My Journey as a developer

As I said in my previous topic, I started to work as a UI developer in 2017 and I was actively learning PHP to become a full stack dev. But on July, 2018 I had to go to army for 2 years (in our country it’s a must). Of course, after doing nothing about development for 2 years, I forgot almost everything.
When I had 6 months left to come back to home, I started following the trends, and I realized that PHP language is not so relevant anymore, I had to learn something new to be in demand.

My programmer friend told me about Python (Python has become a staple in data science, allowing data analysts and other professionals to use the language to conduct complex statistical calculations, create data visualizations, build machine learning algorithms, manipulate and analyze data, and complete other data-related tasks).
Hmm, sounds good! I’ve ordered a book about Python for beginners, watched youtube tutorials (I got only 1–2 free hours for internet per day and I tried to spend most of that time on it). After some time, I realized that in order to master all this, I had to write code, to practice, but I could not afford it in the army, and the more I wanted to learn, the more I became entangled. I tried to write code through the Sololearn mobile application, but it was still very difficult for me. In addition, there was another disturbing circumstance: I did not like the backend direction that much. I wanted to create modern user interfaces, animations, and so on.

After 10 days, when I got back home, I was invited to the first job interview at Sololearn (it’s an Armenian startup btw). On the spot I was given a task to create frontend part of a landing page from some FIGMA. We used to do it with Photoshop, but now everyone does it with Figma or with Adobe Xd.
And instead of writing the code, I was trying to figure out what it was, how to use Figma, how to download icons, etc. Of course I failed the interview, I went home a little desperate and realized that I need to learn new trends and technologies of the frontend world.

I took some course to study modern tools of frontend, and React JS. The duration of the course was 6 months, but in the 4th month, when we had just finished the basics of JS and had to start studying React, I was successfully passed a job interview, but I had to learn and work there with the VUE JS framework. Well, I said why not, I will learn VUE JS, it’s growing fast, in the future it may be a very popular framework. And since it was difficult for beginners to find a job, that chance should not be missed. So, I quit the course and started working.

At first everything seemed very, very complicated, I had to refactor the previously written code. Everything was very confusing, bad names of variables, bad functions, incomprehensible technologies, and all that was exceptionally with Vanilla JS. It was very difficult, but after 1–2 months, I started to understand and write clearer code. I started actively studying VUE JS to write a new project with it. Everything was fine, I was constantly growing, but we were 3 developers in the office, and the worst thing was that each of us working on different things and it turned out that there was no one who would have time to do a code review for me. I felt like I was not writing good and clean code, I need someone to help me improve my skills. Feeling that I was not in the right direction, I negotiated with the employer and decided to look for a new job in another company, where there will be more and better professionals to help me move forward.

I applied to several places, passed interviews, but it seemed that the same picture was everywhere. Unfortunately, there are very few companies in our country which work with VUE JS. I was very frustrated, I realized that if I want to move forward, I had to learn REACT JS, it was the only framework that is widespread and there are a lot of jobs in our country.

I don’t know how, but on the same day one of my friends who works at Renderforest as a lead frontend developer, wrote to me and asked if I was still working with VUE or I started to work with React. I told him the whole story, and he offered me to come to Renderforest, try to learn React JS very quickly and if I succeed, I will be offered a job.

Of course, I agreed, and a few days later I started going and studying. I had invested all my efforts and time to be able to master the new knowledge very quickly. Every 2–3 days we did code review, we discussed the mistakes I made, learned to write better, I realized that this was exactly what I needed, that thought motivated me more and pushed me to learn. After 6 weeks, I received a long-awaited job offer in one of the best companies in our country. I am really grateful to everyone who helped and continues to help me here. I still grow and learn because the company gives me that opportunity. Besides, the projects here are quite modern and complex, which also has a positive effect on me.

Thank you for reading. I wish you to be motivated every morning, happy to go to work, enjoy your day and grow non-stop like I do.