From radio producing to backend developer.

Pesko — Fri, 14 Jul 2023 10:16:47 +0000

That you came from bakery, trading or event cabinet maker.
That you have 2, 5, or 15 years' experience.
A professional reconversion make you a rookie again. You have to accept that and with hindsight, we're proud of how far we've come.

You should listen this album, it will be more confortable :

Are we good ? Here we go.
Let me take a little step back in time, it should be quick and allowed me to introduce myself:

2004 - 16 yo, I'm learning mixing/mastering with protools
(There is not so much tutorials on internet at this time.)
2008 - After a second failure to obtain my high school baccalaureate (I didn't fit so great with studies), I enter an audiovisual school.
2009 - Lovely surprise, without my high school baccalaureate, I can not continue in second year of this school... I love private school.
2009 - I enter in radio school.
2013 - Radio producer for NRJ group.
2017 - Bootcamp (Ruby on rails), Le Wagon Paris
2018 - Backend developer for 3DS Outscale.

Spoiler alert, it was not scheduled that I became developer at first when I started my professional transition.
Before I left my job in radio, I feel confortable with IT and some languages like html, css, javascript and some cms like drupal, or a good friend -> wordpress;
At this time, I was thrilled to just test all the projects I had in my mind.

Then, THE project project came to me. And my first mistake.

December, 2016 - Wetrip

A conventional break-up in the backpack, let's go... The goal, to develop this project.

So, do I have an MVP before leaving ? No.
An idea of the technical stack required ? No.
A market fit ? No.

Yeah, it's a mess. But I don't realize it, I'm happy. Especially foolish I guess.
These are things to do before quitting everything, just to have an idea of
where you're going, a little safety net.

Several months pass... I educate myself on entrepreneurship, I pivot to align with the market I target, and most importantly, to have a business plan that doesn't scare
too much in terms of revenue. I work on making the idea viable, scalable, etc.
But I'm still not interested in the technical side. I only have a landing page.

In my mind, I planned to pitch the project, present it, enter an incubator and find a
friendly developer who would be tempted to follow me and then
handle all the backend, frontend, infrastructure, etc. A nice magician who wants to make
a living from lines of code and fresh water. Wait, a developer is primarily
a passionate person, okay?

I was on an another planet.

April, 2017 - Product Manager

I am on the road to Lille to present the project to a a jury from via-ID.
To be clear about how unprepared I was, I didn't have a presentation.
So, I find myself 30 minutes before in my car, working on a presentation, realizing that I'm going there
empty-handed.

The rest is predictable; it was by far the best pitch they had seen all day...
Of course not. But during the questions part, I was there, I knew my market and my product.

No surprise, I was rejected. This experience made me realize that maybe I was trying to go too fast.
Usually, when you're working on a project, beyond the idea, you sell a team where each member brings
security with their background to reassure those who bet on you. But I'm alone, and I come from radio.
With nothing in my hand but dreams.

Okay, so I need to build credibility on my resume. Is there a job that can give me relevant experience
for this project without taking ages ?
Yes, product manager.

June, 2017 - Le Wagon

Here we go again, what does it take to be a good PM ?
I develop my product vision, I read books on UX/UI, I take MOOCs.
I also need to have a technical vision: I'm learning Python, I'm deepening my knowledge of HTML, CSS,
and JavaScript.
But when I go job hunting, the problem will still be the same: I still won't have the right CV.
I'm applying to Le Wagon (Paris). They teach you how to code while keeping this product vision that I
particularly love, so it's perfect!

Le Wagon is a 9-week bootcamp that covers programming basics intensively before moving on to a web framework,
Ruby on Rails, which provides a good understanding of a project's full-stack perspective.

My batch doesn't start until October, so I'm going to use this time to continue deepening my technical stack,
so that I won't be the class clown !

The training is going very well, it's very intense as expected. We're learning a lot, and we're accomplishing
amazing things.
Building small stock management programs, playing minesweeper... Hey, but backend is pretty cool, isn't it ?!
Then we move on to web development, creating marketplaces, learning how to manipulate databases, APIs, etc.
During these 9 weeks, I only think about code. In my mind, it feels like the same sense of freedom I had when I got my driver's license. I can do whatever I want.
Sky is the limit.
Well, my knowledge is the real limit.

I meet product managers who came to improve their technical skills, and the more they talk to me about the job, the less I feel like it aligns with my personality. Damn, that's why I'm here. I enjoy development,
but I'm far from being the fastest during exercises; I don't understand everything,
and I feel completely lost on some topics that seem crystal clear to others.
So my evolved brain's self-defense mechanism kicks in, Screw it, we'll see
once the training is over, for now, let's just enjoy it.

Great, that's what I like.

January, 2018 - The day after

After completing Le Wagon, I fell in love with development. I decide to focus on it and become a developer.
During the following three months, I come back on the exercises that were challenging for me.
I go deeper into fundamental concepts that are necessary in a developer's toolkit, such as testing and algorithmic basics. I also dive deeper into JavaScript.
Essentially, I look at what typically fit with a stack including Ruby on Rails in job applies and head in that
direction.

At the same time, I go through technical interviews that help me identify my weaknesses.

Thus, I go through long months of rejection after rejection.
Ah, but you didn't attend an engineering school ?
You don't have enough experience, sorry.
You don't fit the profiles we're looking for.

The period is not easy; And you simply start to think that you're worthless.
That maybe you left a job that was boring, but perhaps, not as bad as you thought in the end...

June, 2018 - Outscale

And sometimes, the tide turns.
A company is looking for a junior Python developer, or even someone to train from scratch.
In that company, there's the brother of a friend. The inside connection.
I have an interview fairly quickly, and bam!
I plant myself on the chair that will carry me beyond the probation period.

My new problem is that I'm surrounded by colleagues who are all engineers, have doctorates, even the interns are way too skilled.
I'm clearly the only one with an unconventional background.
You can see it coming, the famous "I'm just an imposter in all of this."
Let's talk about music production, I know a lot about that, haha.

Eventually, I realized that the fundamental idea is to continuously learn, to improve, and I'm in a perfect
environment for that!
So, in that sense, it's more enjoyable to embrace the problem.

April, 2019 - La suite

Today, I still have the idea of build my own project in the back of my mind.
But it's no longer a priority. Maybe one day.

In the end, I went from one console to another, and I'm pretty proud of it !