DEV Community: Guadalupe Rosas

From “Overqualified” to IT Jr: 6-month update on my career pivot #webdev #career #programming #productivity

Guadalupe Rosas — Mon, 01 Dec 2025 18:19:19 +0000

A few months ago I wrote about a really uncomfortable experience inside my own company:

I applied internally to grow as a developer and ended up being called “overqualified” and even “unable to code” — without anyone ever seeing me write a single line.

If you haven't read that story yet, here it is:
👉 Am I really overqualified… or just uncomfortable for others?

That post generated more reactions than I expected.

Some people related to the story, others shared their own toxic experiences and career doubts.

This is the 6-month update.

Same company, new role

I’m still in the same company, but now I work as a Junior IT Engineer instead of a Test Engineer Jr.

On paper it might look like a small change, but for me it was a big shift:

I’m closer to infrastructure and support instead of just testing.
I help people solve real problems every day.
I get to touch networking, printers, servers, databases and internal tools.
I still code small scripts and tools whenever I can.

Most importantly: I feel less like a threat and more like someone who actually adds value.

What my day as an IT Jr looks like

Some examples of what I handle now:

Troubleshooting printers (including industrial label printers) and drivers.
Managing IP reservations and DHCP entries when new devices appear on the network.
Helping users with Windows issues, performance problems and basic automations.
Using tools like DBeaver and SQL queries to support other areas that need data.
Checking connectivity, VPN problems, and general “why is this not working?” tickets.

It’s not glamorous. There’s no “big framework” or fancy buzzwords.

But it’s real work that keeps a factory moving. Every ticket is an opportunity to learn something new.

My “POS-lite” side project

Even though my daily job is more IT-focused, I didn’t want to lose the dev side of me.

So I’m building a personal project: a Point of Sale (POS) system.

The idea is to use it in small businesses and gyms (and to keep learning modern tools):

Stack:

Backend: Java + Spring Boot
Frontend: React
Database: MySQL / PostgreSQL
Other pieces: Docker, Git, GitHub, CI/CD
Future ideas: barcode scanner integration, product packs, stock alerts, and deployment on the cloud

I’ve been working on features like:

Creating and editing products
Handling stock and packs of products
Scanning codes to add items quickly
Basic reporting

This project helps me stay up to date with clean architecture, REST APIs, error handling, Git flow, and deployments.

Inside the company I may be “IT Jr”, but outside I’m still pushing myself as a developer.

What I’ve learned in these months

Looking back, here are a few lessons that stayed with me:

Being called “overqualified” or “too much” usually says more about the environment than about you.
You can be in the wrong team inside the right company.
It’s possible to pivot internally to a role where your curiosity is seen as an asset, not a threat.
Side projects can keep your motivation and skills alive, even when your day job is not perfect.

What’s next

I’m currently focusing on:

Growing in my IT Jr role, understanding more about infrastructure and operations.
Improving my English to open more international opportunities.
Pushing my POS-lite project forward and polishing it enough to use as a real portfolio piece.

If you read my first article and felt something similar, this is for you:

You are not “too much”. You might just be in a place that doesn’t know what to do with everything you bring.

Thanks for reading — and if you have any advice, experience or questions, I’d love to read your comments.

Am I really overqualified... or just uncomfortable for others?

Guadalupe Rosas — Wed, 28 May 2025 01:21:11 +0000

I applied to grow

I applied internally for two open positions in my company: one as a Software Developer and another as a Junior Web Developer. I wanted to move toward a field more aligned with my interests and skills, and I was genuinely excited.

However, my manager offered me a spot on his own team, since they had an internal web development team. He mentioned they used PHP—which I don’t deeply master—but also said I could use ChatGPT as needed, so I accepted with a positive attitude and willingness to learn.

Day one: a red flag

On the first day, I was paired with the only developer on the team. During our conversation, he bluntly told me I was “overqualified,” and that he didn’t agree with the tech changes I had “suggested.”

To clarify: I never suggested any changes. I just asked if he knew any PHP frameworks, since the internal website they built was running quite slowly, and I wanted to understand its architecture.

What I found was extremely complex and messy code: files with over 10,000 lines, PHP mixed with HTML, no clear separation of concerns, and zero documentation. A textbook case of spaghetti code in production.

A hostile environment

The conversation started turning hostile. When I asked him directly if something about me bothered him, he said yes: I was overqualified. It was clear my presence was uncomfortable to him.

He constantly tried to make me look bad, possibly due to insecurity or ego—I honestly don’t know.

Later, the same developer confronted me about having a personal consulting gig (which is public), insinuating that I shouldn’t have one if I didn’t know how to set up a physical server. I’ve never claimed to be an expert in that, and I made it clear from the beginning.

The manager: vision or contradiction?

I also spoke with the manager, who eventually didn’t approve my transfer request out of the team. But before that, when I asked to talk, it turned into a direct confrontation.

He ended up saying I didn’t know how to code—without ever seeing me write a single line in context. That comment threw me off completely. It was a shallow and unfair judgment of my work and profile.

He also told me he could build websites himself using ChatGPT. He said it in a condescending tone, as if using modern tools was a sign of weakness or laziness, when in reality, they are a valid part of today’s development workflow.

Minimum tools… barely offered

The technical setup was also discouraging:

I was given a laptop with no internet access.
I couldn’t install VS Code or configure my preferred tools.
Despite being told I could use ChatGPT, I had no access to it.
They expected me to know how to set up physical servers and SSL certificates—skills I’m open to learning, but which require guidance and proper environments to practice.

I researched it, yes, but couldn’t try it due to the restrictions.

I tried to adapt: even after hours

Despite all this, I understood the vision the manager wanted: a more modern, robust, scalable environment. That aligned with my interests, so I took initiative. After work hours, I started building a demo using PHP, Laravel, and MySQL.

I tried to propose a more modern structure, aiming to solve many of the issues I had observed: better architecture, improved loading speed, maintainable code. I didn’t get to finish it, but I did it with commitment and respect for the work.

However, instead of opening the conversation or valuing the effort, the environment grew more hostile. It wasn’t about building together—it was about control.

Am I a developer or just a copy-paster?

This experience left me confused. It made me question myself and my skills. I felt judged, undervalued, even humiliated.

I started wondering: do I really code—or just copy and paste?

The truth is: I do code. With mistakes, and with constant learning, like everyone in this field. But I also know how to listen, research, verify my sources, and ask for help when I need to.

Final thoughts

What hurt the most wasn’t the rejection—but the treatment. The hostility. The way I was made to feel "less than" for trying to do things right or for thinking differently.

My intention was never to replace anyone or impose anything. I simply wanted to contribute through my strengths, as anyone with technical vocation would.

What do you think?

Have you ever gone through a similar experience?
How do you handle situations where your knowledge or willingness to improve is seen as a threat?
Is it fair to demand technical work without providing basic tools?
Do you think it's reasonable to tell someone they can't code just because they don’t know how to set up a physical server?
Should I leave this company? (Open to offers 😅)

I'd love to hear your thoughts.

And if you made it this far: thank you 🙌

Books of interest

Guadalupe Rosas — Tue, 14 Dec 2021 20:05:29 +0000

short post to share books in pdf I hope they are useful greetings !!!!

enjoy!

My first freelance job part 3

Guadalupe Rosas — Sat, 11 Sep 2021 07:19:46 +0000

As I have been telling in previous posts I had a bad experience in my first job as a freelancer and this was because the deal with the client was led by a third party (a girl who contacted me on facebook).
To put it in context:
The story starts when this girl contacts me to help her with a school project, I non-profit helped her in her project.
A month later she contacts me offering me to do a real project for the company on which she had based her school project, because they liked the design.
So I started with the project but I never got any economic remuneration ... a month after the delivery (about three days ago) I decided to send mail to the company to tell them why his page had never been published and the delay of the same emphasizing the lack of economic remuneration.
The next morning I received a call from the company where they informed me that they had already covered 80% of the project for a month ago (what I had charged from the beginning), because this girl had charged even more (so the company still owed her money), that's right ! the girl had already charged and had not paid me !!!.
I reported the situation to the person at the company and they decided to sue the girl for breach of contract, I received a call from her claiming that I had communicated with the company and she offered to pay me the amount that I had charged (even knowing that she charged more, she never told me).
But well I no longer wanted to have any contact with her so I told her that I was aware of the fraud she had done and that I wished her good luck in her legal process, stressing that there was no rancor on my part because they were difficult days for me (eating only once a day for lack of money because I lost my job and my apartment as a result of being able to finish this project in a timely manner).
-----THE GOOD NEWS.-------
After talking with the representative of the company they offered me to pay the page and today I received MY FIRST PAYMENT FOR A WEBSITE made by me !!! and they also offered me a possible second project (this is waiting for authorization).
Now I have direct contact with the company and I am happy to work in what I like in a "formal" way, for the first time !!! !!!
For the hiring of my services I have relied on a contract and I hope that everything goes well.
PS; This is undoubtedly a clear example that your quality of personal values can lead you to a good job or to a legal problem from which you will not get out well.
I hope you like this experience that I am glad to share with all of you !
greetings and blessings to all of you !!!!

My first freelance job

Guadalupe Rosas — Sat, 28 Aug 2021 02:36:30 +0000

This is the continuation of my experience in my first freelancer job, I'll be brief.... after they had not paid me and I lost total contact with the client they called me yesterday 26-08-21 to tell me that they would pay me this Saturday (they said they had financial problems and that's why they had not made the payment) and that they would like to continue working with me but they would like to add two other programmers (without experience) to make an e-commerce which I don't see so convenient.
I answered them that yes, I will continue working with them but it will be under a contract previously signed by me, (after the bad experience I decided to make a contract to avoid that bad taste in my mouth again).
What do you think? should I continue working with these people?
yes, no, why?
Thank you in advance for your comments !
Greetings!

My first freelance job

Guadalupe Rosas — Mon, 23 Aug 2021 07:59:42 +0000

I thought a lot about writing this ...
I don't know how beneficial it will be for my professional development, but I don't want to be left with the desire to share this first experience.
It all started helping a girl to develop a website for a company (as a school project), after that she contacted me to propose me a business.
The design that I had implemented in her project they had liked and she needed my help to make another similar and improved one and this time paid because the first time I supported this person I didn't charge anything.
I decided to implement a landing page with a minimalist style, intuitive, and full contact with the customer through messenger (my first proposal was an e-commerce) but they found it too expensive...
so I elaborated the design and presented it with an estimated delivery time of 1 month to 1 month and a half always sticking to spring methodology.
The first mistake was not to generate a contract with the specifications that the client should test and respect during the delivery time because the person I was supporting assured me that they were totally trustworthy and that she had already worked with them before.
Anyway ... once the design was presented and approved I got down to work but the client constantly delayed me with changes he wanted at the last minute and it should be noted that I shortened the delivery time to about 3 weeks or 2.
So I decided to see it as a challenge and not as an abuse by this company....
In the first instance I asked for 50% of the total payment in advance but they refused, they said that since it was the first time they would work with me the payment would be made until the final delivery of the project (at least that's what this person told me) since being their clients they did not allow me to have any contact with them.
So well ... I delivered in time and form and surprise ... the payment did not arrive as agreed .... I told them that there was no problem and that I would wait no problem ... the day arrived .... and the payment ... still did not arrive .... then they told me that next week I would have my money now that they had had economic problems and that now it was a fact but what do you think?
Exactly. the payment never arrived ....
in the last contact I had with them....
they told me that they already had a SECOND PROJECT haha but they didn't mention anything about the money they owed me ...
so I decided to unsubscribe the page ...
and well ... I am left ... with the code .... and my time invested ... and yes .... without money ....
I guess this has happened to more than one of you, I would like to read your opinions about it.
at the moment I am trying to join Workana ... but ... my profile is still pending review ....
if you have any suggestions for freelancer sites I would appreciate it.
and again leave your comments
thank you very much and best regards !

installing xampp and HeidiSQL ubuntu 20.04

Guadalupe Rosas — Mon, 24 May 2021 04:56:52 +0000

Hello everyone for those who are using any linux distro in this case ubuntu 20.04 there are certain installations to be done

*Installation Xampp**
wget -r https://www.apachefriends.org/xampp-files/7.4.8/xampp-linux-x64-7.4.8-0-installer.run (you can choose your preferred version)

//give permissions

/home/your-user/www.apachefriends.org/xampp-files/Accedemos to its location and from the console we give permissions.

chmod 755 xampp-linux-*-installer.run

Install it.

sudo ./xampp-linux-*-installer.run

Example...

adrian@asus ~/www.apachefriends.org/xampp-files/7.4.8 $ chmod 755 xampp-linux-*-installer.run

click next next next next until the installation begins

//commands to use

sudo /opt/lampp/lampp/lampp start //to start the service

sudo /opt/lampp/lampp/lampp stop //to stop it

sudo /opt/lampp/lampp restart //to restart the service

sudo /opt/lampp/manager-linux-x64.run //to access control panel

****Instalacion HeidiSQL*****
we must first install Wine which allows us to translate windows applications to linux
sudo apt install wine64 //installing
winewinecfg //to configure wine

You will see a window indicating that the program is being configured. We wait until it finishes, or until we see a window asking for permission to install dependencies. We click on the "Install" button of all of them so that the wizard takes care of downloading and copying everything necessary, and when the process is finished, and everything is ready on our PC, we will see the Wine configuration window. This window has 7 tabs, through which we will be able to configure the different aspects of this tool.Wine allows us to simulate all versions of Windows. This way, if we have software that can only run on a specific version of Windows, we will be able to load the libraries of that version, and impersonate the version of the operating system, for each of them. We can configure a default version, which will be used in all programs, and add specific EXE files to give each one a version. To verify that it has been installed correctly we will use
wine --version
an easy way to open the program is to run the following command (just in case clicking or double clicking and opening with another application on the exe does not open with wine)
run wine programname.exe and ready to start the installation of HeidiSQL once installed we will open its GUI and make the relevant configurations of the localhost once realzida the configurations give in open and ready you will have installed HeidiSQL correctly.

NOTE: before starting the Heidi server make sure you have your xampp servers running.

Greetings!

Solution to HDMI audio problem in Ubuntu 20.04

Guadalupe Rosas — Sat, 01 May 2021 16:01:49 +0000

Hello dev's after much searching and searching between tutorials and others I found this solution in a discussion forum where a possible solution was to edit the grub which did not work I have an amd ryzen a12 and when connecting to my hdmi it gave me an image but no it gave sound so I followed the suggestion to install PulseAudio Volume Control from the application store and that's it, problem solved, now I have audio and image on my hd screen the only thing to do once this software is installed is to go to the tab of Output Devices and once there select the Headphones as the output port, the software will also automatically detect that you have a default HDMI port when making these changes you can enjoy an excellent sound via HDMI coming out of your hd monitor

I hope this contribution will be of great help to you, greetings!

First days with Ubuntu 20.4

Guadalupe Rosas — Tue, 06 Apr 2021 02:33:45 +0000

Well, what was promised is a debt so well I bring a small review of my experience these days using the Ubuntu 20.4 linux distro, which I have loved since it is super friendly to program, the use of the terminal makes your work easier And entertaining, the installation of programs because it is nothing to write home about, you can do it by just double clicking on the software store or from the terminal (my favorite), something that I liked too much is being able to configure the development environment to my I crave thanks to GNOME which allows me to have a more pleasant view, I will continue to try more things in Ubuntu and probably later I will decide to leave it as the main OS because it seems very light and great!

and what do you think about ubuntu? leave your opinion in the comments.

Greetings!!

linux lite test results

Guadalupe Rosas — Thu, 01 Apr 2021 00:48:37 +0000

Well guys, I had my first approach with this Linux distro but my experience was not pleasant since I could not do the extended screen mode so it does not serve me since the purpose of testing Linux distros is focused on programming
I read during these days documentation in forums, official but I did not find a solution to my problem, so well .... I will try Ubuntu (this is because I am still new to Linux distros) and based on its large community to solve problems that may arise.
Without further ado I will be uploading how I am doing with this new distro.
And have you used Linux Lite? what was your experience? Leave your comments.
Greetings !!

Testing Linux Lite

Guadalupe Rosas — Wed, 31 Mar 2021 03:35:56 +0000

Well, I have decided to install a Linux distro on my laptop that has 1 sdd of 128gb and
recently add a 500gb hdd on this occasion and for the first time I will be testing Liux lite as your requirements that
they fit perfectly to the needs of my laptop.
The characteristics of this distro are the following:

MINIMUM RECOMMENDED SPECIFICATIONS:

CPU: 1Ghz processor
RAM: 768mb ram
STORAGE: 8gb
RESOLUTION: VGA screen 1024x768 resolution
MEDIA: DVD drive or USB port for the ISO image

PREFERRED SPECIFICATIONS:

CPU: 1.5GHz processor
RAM: 1024mb ram
STORAGE: 20gb
RESOLUTION: VGA, DVI or HDMI screen 1366x768
MEDIA: DVD drive or USB port for the ISO image

COMMON SOFTWARE
Web Browser - Firefox 82.0

Email Client - Thunderbird 68.10.0

Office Suite - LibreOffice 6.4.6.2

Media Player - VLC 3.0.9.2

Image Editor - Gimp 2.10.18

System Backup and Restore - Timeshift 20.03

File Manager - Thunar 1.8.14

Base: 20.04.1

Kernel: 5.4.0-52 (custom kernels are also available via our Repository for versions 3.13 - 5.9)

Series: 5.x

DESKTOP UI
Window Theme: Adapta

Icon Theme: Papirus

Font: Roboto Regular

I study Programming so I will be using some IDEs and text editors to test the system
I'll be writing a bit about my experience with this OS until then ...

Greetings dev's

Should I change to a LINUX distro ???

Guadalupe Rosas — Mon, 22 Mar 2021 13:24:16 +0000

Hello everyone I am currently using Windows, I have used it for a long time but I am very bothered by the updates it constantly has, I know a bit of bash for some courses I have taken where instructors use it, I can no longer contemplate having a virtual machine. I have low memory on the sdd (129GB), so I am considering totally changing the operating system. Any suggestions ??? (I am a Computer Engineering student (3 Semester))