This is a submission for the 2026 WeCoded Challenge: Echoes of Experience
I never planned any of this.
After graduation, I did what most people in my situation do — I went to Ameerpet in Hyderabad, where all the IT coaching centres are. Back then, pre-COVID, you could get a full Java course for just ₹4500. I did it, came back home, and then... just sat there. No job. No leads. Nothing.
But I had this habit.
Whenever I was bored, I'd open the Play Store and just explore. Not looking for anything specific — just hunting for interesting free apps. The kind that had a clean UI, did something useful, and felt like someone actually cared while building it. I'd try them, enjoy them, and quietly wonder — what kind of company makes something this good? What would it feel like to work there?
That habit changed my life.
One day I came across an app called Rock Interview. Mock interview practice. First session free. I figured, why not?
I did the interview. It lasted 15 minutes. I got 4 stars.
I forgot about it.
Two months later, I got a call. A recruiter from Rock Interview said they'd found my profile in their database — 4 stars — and wanted to interview me for a developer role.
I got the job. My first ever. In Bangalore.
The first month was rough. I was on an unpaid internship — basically a trial where they'd throw you out if you didn't fit. No stipend, no safety net, just pure fear. But that fear made me work harder than I ever had. I made it through.
And then something full circle happened.
The app I had used to get the job? I ended up building its backend.
The user became the builder.
That experience quietly shaped a vision I've carried ever since — I want to work on products that have direct impact on people like me. Not just code for the sake of code. Real apps, real users, real problems.
Years passed. I moved into microservices, Spring Boot, backend development. And in every project, I kept bumping into the same problem — writing the same validation logic over and over again across services. @AllowedValues, strong password rules, file extension checks — each team reinventing the wheel, rules drifting, maintenance becoming a headache.
The pain was real. I'd felt it enough times.
So I built something.
Validation Kit is a Spring Boot starter that extends Hibernate Validator with reusable API payload validation constraints. Things like:
-
@AllowedValues— validate that a field is one of a defined set of strings, just like having a dropdown on UI -
@StrongPassword— configurable password complexity rules -
@FileExtension— validate filenames against allowed extensions -
@Base64— validate base64 encoded strings
It plugs into your existing Jakarta Bean Validation setup. No custom execution engine, no magic — just constraints you can drop in and reuse across services.
It's published on Maven Central:
<dependency>
<groupId>io.github.validationkit</groupId>
<artifactId>validation-spring-boot-starter</artifactId>
<version>0.0.2</version>
</dependency>
I didn't build this to get stars or go viral.
I built it because I had the pain, I had the skills, and I finally stopped waiting until I "knew enough." I built it for the version of me from a few years ago who was copying validation logic from one service to another and thinking — there has to be a better way.
The kid who explored Play Store apps and wondered what it would feel like to build something people actually use?
He just published his first open source library.
The arc is kind of wild when I look back at it.
If you're a Spring Boot developer dealing with repeated validation logic across microservices, give Validation Kit a try. And if you've been sitting on an idea waiting until you're "ready" — you probably already are.
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