From Cook to Code: My Journey of Becoming a Software Engineer

Hello, I’m Vitaly and I work as a low code developer.

I want to share the story of my journey from a student to my first job as a developer.

My first profession, very far from IT

My first profession? Not a chance in the world it was anything related to the tech industry.

Growing up in a small town, the concept of a “programmer” was a foreign concept, nothing more than a distant myth of people who made “millions”. But little did I know, my journey to becoming a developer was just beginning.

After graduating high school with a degree in Food Technology, I dove headfirst into the world of restaurants and hospitality. I gained valuable experience and honed my skills, but as the years went by, I realized that while I had achieved success, it no longer brought me the satisfaction and financial independence that I craved. The pandemic and other events had made the future of the industry uncertain.

But as they say, when one door closes, another opens. I realized that my true passion lay in the world of code and technology. With a family to support and a hunger for stability and growth, I took the leap and never looked back.

Professional reorientation and training

Oh boy, where do I begin. I’ll admit, the thought of diving into the tech industry had always been daunting. The fear of the unknown and the uncertainty of it all had kept me rooted in my comfort zone. But as they say, if you don’t take risks, you’ll never know what you’re capable of.

I started by taking a deep dive into the world of IT, researching different professions and the skills required for them. As I delved deeper, I found myself drawn to the world of Frontend Development. With its low barrier to entry and minimal equipment requirements (my old laptop was quite enough), it seemed like the perfect place to start.

I stumbled upon a few online courses and after some research, I settled on one that seemed like the perfect fit for me. And so, I dove into the world of web development. At first, it was a struggle to wrap my head around it all, but the more I learned, the more I wanted to know.

So, I set out to learn the JavaScript, starting with free content on YouTube. But as I quickly found out, that wasn’t enough to give me the knowledge and experience I needed to truly excel. That’s when I decided to invest in quality courses and my journey of mastering the language began.

Before long, I found myself finishing layout courses and understanding the basics of coding. But the more I learned, the more I realized just how much there was to know. I was shocked by the capabilities of jQuery and couldn’t even begin to imagine what Javascript was capable of.

As I continue to hone my skills, I’ve come to appreciate the importance of community in this field. The developers’ chats and communities I’ve joined have been invaluable in helping me navigate the often-complex world of programming. From getting advice on best practices to learning about new tools and technologies, the support and camaraderie of my peers has been a driving force in my development as a coder.

From variables to functions and beyond, the journey has been long and challenging, but it’s also been incredibly rewarding and exciting. The more I learn, the more I realize just how much there is to know. But that’s what makes it all the more fun — the never-ending journey of discovery and growth.

Freelance

As I continued to hone my skills, I decided to try freelancing.

My first gig? Designing an email for a newsletter. The catch? It required a table layout, a method that was slightly outdated but I knew I needed to learn to fulfill the order. And learn I did. I poured over tutorials and documentation, and before long, I had completed the job to the client’s satisfaction and earned my first $20.

But as with any freelance gig, the competition was fierce and the rates were low.

It became clear that freelancing alone wouldn’t be enough to make a living as a programmer.

As the months went by, I continued to study and practice programming in my free time, determined to improve my skills. And before I knew it, I was officially a part of the MarsX programming team.

My new team at MarsX was welcoming and the tasks were clearly defined, making it easy for me to understand what I was working on and why. Thanks to the team’s support and my active presence on LinkedIn, I was given the opportunity to try my hand at developing and supporting the company’s products.

Low code

From this moment, my work with the code in MarsX begins, in which I was assigned a test task. It was the development of a conditional IDE interface something similar to Photoshop, a workspace with tabs, drop-down lists, and a workspace according to a certain design, which I completed and sent for verification. Given the experience of performing test tasks for interviews, I had some anxiety in anticipation of the review, and how much it did not come true, and even on the contrary, I was inspired after the feedback about a job well done, that everything was practically as it was necessary except for minor edits. However, I did not understand my tasks, I did not understand what I had to do as a developer at MarsX and how happy I was when I was assigned the first project.

The first project as a developer was an information portal about films and cinemas, the task was to rewrite the old code of the site to a new one, which still had to be put on the updated proprietary platform CMS MarsX.

Unlike my previous development works, mainly landing pages, this task differed in that it was necessary to understand the own CMS system, the syntax of writing code, the very programming of the interactivity of the site, and the most surprising and difficult thing — to create the site in such a way that it was not static — and dynamically changing for the user, so that all text can be replaced, any image can be loaded in such a way that it does not break the entire site, the location of blocks on the page, their order, the position of objects relative to each other and much more, at a certain moment I imagined that it would be necessary for me not to create a site according to the design, but to create a practically lite version of CMS Wordpress, which is used to build and create sites for those who do not want to write code from scratch.

The task of rewriting the old code of a website to a new one was quite daunting.

But, it was also an exciting opportunity for me to learn new skills and technologies.

One of the biggest challenges I faced was my lack of knowledge of the Vue.js framework and JSX. But instead of getting discouraged, I decided to dive into research and learning mode. I scoured the internet for resources, watched countless videos and tutorials, and eventually, I was able to gain a solid understanding of how to use Vue.js and JSX to build the new website.

There was one small but… What impressed me from the very beginning, as soon as I started the task, was how easily and simply it was presented to me, as a person who only created one-page sites and did a little programming in JS, I immediately had an undeniable the feeling that I will be able to do it, that there are guys who will prompt and tell me that I will not be alone on this project and that they will not stop cooperating with me after a few stupid questions. During the entire development time, I could ask for any information, ask for advice on solving certain issues, and most importantly, no one was going to do the work for me, so that only I fell behind and did not interfere with the work, but only directed and advised where to study topic, etc. which only contributed to my learning of MarsX.

Thanks to this, after some time, I finished the project in which everything worked as it should, all the bugs and errors were fixed thanks to the coordinated work with the testers and the insanely friendly and pleasant atmosphere inside the MarsX team.

So, yeah, it was a long and hard journey to become software developer but I’m pretty happy right now and want to share with you some more stories about my new experience on MarsX.