thing I did was write a utility for the job that automates it (Java Core, Java FX - at this moment this is the only thing I know, and even that is bad).
August 2020
At this point, I completely stopped studying JavaRush, having reached my current level, I stopped. At the beginning of August, I saw that one of the companies was recruiting guys for Java courses, and the best were hired as juniors. I won’t bore you and say that I didn’t pass the test. It was simple and my implementation was working, but now I can already say that the problem was in the purity of the code and in the optimality of the solution - my algorithm was completely suboptimal. But at about the same moment, my company opened an internal recruitment for Java courses, also a test task, and they are ready to hire the best ones. I won’t bore you again - I completed and enrolled in this course.
September 2020 – November 2020
I still work on the 1st line, the work no longer brings any pleasure, but nevertheless it does not cause any discomfort. At the same time, I am taking courses. At first it was quite simple, because the training started from 0, but at a very fast pace. There were lectures, homework and reviews on these assignments. Weeks and months passed, and there were fewer and fewer people on the courses. After a couple of months, out of 70 people, 30 remained. And then the biggest tragedy began for me. The pace of the courses did not decrease, but the topics turned out to be completely unfamiliar to me - Linux, Docker, SQL, networks, Hibernate, Spring. It was incredibly difficult, but I had a very strict goal - to get an offer, although I understood that the competition was enormous, because there were many applicants, but there were few places. Gritting my teeth, I simply moved on, hating, not understanding, but having a clear and generally achievable goal.
December 2020
The courses were supposed to end by the end of December, and I was already simply exhausted. I had to work, but I still worked well (had better performance and continued to modify my utility), and in addition there were courses and tasks that took up absolutely all my free time. And then the news comes, the manager writes to me and says that we have a vacancy in the department for the 2nd line and first of all he is considering me. Good news, perhaps, but very untimely. Bird in hand or pie in the sky. I’ve wanted to work on the 2nd line for so long, and this is both a higher salary and more interesting work. But there was very little left until the end of the course. I needed to give an answer. Realizing that the next chance to get to the 2nd line may not appear soon, realizing the fact that if I don’t go there now, the bet will be taken, understanding all this, I refused. Continued to take courses. End of December, last lecture. And they tell us - thank you all, the results are after the New Year holidays.
January 2021
I'm looking forward to the results. I really want to get an offer, but at the same time I’m very tired, maybe even a little burnt out. At the same time, there are some doubts whether I did the right thing in not going to the 2nd line. The rate, of course, was already taken. The end of January - and I receive a letter in the mail saying that I have successfully completed the course. I was very glad. But that’s not all, there was an interview ahead of us (who had successfully completed it). I just started watching the video on YouTube of Evgeniy Suleymanov at a wild pace. The interview has passed. It seems to me that it was pretty good, the questions were only on Java Core, which by that time I already knew at a fairly strong level. And a week after the interview, we are gathered at an online meeting, where they talk about the conditions, about the projects that we can be hired for. I forgot to say: in total, 6 people graduated, 6 out of 70 people, while 4 out of 6 people are already programmers, but want to switch to Java. But at the meeting they also said that this is not the end, we have one more task to complete for the product that we have to work with. The task was simple, but at the same time very difficult. It was a legacy project, and there was no talk of any hibernate there, they had their own libraries for working with the database, but there was practically no information. 2 weeks passed - I simply couldn’t cope with the task, or to be more precise, I simply gave up after a week. Yes, it's that simple. I believed in my powerlessness and misunderstanding. New meeting, now there are 4 of us left, despite the fact that I couldn’t cope, I decided to join in and tell it like it is. Of the 4, I am the only one who simply did nothing. But you know what? At the meeting they said that they were ready to offer us all jobs. The reader will probably think, this is it, but no. I refused: I was simply completely unsettled by this project. I refused. Perhaps this was another mistake of mine, but everything that is not done is for the better. And so I continue to work on the 1st line. And I completely abandoned Java, I was simply tired.
March - April 2021
I’m still working here, I finished writing my utility (I wrote it in small parts, adding functionality and eliminating bugs) and in the end I gave it to the entire department, the code turned out to be 3 thousand lines, and the program itself within the department was very useful. I began to understand that I had long outgrown this position, and although I didn’t reach the level of a developer, I needed something higher and more interesting. I began to consider internal vacancies in other departments on the 2nd line. After the first interview, I was hired into another department, to support Java portals. But even here it seems somehow boring to me and I again begin to automate the work of support on the portal entrusted to me. And I understand that this is not what I would like to do. I'm starting to improve my Java level again by reading books, articles, and watching videos on YouTube. And I am still sure that it makes no sense for me to go for interviews with other companies, and to be honest, in my city, vacancies for juniors are very rare. Therefore, there is an idea to rise to the rank of programmer here, but in a different project (not the legacy one I encountered), and since the company is large, there are a lot of projects here.
July 2021
I work on the 2nd line in technical support and again have a desire to change jobs. I talked to a good friend (Java Senior Developer), he said: you shouldn’t give up on yourself after the first bad experience. And these were very correct words. In just a week, I have my resume ready and am sending it out to everyone I can. I didn’t consider remote work, because I think it’s better to gain first experience offline. There were as many as 3 companies that were considering juniors or interns at that time. When I submitted my resume, I did not expect to receive an offer, I just wanted to gain experience, improve my interview skills, and understand my gaps. The first company gave me a test task that was very poorly described, and I really didn’t want to understand it. I left this company for last. The second company also gave me a test task, everything was clear and understandable, and despite the fact that part of the task was a front that I was not familiar with, it still seemed more than doable to me. But there was a problem here too: the first month was free, and starting from the 2nd they offered ridiculous money for the duration of the internship. I was completely unprepared for this. Third company - no test tasks. Immediately interview. As is expected in interviews, first I talked about myself, then they asked me about my knowledge, and then they told me about the company. There were a lot of questions on Java Core, several on SQL, Spring and Hibernate, and also solved a couple of practical problems. Going through the interview, I didn’t think at all that I could get an offer here, I just answered, I felt quite comfortable. I expected that social security would end and maybe in a week I would receive an answer, most likely even negative, but I was absolutely ready for this. And now my interview is coming to an end, the team lead talks about the company and at the end says: I liked the interview and I’m ready to take you, making an offer 30% more than what was indicated in my resume.
November 2021
My probation period has ended. Overall, I got comfortable with the project, despite that? that every day I have a million “whys” and I’m probably already boring everyone with my questions - but still, now I’m a Java Junior Developer.
Bottom line
What I want to say to those who are just starting their journey in learning or in its process. If you currently work in a job you don't like, it might make sense to consider technical support. It's not as bad as it might seem, and it's probably the easiest way to get into IT. Do not give up. The one who walks will master the road. And maybe the goal is far away, but you need to walk, crawl, and if you don’t have the strength at all, lie down towards the goal, the main thing is to get up later :) Don’t be afraid to go for interviews. I've seen and heard this so often, but haven't used it myself. You won't understand what level you are until you start going to interviews. And don't even try to determine it yourself. If you know Java Core, at least somehow the main frameworks and databases, go ahead. As for JavaRush, I believe that this course gave me a start and impetus. And if now someone asks me how to start learning Java, I will definitely send them to JavaRush.
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