- Why did you get into the field? What did you focus on at first?
It all started with playing games. When I was 11, I wanted to host my own CS 1.6 server to make some money by selling VIP. To advertise the offer, I wanted to customize the welcome message you get after connecting to a server. It's coded in HTML/CSS which I had known nothing about so I asked my ICT teacher, who happened to build websites as a side job at the time, if he could help me with that. He taught me the basics, pushed me in the right direction whenever I had a problem and showed me programming is a ton of fun. So from the welcome message, we moved onto building dynamic websites in PHP... Then games in C# using MonoGame. Then came my first professional jobs - CMSs, CRMs, first Java backends and so. And well, here I am. But to answer your question, I focused mainly on web first. I got into it because I was curious, I loved building things and I immensely enjoyed solving problems I had no idea how to approach.
- What are you doing at your job? Is it everything you dreamed of and more?
I'm working on a backend of a service that's used to send RCS marketing campaigns. It's very different than working on your own projects because the business side of things is more important than having a pretty codebase and using a shiny new technology plus most of the people I had a chance to work with were pretty mediocre, so it's definitely not ideal. I've always dreamed about having my own company so I hope that's going to happen one day (I'm making active steps towards this goal of mine).
- How did you break that first-job barrier?
Being 16, I was already ahead of lots of people who have even finished their degrees. So that plus the fact I didn't care about money, I was excited to work on some real projects :)
- What were you doing before this?
I was a kid haha.
- Any tips for the rest of us?
Plenty of my friends tried to learn SE by putting in lots of effort first but they never persisted. It takes months to start connecting the dots. It might be hard to not understand the whole picture, it might be hard to always have problems, it might be hard to always come across a new technology you had never heard of. But trust me, if you persist, it'll get better. Be consistent.
It all started with playing games. When I was 11, I wanted to host my own CS 1.6 server to make some money by selling VIP. To advertise the offer, I wanted to customize the welcome message you get after connecting to a server. It's coded in HTML/CSS which I had known nothing about so I asked my ICT teacher, who happened to build websites as a side job at the time, if he could help me with that. He taught me the basics, pushed me in the right direction whenever I had a problem and showed me programming is a ton of fun. So from the welcome message, we moved onto building dynamic websites in PHP... Then games in C# using MonoGame. Then came my first professional jobs - CMSs, CRMs, first Java backends and so. And well, here I am. But to answer your question, I focused mainly on web first. I got into it because I was curious, I loved building things and I immensely enjoyed solving problems I had no idea how to approach.
- What are you doing at your job? Is it everything you dreamed of and more?
I'm working on a backend of a service that's used to send RCS marketing campaigns. It's very different than working on your own projects because the business side of things is more important than having a pretty codebase and using a shiny new technology plus most of the people I had a chance to work with were pretty mediocre, so it's definitely not ideal. I've always dreamed about having my own company so I hope that's going to happen one day (I'm making active steps towards this goal of mine).
- How did you break that first-job barrier?
Being 16, I was already ahead of lots of people who have even finished their degrees. So that plus the fact I didn't care about money, I was excited to work on some real projects :)
- What were you doing before this?
I was a kid haha.
- Any tips for the rest of us?
Plenty of my friends tried to learn SE by putting in lots of effort first but they never persisted. It takes months to start connecting the dots. It might be hard to not understand the whole picture, it might be hard to always have problems, it might be hard to always come across a new technology you had never heard of. But trust me, if you persist, it'll get better. Be consistent.