My Journey: 14 years of writing code

Believe it or not, this is how I started my journey as a developer:

In 2008 with 19 years old, during the first day at the university I had to fill out the registry form and I didn't have an email address, so I had to go to an Internet Café and ask someone to help me create one.
I didn't even know that Internet was a thing and of course I thought that I was going to learn how to fix computers 😂.

I remember the first programming class where the professor created a simple Hello World program in Schema, ran it and magically a window was opened with the "Hello Word" text in it... and to be honest that blew my mind.

During those 5 years (yeah I did horrible in a Calculus class) I did well in the programming courses, but struggled with Math and English (yes, as you probably found in the article I'm not a native speaker).

Then in 2012 I had my first job and the company I worked was known to hire recently graduated students, which was great because all the stuff I learned didn't match the technologies the company used.
Soon enough I realized I had to get up to speed and the only way was through reading. There was no Udemy/Coursera/etc back then.
We used some 🔥 technologies .NET, Javascript & jQuery.

Node was getting traction and Javascript was being more popular and I decided to learn Javascript well.
For my fortune, Javascript became really popular, a lot of devs used it but didn't know the language well (it was a "joke" language), so I was able to transition to other companies, get a better salary and work on exciting projects.

Moving forward, I used to work for outsourcing companies offering services to US companies, so I kept growing my communication skills along side the technical area. You can read my post on how I became a better developer

From moving between companies I learned something that's a reality:

It's likely that your company doesn't appreciate how valuable you are.

And by that I mean, it's easy to get into a new company with a better salary and position than growing where you are.
At least that happened to me over an over 💔.

To keep the story short I'm currently working for an US based startup with a good environment and salary 🔥

And these are the key points that took me to that place:

1. Even though at the beginning I was totally lost, I focused on learn to learn.

2. Read is one of the most valuable habits I have.

   You're going to get behind if you don't keep learning!

3. There is always going be people with less experience than you. So help and teach them, you're going to learn what areas you dominate and which ones you need to improve.

   I genuinely love to help other devs get better with their craft ❤️

4. Treat others well, they might help you, recommend or bringing you into new and exciting companies.

I hope you enjoyed! You can follow me on twitter and share experiences.