Just got my first Developer job!

Hello people! I’m a registered nurse but personal trainer by profession. Since 2012, before I decided to become a personal trainer, I thought of studying programming and apply for a programmer position. I tried many learning resources but failed because whenever I got stuck in some topic I always think this thing is not for me.

From 2012 to 2015, I tried html, css, javascript, php, java, python. I studied on and off. It was really hard studying on my own because there is no one to guide me what to do. Whenever I watch youtube tutorials, I understood the topic but I did not build projects.

June 2015, I enrolled my self in an open-university for a 1 year IT course. I finished it march 2016. Unfortunately, it was all self study. and each subject lasts only 8 hours (what can you learn in 8hours?). It was a mistake.

March 2016, I finished the IT course, resigned from my personal training job and focused on studying more (like more html,css,js,java etc).

August 2016, I tried FCC. built the tribute page, and the portfolio page. During this time, I also enrolled in edx.org algebra class. This same month, I sent resume from an online jobs board. I thought I need a job because I don’t want to be broke by december.

Just last week, a company contacted me for an interview and I went to them the next day. I was nervous. The first interview was pretty basic (information about myself). Then test (the hard part, math, logic, advance logic, and basic algorithm on paper). Fortunately, I passed. got 3mistakes on math, 2 mistakes on logic, and perfected the advance logic, the algorithm was also good enough. For the second interview, I was asked what projects I have been doing, I just said showed them my codepen (tribute, portfolio). I also passed the third interview.

I signed the contract two days ago and I’ll be starting this coming monday. We’ll be using reactjs and symfony. I will be trained for 6months (under probation) and if everything works fine, I’ll be continuing with them.

TIP: build projects, enhance your math skills (problem solving), it helps a lot. study study study.

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and NEVER give up, never ever give up.

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Congrats man, I wish you all the best in your coding adventure and you’ll soon be an awesome coder, cause’ you can do it!
:smiley:

Congratulations man.Keep on learning,keep on coding…!!

Wishing you all the best :slight_smile:

Thanks @Azdrian @kunalgupta05. Let’s see where this coding job will take us 5 years from now.

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So you dont have a CS degree right

Congrats on the job! :champagne:

Thanks also for the detailed writeup of your experience. Can you possibly remember the details of the questions you answered, or at least the ones you got wrong? I think a lot of people here are nervous about what they’ll be asked in an interview more than anything.

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Congrats! That is really awesome, that’s so great that you stuck it out and made it to this point

hey congrat, but I am curious. If you are RN why quit and became personal trainer? You should try to get a job as RN in CA. You can make more than a coder easy.

Are you in the US? If so what state? How many jobs did you apply to?

Congrats man! Great story! Thank you for sharing!
Good luck with React and Symphony!

Sounds awesome man! Congrats for not giving up and continuing. Hope it goes really well for you with the job!