Starting a new job as a developer

In less than a year, I changed my job twice. Before all this I was working at Kohl's and folding shirts. I did have a graduate degree that I knew was not going to work out for me. So what did I major in? I majored in International Studies. While it taught me a lot, it was not the right career choice for me. So I started making a list of things I am passionate about that I could turn into a career that will support my lifestyle.

In a few months, after taking some time off, I started learning to code. I learned alone late at night, sometimes interacting with other learners online. But it was slow. Very slow, at times. I was also very nervous and not confident enough to talk to my peers in person. I thought I had to be established, I thought I needed to be someone to join a group or a meetup. So I never joined.

Right before pandemic started I got a job at a local public library. It was a stepping stone for me. I met so many amazing people that I also became friends with. I was given an opportunity to teach and interact with people who were also learning to code. I developed solid people's skills. After being there for about a year, I applied to a web develop internship and was invited for an interview. I did not think that anyone would be potential in me. I waited for about 2 weeks and kept checking my email. When I got the call that I was accepted into the internship, I was so over the moon! A month later I started my 8-month long internship.

At that internship, I learned Angular, .Net, Git and Github, Azure DevOps. But most importantly, I gained development habits, technical communication, deployment processes, dealing with tickets. Such things cannot be learnt on their own or even in college. 8 months later I became full time, but it felt like something was missing. I was getting good with Angular, I understood the structure of our code pretty well, and I started getting good with tickets. However, I wanted to see what was out there. I started applying casually, but it was very clear that I was a newbie still. Out of nowhere, a local senior developer reached out and said they were looking for a junior developer. I was intrigued.

I had a couple interviews with them, managed to complete a technical assessment that I was so sure I failed. A few days later I was offered a position as a software engineer. Now the only reason I was contacted was because another senior developer helped me practice for a technical interview for a Microsoft apprenticeship (which I failed embarrassingly). Had I not reached out to him to help me practice, he wouldn't even know anything about me. So at the end I learned that that's what people call networking maybe.

I have been at my new remote job for 2 days now. Of course, onboarding is overwhelming, but I also feel equipped with how to deal with information overload, because I have been through this. No matter how much I try to learn the first week, I will not know everything. I'm enjoying learning new things, getting used to Mac OS, and getting to know people. I'm also very proud of myself for not beating myself up for not knowing certain things. I am deliberately not saying negative things to myself, but instead celebrating every small win. I'm sure when the time comes, I will be contributing significant changes to the application, but for now time to buckle down and keep learning!

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