Undocumented Immigrant With No Education to Software Engineer(Part 2)
This is the second part of a series. If you haven’t read part 1 I encourage you to read it first before preceding.
Continuing from where I left off on the first part of this article, I spend about a year working at this startup, like I said, it was the most exciting feeling of my life, being able to finally work on what I had dreamed and worked hard for so long. Startup life is hard and requires you to work day and night to make something happen. We would build and rebuild the app many times with different functionality, we would come up with different version of the app every two weeks, which quickly mentally drained me. Although the work I was doing was exciting and I was able to learn so much from it, one thing I keep dear to my heart is the amazing people I met there. Every where I go I always try to make the best out of it, regardless of how the environment might turn out to be.
Learn to work with what you have and embrace your weakness.
As I advanced my career and worked in different companies there was always the frustration of the advantage owners and companies had over me, I wasn’t able to be a W-2 employee, even though I always worked as hard or even more than the actual employees. I came to realize that I would never be able to take a good stake out of a particular startup I was working for, but still, I always gave my 110% and took ownership of the work I did for them. Many promised equity but when it was time to sign or distribute it, there was always excuses over excuses, many times I worked for very little money because they promised a stake in the company that I never saw.
So I learned how to work with what I had and embrace my weakness, as the time I was fired from E*trade due to not being able to become a W-2 employee, Yes I knew it, I know how the system works. I was brought in as a contractor using my LLC, the recruiter promised me it was a contractor position but they still ran a background check on me and notified me almost 2 month after being onboarded that they wanted me to show proof of work authorization even though I was contracting with an LLC. So I ended up getting fired. I cried, I honestly cried so much and told my wife that I was done, and that I wanted to leave and not deal with this anymore. But then I was reminded how I was able to work at Visa for a year and that it is OK because after all, it’s just the way it is.
Being an unlawful immigrant sure comes with a great cost. Many times I wished to go back to my country (even if I don’t know it well) but I realized how much America meant for me and how much I wanted to payback what I owed to it. Coming to the US as a teenager brings all sort of insecurities, pain and traumas. You always carry a tag with you, even if you blend in with smart people and try to act like them, deep inside of you there’s always a voice that reminds you; you’re not from here, you’re not like them, you can’t be an American, and the system keeps shoving it on your face of how much you don’t matter in this country. Just because you don’t have a piece of paper that states it, but your duties as an American are well performed. You pay your taxes, you donate and you contribute to America.
Challenges and difficulties are always going to be there, you need to learn how to overcome them and not be afraid of failing because after all everyone fails at some point so it’s OK to fail, don’t blame yourself, neither blame others, get up and find a new strategy. If you spend your energies on blaming others or blaming your fate because you were not able to to have what others might had, like money, good education or anything else, you’ll end up with nothing, just regrets and broken dreams.
Work on your weakness, build your education, build your tools to continue your goal, it might take time but trust me at the end it will rewarded. I didn’t have the chance to go to school, so I taught myself everything, from writing, reading, math and even software engineering. I learned how to deal with what I missed as part of life and I always looked for a way of going over the bump ahead of me. I got accustomed to see my weakness for each of the goals I set to myself, sure I complained, it’s OK to complain and curse out, but don’t let it stop it you, continue and try a different thing until you reach it.
Well that’s it. I don’t have much else to say except the fact that I missed many details through the article but I hope one day to be able to fully write it and add those details. From now on, you might see just technical articles from me instead of life events hehe, but I hope this article helps you and inspires you to continue fighting for what you want to be in life.
