How I became a programmer at 35

Increasingly, there are examples of changing professions, or rather specialization, by middle-aged people. At school, we dream of a romantic or “great” profession, we go to college according to fashion or advice, and in the end we work wherever we take. I do not claim that this is the case for everyone, but for the majority - for sure. And when life is getting better and everything is stable, doubts come about the choice of profession made. I am not talking about a post or a job, but specifically about specialization - when a person can call himself a specialist or a professional.



I also went this way in the same way and thought about two years ago: what do I want next, does my work bring me pleasure? And I decided to change my specialty - to become a programmer!



In this story I want to share my story, the experience of the path traveled, to make this path easier for others. I will try not to use specialized terminology so that the story is understandable to everyone who decides to change their profession.

Why?

I did not choose the profession of a programmer by chance, or even because rumored to be paid a lot there. It all started in the third grade, when a friend had a set-top box for a TV with a keyboard. This was a game console, but complete with a special cartridge, it turned into a development environment for simple platform games. Then my parents bought me the same home and I “disappeared”.



School, college and institute - everywhere I chose the path as close as possible to computers, to information technology. I was sure that I would become a programmer, well, or a system administrator, as they used to say - “computer technician”.



But life makes its own corrections - an urgent problem: they don’t take work without experience, and there is no experience without work. The main mistake at this stage is ambition. I was sure that I was a cool professional and they should pay me a lot, well, certainly not less than the average for the city. He rejected many offers himself because of his low salary.



Six months of searching for work related to computers were unsuccessful. When the money ran out at all, I had to go where I was just taken with more or less normal earnings. So I got to the cable factory as a simple worker, where I made a career for the next 12 years.



It is important to note that my passion for computers and programming helped me in my work: automation of my work processes, then I introduced databases in the department, which simplified the workflow, and many other small examples.



And at 33, I’m the head of the department, a specialist in the quality of cable products with vast experience and a good salary. But all this is not that, there is no pleasure, there is no feeling of self-affirmation, joy from work.



At that time, the family was standing firmly on its feet financially, it was possible to live for a couple of months only on the wife’s salary and some supplies. Then the thought crept in to give up everything and realize my dream. But dreaming in the kitchen and really acting are two different things.

The first pushing factor was the example of my friend, who quit his job, took his family and went somewhere north to work at the airfield. His dream is airplanes. A year later, we met and he shared his impressions, joy, and said that it was worth it. I envied his determination, but I doubted myself.



The second important event was the personnel changes at the factory where I worked. There was a change in senior management and all department heads fell under tight control of compliance with their new requirements and standards. “Lafa is over.” I realized that you have to work hard to resist and move on: English, advanced training, work more - do more than you expect.



At that very moment, the thought came: “It is time again to work and study a lot, so why should these efforts and time be spent on a thing that does not bring pleasure, if you can spend it on a dream?”

How?

The first thing I “burned bridges” - quit. It was radical, but I understood that I could not simultaneously develop in two directions. The experience of the first job searches was not in vain and I began to search, if only they wrote “programmer” in the work book. This is work for status, for the very “experience” to find a job. Salary here did not matter.



I heard somewhere that when you go to the goal, the goal begins to go to you. So I got lucky. Pretty quickly, I got a job in a small company as an individual entrepreneur in micro-services. I had no questions about working conditions and finances; the main thing was to enter the labor market and start accumulating practical experience. I understood that I was performing the simplest tasks and I could not proudly say “I am a Programmer”. There was no confidence in my abilities - this was only the very beginning of the journey.



So I started to study. To study, to study and many more many times ... Only in this way.



I began to study the demand for programmers in my city. I looked at advertisements in newspapers and job search sites, studied tips on the Internet on the topic “How to get an interview for a programmer” and all other sources of information.



It must comply with the requirements of employers. Even if you do not like these requirements.

English language

Very quickly an accurate list of necessary skills and knowledge was formed. In addition to specialized programs and skills, the most difficult question for me hung - the English language. He is needed everywhere! Looking ahead, I’ll say that there is no information on the Russian Internet — crumbs that take a lot of time to collect, and even it turns out that even these crumbs are already outdated.



With language learning, I advise you to try all the methods that reach out to. I studied English by various methods and noticed that there is no universal. Different methods help different people. Read books in English (better for children, easier to understand), watch movies (with and without subtitles), go to courses, buy a textbook, a lot of videos from seminars on the Internet, various applications on your smartphone. When you try everything, you will understand what is right for you.



I personally have been greatly helped by children's tales and the series “Sesame Street” in the original (only basic expressions, repeated repetition of phrases and words), it’s still good to understand the language from the textbook. Not a tutorial, namely school books. I took a notebook and performed all the tasks. But the most important thing is to force yourself to look for information in English. For example, books on programming languages ​​of the latest and most current editions are always in English. While the translation appears, a new edition is coming out.



Now my level is basic, the level of “survival” according to one of the evaluation systems. I freely read technical literature, can be explained in simple phrases, but even this is already a huge advantage in the labor market, when you put a tick “English” in the summary column in the paragraph on languages. My experience shows that an inexperienced specialist with knowledge of English will find a job easier than an experienced programmer without English.

Tools

In any profession, there is a set of tools that must be mastered. If someone needs to be able to use a chainsaw, then a programmer needs to be able to work with version control systems, a development environment (IDE) and a bunch of auxiliary utilities and programs. You need to not only know them all, you must be able to use them. If the interview can be held on a bare theory, then a trial period will immediately show what you do not know.



Ads do not always write about the requirements of knowledge of the toolkit, meaning that if you are a programmer, then you definitely know git. These requirements are learned from tips on how to get interviewed in a specialty. There is a lot of similar information on the Internet, such articles are often found on job search sites.



I compiled a list of tools on a leaflet, installed them all on a computer, and used only them. You can’t do without study and literature here. Change of specialty is a huge amount of time for self-education.

Portfolio

The future employer had to show what I am capable of. Plus, you need to learn tools by practice. For portfolio programmers, this is github, a site where people post their work. For any specialization, there are places to publish works, in extreme cases there are social networks where you can post results and get feedback. What exactly to do is not important, the main thing is to do it constantly and with the highest quality. The publication of his works makes you try so that you are not ashamed. And this is even a better motivator than money.



It was helpful to look at other people's portfolio and repeat. Not to use trivial copying, but to create your own product, albeit repeating the idea of ​​another person - this allowed you to gain experience, add new work to your portfolio and not waste time on creative search.



Great luck finding a test item in your ads. If you constantly monitor proposals on the labor market, sometimes jobs from employers come across - this is what you need! Usually these tasks contain the essence, even if they do not carry meaningful benefits as a product. Even if you are not going to submit your resume to this company, then you must complete their task and send. Almost always in response comes an assessment of your work, from which your weaknesses that need to be pulled up will be clear.

Certificates and courses

Without a piece of paper - we are insects! When people see a document confirming that you know or know how, it makes the best impression. The presence of certificates in the specialty greatly helps in finding a job. They come in different levels of trust, but in any profession there is a certification body that is appreciated by all. Agree sounds gorgeous: "Microsoft Certified Specialist."



For myself, I determined that I would go for certificates after I realized that I could. I read a little about the certificates of Microsoft, 1C and various government institutions. The principle is the same everywhere: money and knowledge are needed. Either the certificate itself costs money, or it is necessary to take special courses before passing, well, or the admission to the exam itself costs money. And this does not mean that you will receive a certificate.

So, at the moment, I do not have specialized certificates - well, this is so far ... there are plans.



But I did not spare time, energy and finance for continuing education courses. Now a well-developed distance learning system - webinars. Most of the country's major institutions conduct courses and seminars. Often there are good discounts or completely free seminars. I consider the main advantage of such classes - the ability to communicate directly with experienced and knowledgeable people. You can always ask questions, ask to evaluate your work from the portfolio. And as a cherry on the cake to receive a document on the completion of the courses. This is not a certificate of course, but it shows the employer your desire for a goal.

The most important document is a summary

I learned a lot of materials on how to write a resume correctly. I watched other people's examples, consulted with friends and acquaintances. The main question was whether it is worth writing in my resume my knowledge that is not related to programming - to a new specialization. On the one hand, this is what I can - it can be considered experience, but on the other - this is irrelevant.



As a result, I included everything that I had in my resume. All work experience, all documents for all courses, including training on labor safety at a manufacturing enterprise. Listed all the knowledge of computers. He even indicated his hobbies and hobbies. And did not lose!

My only mistake, and you have advice for the future: you need to duplicate all key, important for the specialty records, shortly and without unnecessary words in a separate paragraph of your resume (for example, “skills”). This was advice from a human resources manager in the very first days after I took a good job at a large company. It is necessary that the employer can immediately understand whether it is worth studying your resume further or not. This paragraph should be short, abbreviations, keywords. And if you want to explain something, then this should be done already further in the text of the resume.

When?

How to understand that I am ready? When to start acting?



A little more than a year after leaving the previous job, stagnation occurred. Work experience was accumulated, the skills of using tools were improved, the programming experience at work and in the portfolio was replenished, English was gradually remembered. Everything went according to plan, but impatience flared up inside me to take the next step, to start looking for a serious job. And with impatience, doubts arose: I’m not ready, I won’t succeed, in vain I quit my old job ... and stuff like that.



In order not to aggravate the situation with decadent moods, I began to act a little: I posted a resume on one site and just waited. On the one hand, there was a lack of confidence that they would generally listen to me at the interview and not be kicked out in disgrace, but on the other hand, there was already some experience and there was something to show.



I saw from the statistics on the site that my resume is often viewed. Sometimes some companies come to my resume page several times. It seemed to me that the first time the personnel manager looked, and the second time he was shown to the boss. I don’t know how it really was, but I got the impression that I was interested in people, that people are conferring, re-reading, discussing. And this is already half the way to victory!



I sent my first job request to a well-known large bank. The internal quality control department was looking for a developer to automate the workflow process. I made a request especially not counting on success, the bet was that I have experience in the quality department. I experienced great surprise and joy at the same time when they called me for an interview!



They didn’t take me to work at the bank, but I looked at the real interview of the programmer from the “first row”. I completed the test tasks, talked with the heads of different levels. And the most important thing that I understood from the results of the interview was an assessment of my level as a programmer. I began to understand where I am, which one of me is a programmer, and what I don’t know yet. This is the most important information! In addition to the list of missing knowledge, she gave confidence that I was getting it. Slowly, but it turns out.



When I returned home from the interview, I immediately corrected the resume title to “intern-programmer”. My level did not attract programmers, so employers did not quite correctly relate to my resume. But the “trainee” is a very real assessment of my knowledge in a new specialty.

Most important step

A visit to a large bank gave the necessary understanding and self-confidence. I went to action. The resume was posted on several resources and began to actively send out requests for consideration of my candidacy in large and reputable organizations of the city. As the saying goes: "Do you want to become the best, play with the best."



One vacancy interested me the most. The organization posted a test task on the job search site. The task was not very difficult, but how it was drawn up, what were the deadlines for implementation and which technologies I had to use ... everything indicated a sound approach to business.



I completed the task, tried to do it ahead of schedule. And sent.



I got a refusal with a detailed analysis of the code I wrote. What I did well and what could be done better and why. This detailed answer was very intriguing and I realized that I wanted to work there. I was ready to go to their office and ask what they need to learn, finish or master in order to get a job with them. But first, I corrected my code in accordance with the comments sent to me and sent again. This time they called me and invited me for an interview.



The most difficult part of an interview at the age of 35 is to explain why I quit a good job with good earnings and started all over from the bottom of a new profession. I didn’t worry about my resume, I could tell you about each item indicated, prove that I really know and can, everything that is written there and at that level, as indicated. But how did I get here and why?

Oddly enough, this question was asked one of the last, but at the first stage. I did not think up anything and told how it was, about the childhood dream of becoming a programmer and about my goal: proudly declare that I am a specialist, I am a software engineer! Stupid, probably, but it's true.

At the next stage, I was evaluated by real programmers, into whose submission I subsequently fell. Here the whole conversation was purely by specialty, by knowledge, skills, skills of working with tools. I told how I would solve the tasks that were offered to me. The conversation was long and biased. Then the unexpected “Two days later they will call you, goodbye.”



It's a shame. I’m used to the phrase denial. But there was hope, everything was done very much in this organization according to the rules and always kept their word. However, I continued to look for work.



They called me right on time and said that there was an offer for me. An internship is a great option for a job seeker in my position. For three months I am paid a salary and trained on a real project. It’s hard to come up with a better training, I agreed without hesitation.

This is just the beginning.

On the first day of the internship, my immediate supervisor during the induction briefing explained a very important idea that I share with everyone when it comes to changing specialization or those who are just starting their careers. I did not write down verbatim, but I remembered the meaning well:



Each programmer develops in three areas: Programming, Communication skills, Personal life experience. It’s not difficult to find a person who can write good code. Sociability is a character trait that can be considered as a constant. And life experience is a shortage, as most job seekers are recent students.



It turns out that I was hired with the idea that I have experience working with real clients, on real projects, have a lot of versatile knowledge and a platform is already ready for functioning in the business environment. And it makes sense to spend time on my training as a programmer to the same extent as to teach a good programmer how to interact with the business environment.



For those who thought about changing jobs, an important idea of ​​that conversation I would single out is that changing the sphere of activity for the sake of a dream is not only real, but also in demand on the labor market.



Well, for me, everything is just beginning!



Now I am a full-time software engineer in Inobitek, taking part in the development of medical information systems. But it’s too early for me to call myself a Programmer. Much more needs to be learned in order to independently develop software.



People rightly say that work should be liked. For this it’s worth “digging, sweating and enduring!”