It's been two years since I decided I wanted to learn how to code. My journey didn't go as a stairway, up and straight - instead, I allowed myself to try. I took some laps, went up and down, back and forth. Two years passed and I wanted different things for my career. But this week marks a milestone for me, and the first time I'm reaping what I planted in Tech: I'm starting my first job as a Trainee Java Developer! 🎉🎉🎉
My background is: I loved to blog as a child, learned HTML/CSS over my teen years but had never learned how to code properly. Life brought me to a different path and at the beginning of the pandemic I decided on a career change.
First, I took a few courses on Python, the data science field was really appealing to me at the time. Then, I started my graduation in back-end development, which got me an internship in web development.
Day one in my internship and my boss sent me the React documentation and told me to try it. I didn't know Javascript, so I begged him to allow me to learn it first. He gave me one week and decided I was ready for React. He gave me a solo project to practice, and decided it was turning good enough to become a real project. I spent 4 months in this internship and worked with some MySQL and C# as well. Although I learned a lot, it was very lonely as I didn't have a team or higher level devs to learn from. The requisitions were always vague and I didn't feel like I could ask for help. My boss would take me the whole day to reply: "did you Google it?". Well, of course I did.
I was feeling like I was wasting my time and wasn't learning much, so I resigned.
I decided to step back and learn algorithms and logic, the right way this time. Then Git. I installed Ubuntu on my laptop and learned the Linux command line as well.
Java became an option that I was really digging, so I signed up for a really good platform and started their Java program. I loved coding in Java so I began designing my career plans around it.
While I was learning, I began looking for a new job. As I'm graduating this December, the internship window is closing for me, but I can't rock a junior dev interview yet. I was in this very weird place and my strategy was to shoot my resumé everywhere and go to every interview I could be invited to, even if I didn't want the job. I had to gain experience and confidence, build my storytelling and become a stronger candidate. I had terrible interviews. I had group interviews with men who wouldn't let the few women in there talk. I had amazing women-only group interviews. I had great interviews. I had really great interviews. But I wasn't getting any jobs.
Linkedin showed me this Java Trainee Program for women, which only asked for basic knowledge in programming. The trainees would be hired by the company from day one, be trained for a month and become ready to work. For someone in that weird place I was, this was perfect. I applied, had a phone screening, took a few tests and a group interview. The process was smooth and didn't take any longer than it should. And I got it! I was one of the 30 women who got hired.
I started on Monday and we are still on very basic training, but I'm super excited for my next steps. So, nevertheless, I'm coding in 2022 - and nothing can stop me anymore 🚀
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