DEV Community

Cover image for What did I do wrong? ๐Ÿ˜“
Duodu Randy ๐Ÿ’ป๐Ÿ
Duodu Randy ๐Ÿ’ป๐Ÿ

Posted on

What did I do wrong? ๐Ÿ˜“

A story about an entry-level developer's frustration

โฐ Woke up one day ๐ŸŒ… feeling good, cause meeeen! I wanna be a software developer ๐Ÿง‘โ€๐Ÿ’ป

๐Ÿ”Ž Searched on Youtube, learnt the basics, created some demos ๐Ÿ“. Ooh! nice ๐Ÿคฉ Dev ain't bad at all

Joined some boot camps ๐Ÿ•๏ธ, made some dev friends ๐Ÿง‘โ€๐Ÿคโ€๐Ÿง‘. Oh Wow! this s**** is awesome

Wanted more so I bought ๐Ÿ’ต some courses, created a Twitter account cause TechTwitter they said was the best

๐Ÿค Followed some folks, got some tips and yeah TechTwitter is the best

Kept on learning ๐Ÿฑโ€๐Ÿ‘“ and practising more because practice they say makes one perfect

So it has been some years and I felt like yoo! I got this. Let me apply for some jobs ๐Ÿ‘”

Started writing some CV's ๐Ÿ“‹โœ๏ธ, created a LinkedIn ๐Ÿ‘ค account to apply for jobs related to my tech stack

Applied for internship jobs, freelance jobs, entry-level jobs, like all the jobs I could think of

Was at this point that I knew s**** ๐Ÿ’ฉ is getting crazy

Went through the mail, got plenty of rejected ๐Ÿ™… applications. For some, I don't know when they are going to reply

Maybe when Thanos grows a moustache ๐Ÿฅธ

Started getting frustrated ๐Ÿ˜”. Imposter syndrome kicked in. F**** I have to put food on the table, why me?

DMed some folks for advice. I continued sharpening ๐Ÿ‹๏ธ my skills cause I had the belief things will be fine

Thought of startups so I started. It failed but I learnt. We move ๐Ÿš™

Volunteered to build apps for some friends and organisations to improve my experience. Some rejected and others accepted

Added the volunteered work to my CV and started applying for some jobs because I spent the little I had on improving my skills

Finally, I got some replies ๐Ÿ“ซ with links to the code test. Felt glad.

Opened the replies ๐Ÿ“ฌ and what ๐Ÿคฏ! I get these scary questions to answer

Tried my best, got some answers right, submitted my response โ†ฉ๏ธ, and hoped ๐Ÿคžfor the best

Results came back and I failed โŒ but I realised I needed to learn hard if I want far

Not having enough resources to purchase some courses and data bundles, I depended on late midnight bundles, torrents, free courses, and Youtube courses

Developed a portfolio site, updated my CV, and improved my LinkedIn, GitHub, and Twitter accounts with some tips

Doing all this and still, no jobs started hitting me hard ๐Ÿ˜ž. All I wanted was to do what I liked while getting paid

Began to doubt me ๐Ÿคฆ, see TechTwitter as showoffs, and losing passion and love for development

Some will say I was after the money but sincerely speaking who does not want to enjoy their hard labour

After some time โŒ›, I decided to quit. I stopped coding, stopped learning skills, and stopped focusing on my career path

I called a friend to talk to and the encouragement I got made me realise that I must keep on fighting

So I resumed my software development career and something ๐Ÿ˜ฒhappened one day

I got an alert and it made me happy ๐Ÿ˜ƒ

The alert was from Google Photos and it was an OTD picture. The picture was about a URL cutter โœ‚๏ธโ›“๏ธ project I did during the early stages of learning development

I laughed and said I have come far.

So though you haven't crashed ยฎ๏ธ the jobs yet and you don't know what you are doing wrong ๐Ÿคท it is ok

๐Ÿ‘YOU GOT THIS๐Ÿ’ช

Top comments (0)