We need some love during these difficult times, so let's start a wholesome thread.
What is the kindest thing someone's ever done for you during your career?
We need some love during these difficult times, so let's start a wholesome thread.
What is the kindest thing someone's ever done for you during your career?
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In 2012 I spent 3 months teaching myself web development using the Michael Hartl Rails tutorial. I then applied to a tiny startup called Aisle50. They had a job posting for a full time Software Engineer which I was NOWHERE near but I emailed them and asked if they would take on an intern. They told me they would consider it and had me come in for an interview.
During the interview they had me show them the app I built which ended up being way buggier than I hoped but despite that, they agreed to give me a 6 month paid internship with option to hire at the end. After 6 months they hired me and the rest is history.
I can never thank that team enough for taking a chance on me!
Hi Molly,
I am a self-taught dev at the beginning of my first dev job hunt. Your story is incredibly inspiring!
Thanks for sharing,
Mariah
Maybe not the kindest thing, but something nice: When I was applying for my first developer job, I cancelled a technical interview because I had severe anxiety leading up to it. A few days later, I realized that I regretted it and ended up emailing them back. I explained the anxiety - and they understood 🥰 Another interview was scheduled and they ultimately hired me 🎉
I've also known many people who used their free time to mentor and support me. Too many to count and I'm very grateful ❤️
I think for me I'm grateful for all the people who were willing to take chances on me and take the time to speak with me and mentor me.
I truly believe Jason Lengsdorf got me into the speaking and teaching track (way back in 2016 at IBM). He also believed in my goal to start a mentorship platform, and even offered his help to build it.
Egghead.io took a chance on me and introduced me to the world of online coding tutorials.
There are too many people to be grateful to.
Give me a chance.
Early on when I had not enough experience I strongly believed in a project and the CEO put me in charge of it. She was not disappointed 🎉
I think in general it is a good idea to give people a chance, you won't be able to know what they're capable of until you put them in a situation where they can show you.
Hired me? Haha.
Nah, it's the colleagues willing to stay behind late to help me debug an issue :)
Same I'd be no where without my team mates, past and present
Having @andreasklinger effusively offer a ton of advice in the early days of DEV in terms of technicalities and team-building has to rank up there pretty well for me.
I can't even say I took him up on it enough, but the times we touched base were very formative.
Apart from being able to work with such generous and patient people throughout my career, I do have a story that always hits me right in the feels....
When I very first started out with a 'proper job', I was a network technician at a huge school. There was me and the network manager trying to put out fires and keep the network and around 500 PC's in working order.
The chap I worked with was one of the most grumpy, blunt, anti-people person that I'd ever met. He had such disdain for everyone and just about everything seemed to piss him off. Despite that, I could see this helpful streak in him and, although he seemed to have a very odd way of showing it, he genuinely went out of his way to help people. We seemed to get on OK and over the course of my employment, we had a really nice relationship and I like to think that my affable nature and positive outlook brought him out a little. I felt like I'd managed to bring a wounded and untrusting animal back from the brink.
Fast forward a couple of years and I'd reached the end of the road with that job. Nothing bad at all, but we all reach that point in our career, our job, when it's just time for the next thing. During my notice period (typically a month here in the UK), I helped my manager show some new candidates around the school, give them a flavour of what they'd be doing.
On one particular tour, the candidate asked a little about me and my manager, Billy, said 'Well he's a great colleague and works very hard. But more than that, you're not just replacing a colleague, he's much more than that. He's my friend'.
I mean, I'm not crying, you're crying...
He wrote me a fantastic recommendation letter and was so supportive throughout my early career. Couldn't have asked for a better place to work and I made a life long friend.
My career is almost 2 years old. First 8 months I had a lot of hard time because of my boss's stigma about my chronic diseases. You know, can you even work with those diseases? Kind of questions. But I am now team leader of the same project that I started from scratch. My co-workers on the other hand always supported me. I guess that's the silver lining for me.
A colleague backing me in a review with my boss.
He highlighted what I was responsible for in our daily business and explained him how I gradually grew out of my role as a junior developer.
I believe that appointment resulted in a firm stance within the company and a large salary boost.
Thanks! :)
I was homeless for a stretch in December through January. Things weren't looking too good, and I was spending as much time plotting my escape plan as I was searching for a job. I needed money desperately, but I knew I could not work at another shop I despised, where elegant (or even working) code wasn't expected, and where I felt nothing in common with my team.
My old buddy from college reached out to me. We had not had a chance to talk in at least five years at this point. He told me about his company and finished off the conversation telling me that he wasn't doing this because I need money, but because he wanted to see me happy working somewhere for the first time ever.
I went in and rocked the technical interview he was able to fast-track. The next week, I showed up for work, and I am slowly rebuilding my life. Being homeless was one of the most demoralizing and humiliating experiences I have ever gone through in life, and I hated having to lie about where I lived because I was ashamed people would realize I was living in an Extended Stay motel for the first six weeks of my employment, but it's all over now. Not sure where I'd be without him, but it would probably not be a good place at all.
Undoubtedly I owe what I am today to a designer who learned to program on his own to be able to take care of the frontend in the company.
When I got caught in Adoramedia, to do the free practices of the university degree, I only knew C and C ++, I had no idea of web development, it gave me the best learning techniques and the best resources.
Today my learning ability is exponential, I never go to bed without learning something new. Thanks to those who give opportunities and who teach you without expecting anything in return, more than the luck of watching you grow! ❤ I hope to one day reach his level. Best mentor ever linkedin.com/in/javier-ferr%C3%A1n...
In 2016 I had the worst interview of my life. I had been judged from the minute I walked in for being a woman wearing a dress. It plunged my self-esteem to the ground and made me never want to code again.
The next day I got an email from a recruiter who had contacted me back in 2015. At that time I didn't want to move cities for a job, but in 2016 I was ready to take the plunge. It was a Javascript job and my background was PHP and WordPress themes.
In the technical interview, I got a super kind person who helped me move along the exercises. He let me solve the questions using PHP instead of JavaScript although the job I was applying to was in JS. We ended up talking about baking during the interview and the recruiter had to step in to keep us on track. He hired me and got me into his team.
I moved to a new city where I didn't know anyone. My new Team Lead took care into spending at least two hours a week going over Javascript concepts with me. He sent me to courses, lent me books, anything so that I could catch up to everything I didn't know. He also put me in a project with a very demanding mentor who taught me Angular 2.
In the end, I got my job in Germany because of everything he pushed me to learn and I got the job with his full blessing. We cried for an hour in our last one-on-one because we really loved working together. He is the reason why I could turn around my life and I will always be thankful to him.
I'm crying reading all of these responses! The senior dev I worked under at my first dev job has been a tremendous help to me both at that job, and beyond. Every time I asked him for help, he turned it into a leaning experience. I don't work there anymore, but we still meet every couple of months. I make sure I come to our chats with questions or new concepts i've learned and want to talk through further. He is so patient and kind, and makes sure that I understand concepts fully and can go forth and keep coding! He has been a tremendous support to me. I couldn't have asked for a better senior dev to report to at my first dev job. 😭
In 2013 - I was in a customer service role but teaching myself to code using One Month tutorials and several other online classes. I had a good relationship with the CTO of the company at the time and would ask him questions of things I didn't understand. He happily helped me through tough questions and concepts. It was my dream to become a software developer and to be able to build, but never realistically thought it would happen - just a cool thing to kind of have knowledge of.
After a few months, he pulled me aside one day and ended up offering me a junior development role on the team. I will never forget that moment and will always be grateful to him for taking the chance on me. To this day, I always think back to that moment - and I am always on the lookout for beginners/juniors who need a chance as well so I can give that feeling to others.
bless you. :) It's never about what you get, but what you give.
Helped me,.. Beeing patienced and insightful. Basically helped me to improve.
My mentor giving my the hard knocks and tough pill to swallow on upgrading my skills and starting my career as a developer.
Instead of giving up what I have learned in school to be a tech salesman for startups.
Time for a short story. This was back in March 2018. 🤓 I‘d just turned 17, and near the end of my internship.
The penultimate week before my internship ended, I told my COO that I’d like to continue at the company, either as an intern or permanently. Throughout the weekend, I thought hard about whether I made the correct decision.
Why? Because one of the reasons was my low confidence. I’d been stuck on a task for two weeks. I felt that I don’t deserve to be there. 😭 Not to mention, I’m the youngest person within the company, so I was kind of shy and didn’t let my true self shine.
So my last week as an intern arrived. In the morning, I messaged my COO whether we could speak outside. I told him that I decided not to continue as I wanted to explore other technologies which was only partially true. But confidence was the major reason behind my decision.
After a short conversation, we went back into the office. Then fast forward a few hours, I was supposed to go out for lunch with my COO and a few teammates. While on the way to the restaurant, I looked at my phone and noticed that my CTO had called me once or twice. 😳
I waited for a few seconds and he called me again. He asked me how am I doing. Then, he asked me why I declined the offer. I can’t remember what I said as I was utterly shocked to receive a call from him.
In the middle of the conversation, he said some encouraging words. This lifted my spirits and eventually, I reversed my decision.
2 years on, I still remember these events like it was yesterday. I’m eternally grateful to my bosses for taking me on board. 🙂
Shows up late to the party BUT this is such a beautiful question! I've loved reading what everyone already wrote, such kindness.
For me, I'd been at a job for over a year, and the daily commute added up to 3 hours. It took a harsh toll on me and my family, so I let my manager know I needed to quit to find local work.
The next morning, my manager pulled me aside and offered me my same job - but WFH full time.
That was a kindness I won't forget. No one else in the company had this luxury, but my manager trusted me to do the work, she understood why it was important for me to see my family more, and she made an exception for me. That kindness made me even more dedicated to the people and the company, and it's a gesture that will stay with me for a long time.
I had been studying Python and Django and my vendor company boss let me pick up a project that had lost focus and work on it by myself. It wound up not even getting used, but it allowed me to build something that I thought was fun while I was on the clock. He even let me put it on my person GitHub account since it wasn't something that was being made for our client.
My current bosses for believing in my potential and for taking a shot at giving me my first ever tech position. My colleagues for always being so thorough and patience while helping me through issues all the while providing me encouragement and guidance.
Hire me with no experience
when i start working in 2011 some one hacking my domains account in GoDaddy. I did not speak English very well in this time. This person made a phone call to technical support to return my account. I think if there was not this person, everything would have ended
Where I'm from, there's a lot of mountains to climb to becoming a software developer, from electricity to infrastructure, et al. I'm grateful for those kind individuals and organisations who provided articles and other learning resources at no cost. I have developed a passion for teaching and have mentored one or two folks. Hopefully, when I launch my blog, I'll be able to reach more people with helpful learning resources as well.
During my end of studies internship, when a colleague learned me
git reflogto find few days of code I've lost 😁For me, it was landing my first job. My teammate knew me well, and just took a chance on me and the rest is history!
My former senior dev giving me access to his premium software development tutorials.
Managers who are kind, considrate, forgiving, supportive, and from time to time, throw in surprise bones.
One of the most experienced developers at my previous workplace noticed my quiet interest in development, and actually told me that he believed I could be a great engineer. I find that we often think these things about each other, but don't actually say it out loud :) This was all I needed to start believing in myself, and now I am a software dev apprentice!
some of my very best freind that was a blessing for me muqadas Adnan hasnain shan and Vivek these man have given me a very well understanding in the field
My manager told me: 'I know you don't know, how to do it, but you'll figure it out, don't worry, if you get stuck, call me.'
For some people this kind of thing can get very personal.