How a guy from the city of Kameshkovo makes his way into IT and proves that there would be a desire, but there will always be opportunities
Hello! My name is Artem, I am a frontend developer in outsourcing production at Hawking Bros. Now I am already in the middle and am still studying at the college in the specialty "Programming in computer systems".
I come from Kameshkovo - it's near Vladimir. Population - 12,496 people. Such a small, inconspicuous town on the map, which began as a workers' settlement at a weaving factory. As you already understood, IT is not very developed in my hometown, although it should be noted that local youth are interested in technical educational institutions.
This is Kameshkovo. Hello, small homeland
In this article I will tell you what my path to getting into IT looked like. Maybe someone else from small regional towns and villages will read it and understand that you don't need connections or money to work in our industry, you just need a desire to work well and work hard.
First computer, games and lack of interest in web development
At the age of 13, I got my first computer, and even then I began to study how it works. Actually, this can be considered the starting point of my path to IT. I did this on my own and it was difficult - I did not have specialized literature, and my level of English left much to be desired. Therefore, I often "hit at random" and learned in this way. After a while, I went to the school programming circle. Thanks to him for at least having materials for a deeper study of the subject. And then I already decided for sure that I wanted to connect life with IT.
At that time, I had already more or less mastered C ++: I used it to make small calculators for myself and my friends, who, for example, calculated percentages in games. It was a great feeling: coming up with some applications and trying to implement them on your own, thinking about the logic of work, correcting some mistakes, taking into account the fact that no one gave you ready-made solutions, and even less prompted you.
At that time, I never imagined that I would become a web developer. In class at 9, we were taught HTML and a little JavaScript, and then I thought it was too easy for me. But after a few years, having delved into web development, I changed my mind ...
I learned that there are large web applications and how they are developed and realized that this is cool and should be moving in this direction. In addition, in 2016-2017, web development took off - a lot of technologies appeared, the popularity of existing solutions began to grow due to the release of new versions. We started talking about bots, motion UI, and much more.
At about the same time, when I was in my 2nd year of college, we were invited to participate in the WorldSkills Russia championship of young professionals (Vladimir region). I was offered to try to participate in the “Web Design and Development” competency. I agreed, but this time I flew by: my knowledge was not enough and the place of the participant went to another person. Oddly enough, it didn't upset me. Quite the opposite, I had a goal - to take part in the championship next year, and to show everyone what I am capable of.
College mentors began to notice my development. And suddenly one day they tell me that the participant who was supposed to perform at the championship has been removed, and they will take me in his place. As cynical as it sounds, I was glad. It remains only to win and open the doors to a new life. So what am I waiting for? Forward!
The plan is to work harder, work better. Sleep is for wimps
And now fly in the ointment: when I found out about this, there were only a couple of months left before the championship, and I urgently needed to improve my skills and knowledge. I understood that at the current level of development I would hardly achieve good results, since the championship implied knowledge of backend, frontend and, at the same time, design. If I still succeeded in design and front-end - I had experience with Photoshop, with layout, then the backend was very difficult.
I revised my schedule. The plan was simple: work hard and work hard every day, but win. No work-life balance, just hardcore. For this, I began to study an average of 12 hours a day. Sometimes I could prepare for several days without sleep (my record is 3 days, but I do not advise anyone to repeat it. And better not ask how I survived).
In general, these several months looked like this: after sleepless nights, I came to another workout in college, which lasted almost 12 hours, sat with huge bruises under my eyes, then spent an hour on the commuter train, where I also sat, buried in my laptop. At home I could only take a break for 20 minutes, and then back to work. I don’t know how long I would have endured like this. But I was supported by the fact that I was doing a business that I really liked and like. And I understood that winning this competition would greatly contribute to my further development.
For the championship, I literally re-studied the layout, JavaScript. I worked on it at school, but used the old syntax. In 2016, the syntax was completely redesigned, made it more human-oriented. It was great, but I ended up having to learn the language again. I also trained in PHP and WordPress. With such a stack of technologies I entered the championship.
I am concentrating on winning the championship number 4.
My efforts paid off: after 3 days of the championship, I took first place with a strong lead over the rest of the participants. So the bruises under the eyes and the irregular day were justified.
After the championship, I decided not to waste my skills. Little by little I began to freelance. Carried out small orders for WordPress or layout on Bootstrap. Before getting a normal job it was not easy: I moved to a hostel in Vladimir from Kameshkovo. I did not find much support in my endeavors. It was hard to live on the first money, I had to cut myself in many ways. But I did not want to give up my plans. Maybe it's hard now. Maybe something is missing. It's okay when you are at the beginning of the journey. And in the first place I went into the profession not for the "golden mountains", but because I wanted to.
June's weekdays, and then middle
After freelancing, I got a job at a digital agency as a junior backend developer. In this job, he was mainly engaged in the backing of landings and online stores on Bitrix. In general, I liked everything, but at some point I began to develop into a full-stack developer. This was the first alarm bell. But in fact, this is a common story in the region: there are not so many strong teams, and one should not forget about the outflow of specialists to the capital and million-plus cities. In addition, after 8 months of work, I realized that, in principle, I didn't like the backend. There was no point in wasting time on this job any longer.
I started looking and quit shortly after. By this time, I knew the backend well, passed the exam and became a certified Bitrix developer. I think I could continue to work with the backing. But still, the front-end attracts me more. This is an incomparable sensation: it's cool when you see your product, you can use it. Pure thrill: to see the features you've implemented - animations, some kind of complex front-line business logic, calculators.
So I started looking for a frontend developer job. On hh I came across Hawking Bros, where I have been working for almost a year. The first time I was interviewed by our technical manager. He tested me for general adequacy and assessed the level of knowledge. The second interview took place with the team leader of the frontend department, his questions were already more substantive - about the general understanding of JavaScript, knowledge of its new standards and bottlenecks. As a result, they took me.
Where am I now?
I thought I would work on small projects and tasks first. Nothing like this. As soon as I joined Hawking Bros, I started working on a large project that used React. Only then I knew almost nothing about React and had to urgently learn it. Some of my knowledge of Vue came in handy.
I've been working here for almost a year. My working day begins with the fact that I open our task manager, look at my tasks and start performing them. Most often, I do React development, support on various projects, development of new interfaces. Recently, I have been performing some back-up tasks. Now I even help our Juniors, who have just come into the profession.
Today frontend is a really cool niche in which you can develop both horizontally and vertically. Thanks to the team lead, we are greatly expanding our technology stack, in the future, I think, the number of cool projects with which we work will only increase.
I learned React more or less quickly, and I still continue to delve into it. I can already take almost any framework, figure it out in a few hours and make a good feature. I try to develop in this and further, to delve more into the architecture of sites and applications.
And finally
I am interested in my work and I enjoy it. You need to become a web developer only if you are really passionate about it, but here I will not say anything new. This is the case in any field. You shouldn't go into the profession because of the hype or the IT gold rush. Otherwise, burnout will overtake you in six months or a year.
I try to stick to and advise everyone to follow the motivational words written on the poster in our office - "DO WELL, *** YOU WILL HAPPEN."
In general, if you decide to embark on the path of a web developer strewn with nails and diamonds, you need to have tremendous willpower, self-discipline and constantly upgrade to a professional. plan. It's even better if you devote at least a couple of hours a day to learning.