(00:00) all right welcome Christina on Career Journey podcast I started a couple of years ago I’ve done 40 plus episode and this is the second season where I’m focusing on developers who have an inspiring story that other people can use for whoever is watching Christina I know each other for about one year now and uh she got into a tech job about 6 months ago and we will be going deeper into number one how did she get that job and since that job what is working out for you plus getting a job is one thing but
(00:41) growing in that job is completely different world and I Journey just begin when you get your first job it’s not the destination it’s going to be a fun episode with lot of actionable advice so with that Christina I want to hand over mic to you and ask you how is everything going it’s been 6 month in this job it’s actually going pretty nice I think I’ve grown so much lately there’s so many things like on a daily basis when you do your job of course that you like don’t like I personally and maybe like people that
(01:18) are going to be like Junior First physicians stuff like this are not going to know so of course there’s a lot of like research that like goes into doying your day-to-day tasks and day-to-day job stuff like this and also there are a lot of like senior engineers and in general like people on your team that can explain things to you very easily instead of like always going on like online and looking for answers and stuff like this person you ask the question and just like the answer it and it’s very e and it’s very nice like working
(01:49) on a team with a lot of people is like having people that are more senior than you are going to be three me mentors of yours basically so this is really nice I’ve enjoy I’ve been enjoying the experience so the growth was more difficult for you getting into the tick or once you was in job the last 6 month what was more trickier and difficult of course it was like actually learning the necessary skills in order to get the job because at the very beginning when I started first of all it was like it was
(02:21) I guess a liap into the void for me because I wasn’t necessarily like a technical person before that I was studying like Lang and stuff like this was completely different like totally unrelated to math and Engineering so it was type of thing I decided I guess wa to do this now because this is something I’ve been passionate about but never like got into really so I was what I’m going supposed to do with my life I just I might as well do something that I really I think I enjoy I think I might like so basically the very like this
(02:57) very first step of Designing to quit univers and redo basically my life and everything I knew before that was like the most difficult part of it and of course Keeping Up With The Learning because I did like probably one year of learning and specific courses stuff like this so one year of doing that by myself basically by just sharing it on Twitter and stuff like this was the most difficult part because I had not necessarily Mentor no people to talk to except like Twitter people basically that was the most difficult part now
(03:32) it’s easy because you’re in and you’ve got a lot of people around to ask questions and to be friends with and continue this thing but once you’re alone it’s like a lot different and C you one of the outgoing people who make relationship make network with other people so how did you use that for this new job how tell us was your first six month look like and if you can pick two three five different thing that work out for you I would say I’m not as outgoing as it might seem um I try to express myself
(04:09) more than I used to and I try to be myself more than I used to instead of like staying silent as I used to do but it’s not necessarily that outgoing as I’d like to be anyway is what I tried to do most In This Very six months is be myself and try to find people that are like-minded of course many tech people are going to be like minded and are going to like Tech but of course we’re very different people as well and also what really helped me in terms of like outgoingness is the fact that I was never ashamed to ask a lot of questions
(04:43) and I think this is something that helped me in the long run because whenever there was like a question in the very beginning was like I have no idea what we’re talking about instead of being like Oh I meant seem stupid for asking this and stuff this ask it and what’s the worst that can happen just you’re just silly Junior you’re it’s funny you you ask to the questions I think this is the the most important thing at the very beginning this is the funny story I was waiting for my credentials and stuff like this and
(05:10) since I work like a bank environment they were taking quite a long time because there’s a lot of bureaucracy and stuff like this a few weeks you would say and basically in those few weeks I did not necessarily know what to do and except for learning react and stuff like this and I was constantly B bobing my senior front end mentor and I was staying with him in call like 24/7 just like watching everything he did and stuff like this he also wanted me to stay in call with him but it’s not staying silent and just like looking I
(05:43) was constantly trying to make conversation and ask about how is the job here how is the job like elsewhere and stuff like this that’s the main thing so if I wanted to ask what’s your typical day or week look like now I guess not as typical as did my be for such a big Corporation because I we don’t necessarily have jira and things yeah no which is really funny to me it’s a little bit more anarchical if I can say it that way basically we’ve got things to do and my manager or my senior engineer is going to tell me like if
(06:22) there’s anything to do for that day if there’s any specific bug I can fix or stuff like this at the very beginning I got a feature that I had to work on so I like developed new pages new features for like front end and stuff like this but now it’s mostly like bug fixing stuff so whatever like we got a new defect a new bug and stuff this is mainly the job I have to do and there’s there are not a lot of meetings there are some but not too many because like my manager person that mostly take carees of that and we can relax in that
(06:57) regard and only focus on the dev work but there’s a lot of bureaucracy still because it’s a big Corporation lucky you that you getting more opportunity to work and then the information is already distilled by the time it to you compared to some of the other developer and especially I remember when I became the senior developer by that time I was not getting enough time to do the coding work it was meeting it was bug fixing or support calls or all different type of thing and I said I’m can I get just FOC recing
(07:35) time yeah I totally can that because I always see my man like he’s always in a meeting and stuff like this and I need to ask him questions but I know he’s in the meeting so like Ping him like 10 times like answer and stuff like this so I guess yeah I get it so Chris as six month and growing what’s next for you are you already planning for the next big thing or what’s you planning oh basically now I feel like I got at some point comfortable with the code base that we’ve got I got comfortable like with the bug type of
(08:11) bug fixing we do and things like this it does not seem like the front end like things that we do it don’t don’t seem that difficult honestly I guess something I’d like to focus more on instead of like frontend Stuff Etc is focusing more on computer science related topics and basic programming topics what I’m doing right now is like a course cs50 you’ve most probably heard of it yeah the online Harvard course and this is what I’m doing right now I’m on week two and it’s zero base so I guess
(08:48) it’s week three yeah and basically this is mainly what i’ like to focus on like get a bunch of fundamentals down which seems like something that I’m a little bit backing in it’s not of course something necessary just I feel like I need on my daily job which is not the case at all I feel comfortable at my daily job but I feel like I need this to scale in the future so this is basically my future plan awesome this is perfect I will tell you one a story that during my initial days one of the thing that was helping
(09:21) me is I was super annoy if somebody tell me something and I don’t understand it so I want to go deeper and deeper I would do the reading and come back with this person so I will give you an example of this DNS live and then didn’t work out I had no idea at that time what DNS mean we had a network team who does all that work for us and they were asking question like server IP name servers and this and that and something that was not working and I kept asking question to fully understand how DNS work from the company where we
(09:59) bought by the domain name to the DNS manager to name server to the server routing and TDL and all that and somebody who already doing this work for like years and years they get annoying by these basic preliminary questions so I was that kind of annoying boy but uh that helped me like one like you said yeah uh if you ask that question there is a hesitation of looking like a dumb person but if you ask then you are dumb for five minutes yeah hour then you dumb for the life right that worked for me that every time it touch something I want to
(10:49) fully understand that so soon in 6 month and six years I was able to build an end to an understanding of everything around web yeah exactly and then uh from the software development life cycle wise as well from requirement Gathering to creating use cases to uml diagram and designing and all that right deployment so that would be my number one advice that wherever you can chime in inject yourself then that would be a learning opportunity for yeah yeah don’t limit yourself for any job description or anything
(11:30) yeah exactly even now sometimes in in meetings that a lot of meetings like sometimes I participate and there are missings not only like on technical things but also like on like Bank environment related things since there lot of teams doing lot of things and every time there’s a product there’s like a 100 like if 100 is a big number it’s like exaggerating of course like many teams involved and basically our product is a container in that this product inside this things and then we have the library and if this is not
(12:03) working then this might be this like a lot of stuff going on basically and of course I cannot know every single thing because I would be a manager if I knew all this stuff but my manager does so I can ask him or somebody else on other team is would know so I could ask them so it’s it’s really nice to ask these questions because otherwise I’m just like sitting there and not knowing ever if you don’t get that don’t catch that opportunity then it’ be weird if in 3 weeks you’re going to ask the question
(12:35) about something that like was already related like weeks ago and it’s like we had a meeting about this 100 weeks ago why didn’t you ask this question at that time and you wish you ask so yeah and I can I can completely relate to your situation where you in banking and have hundreds of projects or whatever number of projects right by the way I typically listen more in these podcast episode but some reason I’m excited so much because I like to talk so much I’m remembering all those things that has
(13:12) similar wasting with everything that you’re saying so I was in Dennis and I was working on this project where we had ACS it’s a big company NC which is the hardware company that buil us system Point of Sales system and then Microsoft they were providing the technology and then we was doing the project for 7-Eleven so you would think 711 is just a gas station but this project one of the basic requirement was that it’s 247 whenever you do the updates to the system it should not affect the current operation so any trans that is still
(13:55) going on you should still update the system without impacting that so it had that kind of requirements and very sophisticated system like futuristic system and with all these different teams like four different companies working on this project and we had hundreds of libraries and everything and first day was it I have no idea I I have not worked on a project that has these many files than they have a number of projects and number of libraries it was that situation yeah yeah I get it now even we are preparing for production now
(14:33) because we don’t go in production like every day every week I we do the C so like continuous integration but we don’t do the continuous development in deployment so we do like deployment every one months two months and stuff like this and now we have a new project like coming up which is like getting deployed for the first time and the testing is crazy like in the last week we had I had had I overheard my manager do was like oh and we still need to do 500 test and I was like it’s like in know a week
(15:06) before production but I guess it’s fine and basically also a lot of bus that come in some of them are not like very well filtered so we’ve got there like a lot of understanding where the bug is coming from which team the bug is coming from because it’s all this prod that is so built together but so by so many teams so every time there’s a bug like there’s this back and forth of understanding where the problem is coming from which team this is coming from it’s not only like front end and
(15:33) back end it’s always like them shared libraries and the shared stuff it’s a whole thing so yeah it’s difficult will you be able to join those calls like deployment calls or last minute but fixing call I’m doing a lot of BU fixing and I I’m actually preparing the project for deployment like in terms of like devops configurations but it’s not difficult at all I just have a guide and stuff so it’s fine so basically this is the effect but yeah yeah was I wanted to suggest that if there is a deployment
(16:04) call that go on or whenever there is a production support call that go on those are best opportunity to make relationship when typically what happened that these calls are in the night and they go on for an hour sometime 5 hours and you build the best relationship during that when yeah it it just different kind of environment equ different lights yeah so much humor so much pressures everything is there yeah because I again the pressure is so on that even now since we have to do so much bugfixing I guess I’ve been like
(16:41) pinked in various like groups and things with people that I’ve never talked to before and there is managers that want to solve problems and it’s was like they’re going to ping you I’m was like please can you look at this and stuff like this and I was like I don’t know you but sure why not yeah perfect yeah and basically and there was like this B today that there’s new it’s not a feature it was like this new thing that we just discovered we had to do but we never did basically and we
(17:11) had to fix it today because I had to prepare everything for production like our project for Productions before that we had to fix this bag and it had to work because it did not work until today then we wouldn’t get it to production and we would get it like in the next production line and basically we managed to solve it my senior managed to solve it and was like complimenting us I was like oh this is really nice you guys sold it ET yeah it was very simp was very simple it was a line of code but still it’s like really appreciative
(17:44) that we were able to ship this kind of feature that otherwise would have been like back so that they’re looking yeah exactly yeah I think one or two more questions on this and then we will go in in the journey side yeah how do you manage your day so you said you typically get requirement from your manager some of the people some bugs so do you Ma do you use some kind of task management tool or notebook or how do you handle I have my like pen and paper notebook that I write thing down in I have my all my notes and St plist I
(18:23) usually transcrip them in like digital form of course because I also make documentation stuff like that something things that there there’s no documentation on for example we also have we use tins and stuff so we have a tins group Etc where I also have my different like whenever I get aign t i put it in there and get the progression going even though I’m the only person that cares about this I’ll still put it in there so it’s very kind of independent I work in very closely with my senior frontend
(18:57) teammates yeah but at same time it’s very independent if the whole day I would wanted to sit by myself unless I have a meeting sit by myself and do the work I need to do I could do that like it’s like that I think the main point is I don’t know how that happened but we’ve got like a te of a few people seven people in terms of like frontend development and when I got in it was not like so many of us it was like me and other few people and basically it so happened that even though I’m very
(19:30) Junior I’m I basically became like a team lead so I don’t know know huh you had a team lead now yeah so basically I can assign test and I can manage things inside the the team but of course this is like under the supervision of my teammate senior teammate but it’s both of us that are doing the the main work work and the the core management of the whole team of course I’m like a subordinate but I could also like do my own stuff so it’s an interesting gr I know it’s like not it’s uncanny it’s unusual but I don’t
(20:12) know how that happened but it happened somehow typically in it or in development teams you become the team leader but your current job doesn’t change you add more responsibility even from team leader to you initially when you become manager your life does not change day one you’re still doing coding you still started doing some management thing and most of the time you start doing some management responsibility before they promote you to a manager so it’s all mixed like it doesn’t change in night you you start with that I’m so
(20:49) happy that it’s just six month and you are you’re tasting some of the team leader responsibility w yeah it’s a little bit like very interesting because I know that other people depend on me so it’s not like I can just like oh my junior so I was like I take things slowly I cannot do that I have to snap uh so I have a lot of stuff to like I guess I adjust on a daily basis so I think this is what made me grow faster than maybe usually like the usually if I wouldn’t be in this position or I have other people
(21:26) that depend on me I would be I just do my job blah blah blah but I do my job and then on top of that I have to think about other things so so it’s a nice experience honestly and I really like to be in this position I’m not like looking for of course I’m six months in but I don’t know if I would like to be in know more manager position because I know it’s really old meetings and stuff but I think this is a good compromise don’t do what I did when it comes to manager okay what you do I over overthink that this
(21:59) season for so long to decide which path I wanted to go do I want to deep in the technology path become prepare myself to become an architect or do you want to prepare myself for a management job they are two different steem at least that’s what I thought initially but if the team is technical it’s not that different and it doesn’t have to be this type of overthinking that I did and ultimately it comes down to how much impact that you’re making to a whether it is the software developed or whether
(22:37) it is the client or whether it is your company and it everything that you will do will come up with some kind of excitement so you today you are excited about the technology book fixing project completion and things like that but then whether it is management job or a architect job or even the stakeholder job it comes with that kind of excitement something will be there yeah I guess it’s normal but in this kind of part of my journey I really like like the coding part so this is what I appreciate most right now maybe
(23:12) like in the future it be different but at the same time I have like previous management experience of course non technical management experience like regular project management experience so I guess this is why it becomes easy it becomes familiar so it’s natural but Tech being technical is not that natural to me so this is something I try to build up on and then we will see all right this is I’m I’m enjoying all the conversation and I’m M speaking too much this time I don’t know I should
(23:45) be listening to you more so let’s go back to so far we cover your journey Beyond when you got the job and how your day look like how everything looked like what kind of work that you’re doing and what is helping you in making progress let’s go beyond or before you got this job and we will get into some flashback you said it took you about one year and there was a moment when you decided to get into Tech right so tell us what was you doing before and what was that moment when you decided okay I’m going
(24:25) to try in Tech so basically what I was doing before or was uh University I guess it was not necessarily a force decision but I took a sabatical year after high school and I wanted to do design I was I did not know if I wanted to do design or computer science which is and I ended up doing like fronted development which is somewhere in the middle of that which is really funny but anyways I tried to get into design and stuff like this but couldn’t and then I failed into languages because I know a few languages and stuff like this so in
(25:04) thought it’s like a natural progression of my the skill set I afraid to possess basically I did like two years of University but then realized that this is something like I guess I’m good at learning languages and no languages and stuff like this but this is you saying University you mean teaching at University or doing a no learning as a student of course your bachelor degree yes yeah like the regular langage the the American degree is like a regular three years degree I think America is like four years yeah America
(25:38) is four years and is also bachelor degree is three years unless you’re doing an engineering degree yeah I was doing like a regular like Bachelor how Yeah so basically I was doing languages I realized this is something I’m good at but this is something that is not and when you saying language are you saying the speak programming language yeah no it’s language it’s regular like human languages speak okay B yeah when I’m guess I’m digressing but like to to make you understand it’s basically when I say
(26:13) I was learning languages I was learning Russian and English and that was for future job as like translator and stuff like this it was more of like cultural linguistic studies I guess in terms of not only regular translations but also like car cultural translations and stuff like this like more like from this sense like very grammatical but also historical and cultural I guess that’s basically it so it’s interesting it’s nice to know but it’s not something that I was necessarily passionate about so I
(26:45) decid and it was a point of my life when I was like I stopped doing I stopped doing University but I never really taking courses and I wasn’t doing exam but I did not really say on quitting so when I realized I either need to quit or I need to like actually like finish universities it’s one or the other like I have to find something else to do if I to like and that’s something else was like I remembered about the fact that I wanted to do Computer Engineering in Italian it’s like Computer Engineering
(27:18) so I guess computer science and I was like I guess this is what I’m going to go for because at the at the time while I was doing University I was doing like many other things in the meanwhile I got into what three as everybody else at that time and I did project project management related to what three basically and in doing so I had a lot of kind of connections with people that were like web three developers uh and I got to you know see how web three like how developers worked and what was like to be a developer and
(27:53) to do stuff from like scratch and I really likeed that and I said yeah this is what I’m going to do and basically I guess web three got me into development which is weird to say but this is true and I think that’s just true for many people you still have web 3 listed in your bio Twitter bio as well as LinkedIn bio I don’t know if you are still something with web three right now not right now not anymore yeah so I just say still have all that in your yeah but it’s fun like it was a fun time and I’m
(28:28) really grateful for that time because it made me realize that there is not only a traditional path you can also do like many other things so this is like the non- traditionality of like web three and stuff like this really helped me in this sort of way of what typ thing that you were doing in web 3 at that time it was mostly related to like nfts and stuff so I guess yeah so it was like project management in that term from like management okay so you was not creating a smart contract or anything no it it was non technical okay okay yeah
(29:00) but still I had a lot of contact with like technical people so this is where I was like I really need to be like them he was more of like admiration and then he got me the passion so then I decided I saw this like online course that we got in itally basically and I decided to take it in and I started this course basically not even a course they just give you a bunch of free resources to study from like online and then basically they give you a specific project to work on and they give you feedback on that project so
(29:35) basically it’s more it is a course but not in terms of like type of boot camp where you study and stuff like this you just do things on your own and then they review the projects you do which is it was actually really nice and that was in web three right no that was like in web two regular it was a front end development course I see I see so HTML CSS JavaScript type thing yeah yeah so after I did that basically I hopped on web to that’s it okay okay who that course by the way oh it’s a funny story because I saw
(30:13) that this company that was doing like this type of courses in it’s like a Italian version of sharks and tanks is that the pro yeah yeah sh times there’s an Italian version of that and basically that company that does the type of like services like learning onine Services there were like on shens I think was like in 2019 and I remember them for some reason and then in 20 22 it was I still remember them and then I like decided to take our course basically in 2022 okay yeah this is getting confusing no it’s not it’s not
(30:53) you went into you was doing a university you came across web work you started doing project management for them you got the interest building in yourself and then you a course on HTML CSS JavaScript and you started doing that yes and with doing that web 3 is really big on Twitter and stuff so I decided there must be something similar to web too like there must be like tag people like on Twitter like in web course so I decided to look for those people and find a community and I did as you can see so it was really nice so 2022 you did that course
(31:37) you finished that course yeah I finished it on the week that I got job actually as I as I was finishing it I was already talking to recruiters because like I was playing and I it was long course then it just took me a long time because it’s it was very flexible basically you have the h part and then you had resources to study from and there was like no time no time limit like that that you couldn’t learn basically that from the resources and the thing was you just had to do the oh my God the project
(32:12) for the basically so there was not really a time limit to do the resources and stuff so this is why like we took things slowly Al also because it was like very difficult at the beginning I remember it was very funny now that I remember it it’s really funny was watching my first HTML video and I was taking notes and was like oh yeah the P element the H1 element know that I remember I think I still have like somewhere HTML notes and it’s really funny thinking back on that really yeah I was like oh what’s the
(32:49) difference between a div and a span blah blah blah blah and it’s like taking like pen and paper notes on that but yeah it was a fun time you what many people are either thinking it’s too complicated and they don’t do the basic stuff you do it one time and you remember it forever yeah keep avoiding it then you just keep avoiding it another thing that I’m seeing is you found a course you stick with it versus I see many people who would short list 50 courses and then try to find one and then they keep switching between the
(33:28) courses rather than just finishing one of them yeah this is true and also I know this might be a little controversial but when you pay for a course you actually want to finish it because free resources are really nice but most of the time you’re going to take them for granted and stuff like this and you’re going to just forget about them but if there’s like a very good that you know like from a trusted person or from trusted organizations I guess that it’s like a p not very not so much not like in terms of like thousands
(34:01) of course in terms of hundreds maybe or a few hundreds like you’re going to be much more motivated to finish it because like you actually paid for it so I paid for the course and it’s like I I have to finish it because I paid money for it but he was like if it would be like I don’t know a YouTube course a 14 hour YouTube course like nobody’s keeping me there I can switch off and forget about it so I guess this is it I would say say this over the last three years I I have paid a lot of money for a lot of courses
(34:34) for writing okay I never paid this much for learning programming but how paid for and many of courses I never finish I think there is something there is some emotions that is required for you to follow through end to end yeah it’s I think it’s beyond money or Beyond just big a desire for me it was but I think it’s I don’t know what it is I think it’s I don’t want to say desperation because this is a negative like it has a negative connotation of course but it’s like something good of I I get this
(35:10) chance this is my chance there is not second like there are second chances of course but if you keep living your life thinking there are Second Chances you’re never going to actually like complete things and you’re not going to like do stuff because so there’s another where I can do this but why don’t you do it now so it’s I think it’s different I think like having because I was coming from a very like long period of time as I said I was doing University I was doing something else I was a little bit lost so I
(35:43) thought this is my thing like I’m going to make it so that like technical stuff and like frontend development or like General software development is going to be my thing this is going to be like my time to shine there’s nothing else for me going on and there will never be anything else for me going on so I either do this or fall into the void so basically this is very I don’t know how to say it nistic but this helps because like you when you don’t have any chances when you don’t have any other option you are
(36:17) going to do it because but if you have so many options that you don’t really know what to do as you said like I got options to do so many courses I don’t really know which one I should be completing but if you only have one option this is the road is straightforward there’s no need to look across you just have to look forward so yeah I guess I think this was the moment in this interview um that would be the most helpful for anyone watching that you was in this situation and then at some point you
(36:50) decided and this was these are the thought process that was going on in your mind so what happened next so you had this moment you decided to do this 2.0 you had the course and then from that point it took about a year for you to work on it right so what happened what I’m trying to understand that how did you plan how did you follow through how did you study how did you have that continuity for a year I guess it was the fact that I kept that spark ey like that first thing I kept repeating it into my hand I only
(37:33) like because sometimes we we get like a specific feeling at the very beginning oh it’d be nice to do this then we forget about it yeah but the thing is don’t forget about it so don’t forget about the feeling that you at the very beginning had that really got you interested and really sparked something in you basically and try to keep it alive like at every cost because it could see down at that point that there’s no going back then there’s no going back but you have to keep it alive somehow and
(38:06) basic don’t know Bic were you repeating every day in the morning in front of you I was like I guess every there are many different situation where I was like I don’t know if I can do it maybe I’m not smart enough maybe I’m not that enough maybe it’s not really for me I’m not a technical person I’m not logical I’m not mathematical etc etc but then I was thinking about this like why am I not who said am I not I just said it nobody else just said it and that’s it and oh I guess it was this technical Journey that
(38:43) I did was also very psychological because I was coming from a period when I was like lost and I was trying to find something that was for me and I said that it was for me basically I don’t know how to explain it’s very difficult to explain I’ll find the words I’ll find the right words because I’m try to get the concept across basically if you have something that you have to do you have no option but to do it and that’s it I think too many options are going to confuse people but basically if
(39:18) you think that you like your purpose and you what you want to do is like getting into tag and you start like drifting away into so maybe I could do this something else and maybe if I could do this something else I don’t think you have to refocus and I understand is that your path if the answer is yes right away then you have to go on that path and that’s it I guess it’s mostly psychological I don’t know it is it is yeah it is all right so you was for year one year the journey also maybe this could be a more
(39:59) practical advice of course you cannot do things that you keep it’s difficult to keep doing something that you keep failing at having some sort of reward every time you like at some point it’s really nice so basically maybe you finish I don’t know the HTML and CSS guide or some HTML and CSS YouTube video and stuff like this and you do you have to do a small project with it and then realize that you accomplished something so that sense of accomplishment this is what keeps you going forward because it’s like I
(40:32) decided to go in tag and I’m actually doing things that people in Tech do so I guess this is my place so you keep doing that like for HTML and CSS if you want to be a front end developer you keep doing that like for basic JavaScript you keep you doing that sort of advanced JavaScript and at some point you like by building small projects every time you learn something new you’re going to give you like the type of thing openion I can do it so you just keep doing it yeah I don’t know no this is perfect and
(41:03) how many hours you were spending in learning every day not enough I think it was like probably four three hours a day so yeah it was not so much actually I I was like oh how are people working for eight hours a day I should learn for eight hours a day but it was very difficult it’s impossible it’s you’re not I’m not getting paid for this I’m paying for this I’m doing it 4 hours were you doing something else at that time like a job or some other studies I was completely focused on that I was
(41:34) completely I know it’s a huge privilege to be able to stop your life and have a a goal that is so different from everything else youve had before and keep going with it but I guess if you have that privilege it’d be nice to take take advantage of it as much as possible when you was applying for a job at that time what all you had learn you hear HTML CSS JavaScript is there anything else that you had in your back pocket at that point yeah I had I was learn angular because I guess in Italy we’ve got like angular and rag I guess
(42:14) at the same like kind of popularity level like integration level where a lot of companies are doing react and many a little bit more companies are doing angular even so basically I decided to go with angler because like everyone is doing react I’m just like do this other thing so basically this is what I did and and then I started applying actually I tried to go through different interview questions technical interview questions as well and then it just applied of course I curate I it took me three weeks to curate my CV and stuff
(42:51) like this vide I was obsessed I was watching every YouTube video out there like how to do amazing CD great TV etc etc in the template the other thing so basically I watched a bunch of this type of videos to create my social media and my CV and like cover letters and stuff like that so also always writing and rewriting and I was like I’m done with writing my CV send it out like to the 10 companies and that’s it also this is something we could cut in into the previous question because this is I I just thought about something what
(43:26) kept me going was as I said it was very psychological as a type of Journey but also the fact that I was on Twitter and like sharing things I was doing it had a lot of impact because there were a lot of people like encouraging me but also I was looking up to a lot of people that I wanted to be like so I guess being in the Tech Community really helped me because it’s really nice to be with people that do the same things as you or do the things that you would like to do as well and you can emulate them and
(44:00) they give it B and it’s really nice so I think Twitter helped a lot yeah I saw your consistency every single day you was coming back and see yeah I did oh this is something that really helped a lot was also 100 days of scod it was a really nice experience I did not finish it of course but it was really nice a well plased I really enjoyed sharing what I was doing and I really enjoyed getting the feedback and advice and everything it was really cool so if somebody’s struggling with consistency I think sharing on
(44:39) Twitter and doing some type of challenge I think is is really nice because I think as I said before we need to have a specific sort of way to tell ourselves that we are doing a great job and by doing by completing tasks and even small tasks and completing things such as challenges I think it’s a great way to you know feeling accomplished and being like Oh I’m finally doing something stop like this sure yeah this is It’s 202 so how much time do we have you have we can go on from another like 15 minutes if I don’t
(45:15) know if you have other questions as well yeah few more we did a lot of resume forces and everything I think you probably want to to create your own guide or a video just for this one no I was thinking about it yeah today I was I should make a GU about that so what would be your top three five tips on resume oh my God I have no idea anyways I don’t remember anymore that’s watch YouTube I don’t remember I’m just saying that the first day watch YouTube ESP yeah watch like do the thing is I think what some people or even many I
(45:56) think the majority people like don’t realize is that making research and looking things up on the Internet really helps like we can do things on our own but write a resume write a cover letter and think oh this is I did a good job on that but you don’t know what is your how do you call it what are you comparing it to you have no measure of comparison to like what you just did and what’s the standard and you might think you did a great job but the standard is here and the job you did is here and it would
(46:27) never know if you don’t go online and actually see examples and you don’t see people like actually giving advice on that so it’s good to be self-confident but also it’s good to take an advice and try to learn from people that do it as a job because there are a lot of people that their job basically on YouTube is teach you how to find a job so learn from the best and that’s it so yeah I think my main point is understand format of your CP because it was really funny I was looking at American videos to to R
(47:02) the resume and the format was different the format is like no profile picture it’s like all blank black and white like regular text format in Europe you have this column format where you have to have your picture you have to have a specific column of your languages if your skills and stuff like this and another column with like your with your experience and the first time around I I wrote my CD following like the American structure and I showed it to like the people around me like the Italian Like My Italian Friend what this present like
(47:33) was it was it it what a picture like this is the best like this is the best on the internet what do you mean so then I went on LinkedIn like Italian LinkedIn and I also found like other different guides on how to write res and stuff like this specifically for tech people and I saw that like the template was different so I followed that template but like the contents was still great so I guess that’s it also try to understand try to watch around of course like American things but also try to cater to your local community so this is
(48:12) something that it was definitely something interesting to learn so far you got your foundation done you got your resum and many people able to reach to this point from here here to apply and getting responses from recruiters or hiring managers getting interview call and then actually get selected is the super hard part yeah yeah I that uh how did that work out for you how many application you did how many interview you did and how was you strategizing everything oh basically before I started even applying I got contacted by a
(49:01) recruiter onink then which is actually the person that I’m always talking to because he works at my company because I work at that company okay so you was publishing at LinkedIn as well then how did no I was not my LinkedIn is I I the point is I think the point is um as I said I try to maximize my social media but not in terms of posting necessarily but in terms of having a good Banner like very understandable Banner like very searchable description searchable bio like in every thing in every text I would write front end developer web
(49:42) developer react angle like all the keywords and like everywhere I could I would like put them in phrases like snaky and stuff like this basically and I had a good profile picture as well because it’s it’s not necess high quality picture of course but it has a good background it’s not 320 of course so it’s different I guess my profile is very searchable in that terms because also this is something I looked up on YouTube as well how to maximize your LinkedIn profile so you should put that on a link just watch some videos
(50:16) anyway basically and this is what happened and I got contacted by that this recruiter and we had a half an hour talk basically there was like they asked me are you up for a phone and stuff like this and we talked for half an hour and you know what let’s do the technical interview like right after that talk basically I I talked with him how I talk with you basically I did not do anything differently it’s regular funny joke silly me and then they told me they wanted to do the technical interview with me and it went well and basically
(50:52) they gave me an offer so that’s it but also in the mean while that was happening I I sent in some rumes as well so my resume actually helped me in some way here my CV it was not useless so basically my resume use was useful because I send in my CV to 10 companies and I got contacted the point is how I was sending those resumes I was sending them not to Junior developing roles but to intermediate developer roles and know what’s the reasoning behind this I just decided to do so because I wanted to avoid internships and stuff like this so
(51:36) I said maybe if I send it like for junior positions they’re going to be offer me interships and stuff like this but I need a job so I was sending it to intermediate positions and I got contacted by one company from what 10 10 of those that did the interview that I send applications for and again I did the the first round of tributs basically with it was I think it was with three people it was not a phone call it was like a zoom call and stuff like this so there was like asking me personal questions and asking about me my
(52:08) experience what I did like previously and I had to talk about the project I did and stuff and this is like something I like with both interviews I had I always talked about like the projects I did and emphasizing that I learned a lot and also I always told them that I left University to tag and stuff this to let them know I’m really passionate anyways basically so I think the way then the thing that struck me most is like both interviews like first in presented they were both successful so I think the reason that
(52:44) was because I thanks to Twitter and thanks to Twitter spaces and stuff like this I got a little bit more confident in my abilities and in my the way I talked and this is the way I presented myself and also I got more confident into talking about my past experiences and not being ashamed of necessarily like quitting University and stuff like this but saying it as a per even which would might come across as like something not necessarily A recuit might want to hear but if they hear it like in a certain way song it’s all about how
(53:16) you say things necessarily not what you say because if I said oh if they ask me did you do any universe and say no and I’d be ashamed of it they would see like that I’m not necessarily comfortable talking about but if I bring it up I say I was doing University I did not like it here I am it’s different so I think it was mostly the fact that I was able to come across as a confident person but also come across as something someone that is passionate and someone that is technical enough for them so I guess that was it
(53:51) so both interviews were successful in the first round and also in the technical interviews as well as well so I got what do you call offers for both like they’re very similar offers and I end up choosing the friend company because the guys were nice nicer so that’s it it’s very simple there are no really work arounds the things I did was were pretty normal you’re definitely very personally well when you’re speaking you speak your mind I can can feel that and then I think it’s very engaging kind of disc where I
(54:28) have conversation with you definitely work out in your favor for sure yeah I guess it did the thing I always like when I feel like oh I deserve this job am I good enough this type of stop that come always comes around like around the corner like every one or two weeks it always comes up somewhere I think I feel like oh did I talk my way to this job because I feel like yeah because I feel like it’s very strange that like after 30 minutes I’m like oh basically we’d like to hire you but we need a technical
(55:04) interview that was the vibe yeah it’s really interesting honestly I wonder if you ever go back to the university and finish you education some employer actually pay for it honestly no like not likees i’ like to do computer science of course but at the same time I feel like it’s going to be quite difficult to do that with having the full-time job but I’d like to try at some point I’m doing cspc which is against some very into drug in yeah exactly exactly yeah anyway here’s here’s why I asked that question
(55:44) Christina your career is 30 40 years long yeah and you don’t need bachelor degree right now and you need it ever but there may be a voice at some point that you start hearing that what if I have done it right there okay so here you go right what if right that voice can become like mental roadblock for you yeah you said before it’s all mentals right to address that voice do it I did my MBA just to address that voice of to job with two kids I did it but you can do MBA in one and a half year or two years I did it in four years
(56:43) we did one subject at a time that’s what I’m thinking maybe I could do like one of those online universities I guess but they like act University but they only do like online stuff which yeah yeah and look for if company can pay for all that and then you do one subject at a time or few subject at a time yeah it’s doable but then you will be able to address that nagging voice yeah and again it’s a 30 40 years long career and there could be different situation some these the situation you you don’t control different type of
(57:25) situations some sometime companies just say weird thing if you have XYZ degree then you could be promoted yeah even though you have no use of that degree in your education but why to block you yeah exactly I feel the same honestly I feel like in terms of even in terms of doing my day-to-day job I don’t feel like I’m lacking anything honestly because I’m fine I’m doing a good job I guess I I could off course improv as everybody else and I could do so much more as I’m doing now but still as a junior developer I feel
(58:03) okay I don’t feel like I’m like oh I’m doing such a bad job I’m doing fine which is nice but at the same time I feel like there is something missing if I really wanted to go like in depth on topics and on stop there be something missing so I need to address that somehow and I will at some point yeah no rush I actually gave myself a timeline when I get into my first programming job I gave myself a timeline that after exactly 1 year I will go to another big city and then do my interviews for a new job it’s a
(58:39) random timeline and I actually did it right after the 14 months Mark I went to one of the bigger city in India for interview for one week and I got a job and I switched that’s S I was thinking maybe after one year I couldn’t start University but we’re going to see how that’s going to unfold I guess I really like my company though they’re really nice they’re doing the best for me right last two three questions was is first of all I thly enjoy this uh conversation you have so much that other people can
(59:14) learn from you had some really practical advice so I wanted to ask is there any question that I have not asked you but you want to answer I guess it’s not necessar like question like an advice i’ like the like general advice I’d like to give is to not just follow a specific Trend like that when you get into tank maybe there’s like an AI Trend there’s front development Trend or something like this but to actually try to understand which field of tech you’re most passionate about and going into
(59:44) that because doing stuff just for the sake of it is different versus doing things that you actually know you have a passion for so I guess this is it of course going into stck for the money is absolutely valid but it’s going to be different depending on the journey that you are going to have especially if it’s a self Journey it’s going to be quite different to get to the end of it actually if you don’t have if you don’t initially have some type of fashion or or you don’t like Foster some type of
(1:00:14) fashion with time so I guess this is like something I’d like to generally say as a general advice like that spark that I was saying at the very beginning if you’ve got preserve it if you don’t have it try to find a way to get it so yeah that’s my that us my last question you’re advice to the audience so you have answered that is there any question for me I want to ask you is there any advice you’d like to give me if you saw me talk you saw me like say my things etc etc is there something that so oh
(1:00:49) maybe this is I do this differently or maybe I don’t know be careful to do this thing something like this yeah a as I have probably a lot of advice for your career and the biggest advice would be that the first three years of your career is where you make your career you build your foundation which you’re already doing and then as I said my loyalty always been with my professional group yes my company was important my project was important my my was important but when it comes to the career growth I was
(1:01:30) loyal to me and my grow and I everything that is around that whether I had to do a course or education or whatever it mean and then that there are two type of things that I suggest that you go deeper and deeper into the technical aspect of it now as you are building yourself for the front end I suggest touch the back end stuff touch the all we related concept from DNS to networking or server um configuration anything that is needed for this website to work website is not just a website it’s a business right it helping
(1:02:14) somebody run the business and those emotions once we start understanding those emotions it it become way more bigger than just the technology so that would be one thing to go deeper and then the second thing is touch different aspects of it like requirement analysis designing coding testing deployment tou all different aspects of Technology especially understanding the client emotions around when they are asking for a new feature or when they are not so happy about a certain implementation of feature where they’re coming from what
(1:02:52) what are their steps the business workflow steps that are affected because of that so those will be my advice yeah thank you I started reading pratic programmer this morning actually yeah so I think it’s going to be nice for me well thank you so much this interview will be great and I once again thank you so much for coming on this podast thank you for having me it was a really nice experience yeah I really likeed really enjoyed so the podcast I really enjoyed connecting with you again because it’s been a while so it’s really nice and you
(1:03:34) also always have ni advice and stuff so it’s really nice