It's time to put an end to this story, or at least an ellipsis. In the last part of this mini-book, I want to tell you about all the landmark events in my career as a programmer over the past 7 years. And also, for completeness, I will add advice from colleagues who are much more experienced than me. Some of them are already over 70, some 45, some 50.
In the last part of the book I will tell you about the most memorable projects in which I participated, about long-term customers who later became friends. About the awards and certificates in the field of IT, which we managed to obtain recently.
Most memorable projects
The last chapter of "A Programmer's Career" ended with the experience of creating and launching your own startup. From everything that happened at that time, I learned a lot of experience and acquaintances.
I still communicate with many people of that time. Today these are large investors, founders of IT companies, ministers and deputies. I returned to freelance, no matter how funny it sounds.
The return was not easy, as if it had flown from the top league to the bottom. As a child, I played a lot of sports, so I'm sorry, but I like to draw analogies with football and project them into real life.
In short, after closing the startup due to lack of investment, I started looking for a job. There was only one goal - to survive. All the money was spent, and the rent and food bills left no time for reflection and procrastination.
I had to look for earning opportunities everywhere. I ran interviews for office jobs, frantically looked for work on freelance exchanges, did coursework for Indian students just to buy food. Mentally I identified myself as the CEO of a startup, but the reality was that you had to take on any job.
Ultimately, one of my old customers agreed to take me on their project.
Council number 1. Always maintain good relationships with people when breaking up.
It was a freelance customer for a minimal price, although yesterday I was talking with large investors and it was about completely different things than adding a button to the form.
Well, I was hungry, so I took a spear, mounted my horse and continued freelancing.
Time passed, orders became more, their quality increased, as did my hourly rate. I will list the most memorable projects since that time.
Enterprise antivirus software
Rate : 13 $ / hour
Duration of cooperation : 4 months
Client location : Austria
Team : 4 people
A man named Stefan Huisman gave me a helping hand after I failed the startup. Of course, God has a sense of humor, and I had conflicting feelings during introspection: “I wanted to create a startup worth a million, but I work for Huisman,” I thought then, choking with laughter, then holding back tears.
Nevertheless, they took me to the team. Before that, I worked for Stefan alone, and developed an engine for his anti-virus company that was used in all the company's products.
This time, I worked in a small team of four and a nanny-manager. The project had been written for quite a long time and did not promise great prospects in terms of "pumping skills", but it was necessary to start somewhere. After 4 months I was found by a man named Santos , which allowed me to switch to a more interesting project in all respects.
Application screenshots
Security system for enterprises
Rate: 25 $ / hour
Duration of cooperation: 9 months
Client location: Brazil
Team: worked alone
Santos was a kind man for 38 years. He himself was well versed in IT, and was obsessed with the idea of introducing security software in Brazilian enterprises. I don’t know how it is now, but in 2014 this local niche promised high incomes, with small investments. Santos shipped me 3 sheets of requirments on the very first day. I, being hungry , immediately made the lion's share of them.
On the first and second day of the start of the project, I worked 16 hours a day. Santos also had one distinguishing feature. He set unrealistic deadlines. By unreal, I mean 2-3 days for a task, the volume of which is usually 2-3 weeks. Being still inexperienced and having no other options, I first learned what it means to “burn out at work”. This is not the only time in my career when a customer squeezes everything out of you.
Ultimately, I implemented every feature that Santos could think of. Some were not even feasible or required special equipment, but even here I somehow dodged.
This client taught me how to find a solution to any problem.
Brazil
Logistics automation
Rate: 34 $ / hour
Duration of cooperation: 1 year
Location: UK / USA,
Team: 4 people
As you can see, my rate was growing rapidly. I was not afraid to raise it. The main motivator for me was my newly born daughter, who asked my father's rate without embarrassment.
A large company with US management and a UK CTO was looking for a .NET developer to port their Java project to Windows. I approached them. The service station was called Alexander, and he was a pretty pumped-up developer.
Previously, usually I came across customers with no development skills, or with a low level. Alex knew everything. I set up CI, managed a team of ten people, reviewed the code in Swift, Java and C #, was here and there.
Remarkable is the fact that the Java project was also ported to macOS by a team of three. All smart, technically advanced guys. But a year later, I practically brought the project from scratch to sales, and they didn't even have a UI ready.
I completed my task and decided to move on. This company is doing well now, and the software I have written for Windows is used by thousands of small and medium-sized businesses to automate the delivery of goods.
Demo application
Application screenshots
Vision Diagnostic Software
Rate: 30 $ / hour
Duration of cooperation: 1.5 years
Client: USA, worked alone
Before this project, I worked as a team leader in the office of a large outsourcing company. What I will write below. This explains the sagging rate. By the time I took on this project, I had a total of 12 years of experience in IT.
Apart from development, I had skills in project management, packaging, licensing and sales. However, most of them, I acquired it on this project. This customer also gave me the opportunity to try my hand at mobile development, which helped me a lot in the future.
In general, we became friends, as is often the case, and the relationship turned from business to more formal. We talk about life more often than about technical requirements or budget. We still communicate.
Council number 2. Try to become friends with the customer.
Now this software, written by me alone, is used to diagnose vision in the US Army, Canada and the Paralympic Games. This is one of those projects that I am really proud of. Written for Windows, iOS, Android.
Demo application
Application screenshots
Educational app for doctors / therapists
Rate: 50 $ / hour
Duration: 1+ year
Client: Australia
Team: independently, +1 backend, +3 manager
Reference customer and project. After the previous client, I realized that it is most comfortable for me to work in healthcare and specifically with clients-doctors. I can explain this by the fact that medicine in the West is at a good level, and doctors are usually wealthy people. And business owners from this domain are doubly provided for. But not by money alone.
If you prioritize who I like working with the most, then freedom of choice on the project will come first. Freedom of choice of technologies, architecture, writing code. On the second - the character of the client and the relationship with him. And only on the third - wages, if not on the fourth, after the opportunity to experiment with new technologies.
Now this application is used by more than 5,000 therapists around the world. This is also the project
Application screenshots
In total, I have completed over 70 orders over the past 15 years. Most of the income and really interesting projects come from the last 3-4 years. The higher the hourly rate, the higher the level of communication and the scale of projects.
At the beginning of my career, for $ 10 / hour I was given XML editing and trolls. Today for 50 $ / hr, owners of multimillion-dollar businesses with tens of thousands of clients turn to me for advice.
Council number 3. Do not be afraid.
Achivki
In addition to freelancing, I had experience working in an office, starting a startup, and several of my open-source projects. 2 interviews, 25 posts on Habré and another fifty outside.
Microsoft's Most Valuable Professional award was given for just that.
I also have a dozen Microsoft certifications, Brainbench, and lesser known tutorials. This gentleman's list lacks only his project, brought to the end. This is what I am going to do in the near future.
Microsoft Most Valuable Professional
Certificates
A little about offices and work in the company
3 years ago, fate brought me to work in one large company. After receiving the Microsoft MVP award, many IT companies in our country began to write to me with an offer to speak or work for them.
In general, I wanted to try myself in a team, outside of freelancing. The position also sounded tempting - team lead. I was hired for a new project, which was technically quite simple. But the fact that 25 people were recruited into the team for this kind of task complicated all the processes. Nevertheless, I learned a lot and grew up in the half year that I worked for this company. This knowledge then allowed me to single-handedly make projects on freelance and bring them to completion.
Council number 4. Follow projects through.
Learned SCRUM
Tips from developers 40+ years old
Now I am 34 years old and my career continues. This story would be incomplete if it did not include the opinion of developers who are older than me. Now I am worried about the question - what will be the career of a programmer after 40 years? After 50 years? And what to live on when I am no longer able to write code? With this kind of questions, I went to different forums and asked colleagues. I overheard in various sources, and that's what happened.
List of tips and
tricks from colleagues 40+: 1. Health - priority number 1
2. Keep track of your physical shape
3. Make investments
4. Get out of your comfort zone more often. ( Despite the banality, many regret that they were sitting still, at a time when it was necessary to act)
5. Believe in yourself more
6. Start your own business and find third-party earnings.
7. Improve your communication skills
8. Be public
9. Eliminate alcohol
10. Change projects, expand your professional and life horizons ( It is recommended to change jobs every 2-3 years )
11. Develop your network
12. Do not burn out, do not strain
13. Improve your English ... Grammar.
I have compiled this list from hundreds of replies and posts from programmers whose age is from 40 to 70 years old. The oldest colleague said this advice: “Probably the most important moment in the life of every man is when he has everything and he chooses what to do next. Then little changes. "
The author implies a midlife crisis. When you have a family, children, an apartment, and it's time to decide what to do next. From this decision, apparently and depends on how the rest of your life will turn out. How much this is true is up to you to judge.
In addition to the advice, I also compiled a list of notes from my older colleagues.
List of notes from colleagues 40+:
1. With age, the brain switches to experience so as not to waste resources
2. At 47 years old - offers are constantly coming
3. With age, the point of application of effort is more accurate. When you are young, you plow more - less exhaust.
4. If you start your business now, then by 40 you will have enough experience to manage it without straining (not necessarily the first one)
5. After 40, the earnings are much more than at 30. The peak is 35-45.
6. Do not sit in a cozy place. This is the only way to get development and move forward. This is the only way to rise to a higher level.
7. A public person, with a name, a brand, receives many times more offers and attention. You are not a man from the street, but a man whom we saw there. Posts on Habré and medium are one of the options for promoting yourself.
8. In the life of every man comes a crisis and the question "how to live further" - this is the most important moment in life. And the 40-year-old has nothing to advise. Little changes after.
9. Give up alcohol. Take medications to improve cerebral circulation.
10. At 45, the feeling that you don't understand something became unusual and unpleasant. This is vanity.
11. Study investing. Diversification of assets. FIRE movement.
12. Each person has a skill in which he is better than 80-90% of the world's population. If there is no such skill, he simply did not find it.
13. Practice: imagine that you are 40+ or 50+, and you are still there. Then analyze your past life, why it happened. Be horrified. Then come back to 30+, because there is a chance to fix everything.
14. Problems with burnout are solved as follows: rest, change of scenery. Sport you like. Minimum walk. Normalize sleep. Work where you like and rush off tasks.
15. Life is finite and after 60 - activity will be limited. After 70 - even more so.
Conclusion
I sincerely thank everyone who read my story to the end. Those people who commented and supported. They asked about the sequel in private messages. Thanks to you, I finished this book.