Self-learning : the number one tool in a software developer's toolbox
I would like to share my journey and how my career got a boost when I focussed more on self-learning from being a junior developer to clearing AWS and CKAD certification with no experience. My hard work paid off when my learning helped me to land a job in Berlin from India.
I would like to share a few tips before we deep dive into my journey.
Tip #1 Avoid Negative people
Tools if not taken proper care of getting oxidised and form rust, similarly negative people are like the rust they create brain fog and divert us from our goals.
The less you respond to negative people , the more peaceful your life will become.
Our ultimate goal is to keep us surrounded by positive people who help and motivate us.
- Join social groups.
- Connect with people through technical conferences.
- Discuss your ideas with your colleagues in the office whom you trust and get constructive feedback about your ideas.
Tip#2 Stay focussed
- Create short term goals.
- Time management is important.
- Regularly track the progress, it is fine if we cannot meet our goals in the expected time, keep going.
Tip #3 Keep yourself busy in learning
- Identify gaps that you want to improve, make a list and start planning.
- Join some courses on platforms like Udemy, Cloud Guru and Coursera.
- Read the blog posts from other developers and appreciate their work.
Tip #4 Share your learning
This is the most important aspect of self-learning, if you created a new solution, cleared a certification or fixed a bug in open source projects, share your learning. One way is to participate in tech talks in your office or tech conferences as a speaker.
If you have knowledge , let others lit their candles at it.
- It helps to boost confidence.
- Helps to improve collaboration.
- Discussion in forums helps in discovering better ideas.
Let's start with my journey.
My six months of professional gap
I was living a normal routine nine to five job as a software developer, I used to think about what's next after being promoted and being awarded twice in my job I still felt something is missing. I decided to take a break in 2016 and work on myself. The decision was also because of some personal reasons, but this gap changed my outlook drastically.
Self-promotion can lead to unexpected results
I worked on learning some new technologies like Spark, Big data, Dynamic programming, improving my design skills by reading books. I decided to start giving interviews after a few months and most companies were asking me too many questions about my gap and I did face rejections as well.
After so many rejections, I retrospected that I could not self promote and lacked confidence. In my next interview, I decided to divert the conversion on my achievements and showcase myself as a self-taught programmer.
I cracked a reputed banking firm with a more than normal industry standard pay hike.
The most beautiful thing you can wear is confidence.
Lessons I learned
- Self-promotion is about making your competence visible.
- Keep learning and don't stop even in the worst phase of your life.
Switching from Java to Scala and learning Akka Streams
It was time to experiment with the functional programming language. The learning curve was steep and timelines to complete the project was strict.
Learn Debugging skills
Learning a new language is not easy. Keep realistic expectations, it is normal to write 40 lines of code and then get stuck and be in this cycle for some time.
Tip#1 Always follow official documentation for learning API, it is the source of truth.
Tip#2 Don't be afraid to ask questions in forums. Stackoverflow is my favourite forum to ask questions.
Tip#3 Solve problems in tech forums. Solving problems helps us gain more confidence and helps us in getting good hands-on in coding.
Passing AWS Solution Architect Associate and AWS Developer Associate in six months
It was in 2020 I was looking for some good cloud migration projects at my work. I decided to pick up a course CloudGuru.
It is important first to understand which certification is a fit for your profile, this article explains it well.
If you are determined to learn then no one can stop you
Tip#1 Create a free tier account in AWS.
Tip#2 Practice the services, I initially started with making S3 buckets, tables in Dynamodb and EC2 instances.
Tip#3 Make sure you make notes after every lesson, it will help a lot in exams.
Tip#4 Time management in exams is very important, practice mock exams.
I used to study from 5 am to 7 am in morning three times a week, it was difficult with the current pressure of work but it was worth it.
Tip#5 Remember to understand concepts well and don't be surprised if mock exams questions are not repeated. Mocks exams are just for practice.
Practice !! Practice !! Practice !!
I cleared both certifications with flying colours within six months with good results and trust me it was worth the effort.
Passing CKAD certification in two months
Learning Kubernetes was the most difficult part for me as my current project at work did not had orchestration. I had to find a way to set up Kubernetes on a local machine and practice.
Minikube to my rescue, refer to my blog post where I have explained how to set up Kubernetes on the local machine.
CKAD is the live practical exam, unlike AWS which is multiple-choice questions, this exam is real execution of kubectl commands, debugging issues and creating yaml files.
Please follow the tips in my blog post for clearing the exam
Landing job in Berlin
After all the hard work from waking up early in the morning, burning my eyes on my laptop and sometimes feeling exhausted was not easy.
I was trying hard to move abroad for the past threes years. I used to apply to hundreds of applications across the world with no luck and finally one day I saw an opening for a developer experienced in Scala, Akka and AWS. I applied with no hope but to my surprise, I got the interview call and then with a hectic hiring process of two months I cracked it.
Conclusion
I hope this article helped to understand that being a self-taught programmer is hard, if we don’t get opportunities at work, we must work hard to create opportunities on our own.
Small amounts add up to something bigger
References
Book AWS certifications
https://www.aws.training/certification
Book CKAD exam https://training.linuxfoundation.org/certification/certified-kubernetes-application-developer-ckad/
Scala
https://docs.scala-lang.org/
Akka Streams
https://doc.akka.io/docs/akka/current/stream/stream-quickstart.html
