Change
I just quit my job.
I remember the day when I went to my college for a final exam. It was mid February, summer was almost gone and all I wanted was to go home. I was waiting outside the classroom for my grade while a green poster caught my attention. It had a white rocket vectorized art with some information about a local company hiring programmers.
I instantly recognized the company as it is the one my professor worked at. At first, I was curious. I thought “oh, I wonder how different would it be to work on something different than the usual we’re taught in school.”
No doubt, I knew it was going to be lots more fun than studying the theory behind information systems. I don’t remember 5% of it either. Probably barely passed.
Either way, something sparked my interest, and my brain just asked “why not apply?” — the worst-case scenario would be a rejection alongside a “try again later” email. I was looking for a part-time job at the moment, trying to apply and expand my programming skills elsewhere. I tried to get into a couple of projects before that, but had no luck.
So I applied, and just a day later got an email asking for an interview. I don’t think I will ever have such an easy interview process again. COVID cases were increasing in Argentina and we were naturally told try not to get out of our homes. The one who replied, Francisco, wanted to do a quick video call over Zoom to get to know me more. I don’t think he was expecting a third-year student, but someone who was about to graduate or at least someone that has taken some advance college courses.
The conversation was easygoing, friendly and didn’t require to demonstrate any technical background whatsoever. He didn’t even ask for a resume. We just talked about who I was, which plans I had, and even mentioned some Java books during it.
Before the call ended, I was asked when I could start (!). That’s it. I firmly believe they already knew me from college; probably my professor told him about me, there’s no other way it could’ve went that smooth without even sending a resume. Two days after I’d get my Slack invite and all the reading material for me to start learning.
I remember being so happy that I was going to have my own laptop.
I also remember wanting to quit the second day.
You need to get out of the comfort zone #
When I joined, everything was new. I didn’t know how to use Slack, what Spring Boot was, which of the 50 Linux commands in the wiki page I had to run, and even how to approach people in a work environment.