from Junior to Senior in 5 years: lessons I wish I learned sooner

when I get the interview with a very nice company. They were building a tech product, big company, nice salary. And that was a very poge moment because I got humiliated doing the interview. I go to their office and he asked me about some function that got deprecated in the last release of React. You know, I was kind of, no, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know. That really breaks my confidence, and even the product manager says even I know that question.

And that's when I quit it. Today I'm going to tell you my story, Dragosh, how I went from, yeah, barely coding a bit with some Python code to becoming a software engineer, senior engineer, starting the senior dev. Perfect, so Dragosh, why don't you start at the beginning? Um, back in the days, we come from a pretty modest family, let's say, kind of working class family. And the idea was to become a doctor, everything your parents wanted to you to become it's a doctor, right?

But then, I'm I'm in high school, I realized, hey, this medicine thing is not for me, I like to build things, switch to towards engineering. Get into aerospace engineering, I didn't know what an airplane is. And then in my second year of aerospace engineering, I realized, oh, this is also not for me. Um, you know, the biggest companies out there, Amazon, Meta, all of them were software companies. And the funny part is that even if it sounds like aerospace engineering, we, I mean, I didn't wrote a single line of code in my first years, I think we were writing a bit of Python, a bit of C++, but it was very fundamental, very basic.

We would finish a whole engineering degree in the year 2014, 15 without actually knowing how to properly code. And I thought, I'm not going to be a real engineer in such a connected world if I don't know how to code, and that's when I decided to learn some JavaScript. And I think it was Code Academy, I I I went in there, and for the summer I spent my summer, I was like, I had like a uni job. And during summer I was kind of trying to learn the basics of building websites and all that.

But still, like I didn't have the community around me, it was very tough, I was just alone in a basement. And I kind of dropped it. I, but then fast forward, it's, you know, final year, I get some internships in aerospace engineering, but this, this kind of passion, I wanted to work for an internet company. And that's where I learn a bit of Python and I get hired like for a marketing deployment in an airline actually.

And I was kind of scrapping, doing like Python scripts to to to scrap the internet and help optimize the so And that's when I realized my next job should be a coding job, and I realized, hey, I want to do this. Uh, but again, I was pretty lost. I was pretty lost because I didn't have any friends in IT, I talked to IT is this kind of a magic thing. And what comes after it's pretty non-linear path I was maybe having like three months jobs.

They all involve some kind of coding, some of them were more hands on, others were just interacting with software. It was only in this online space. Um and the problem is I I got my hands on a lot of different things, but I couldn't say am I, you know, programmer. I couldn't say I'm I know this technology. Whether it's Java, Python or JavaScript. I didn't know any of them. I was a bit all over the place, which is not a good place to be.

especially if you're in the job market, looking for a job and that was the sign that I need to, um, I need to specialize. I need to get better. And I remember bargain you, uh, at that point you moved to Germany, you relocated to Berlin. Because of the software industry, and that's when I decided to kind of follow your steps and, you know, make the twin move and, uh, relocate to Berlin and try to get the job there.

And that's when you got your first gig, you switched to a full-time, let's say, being being a developer. Uh, so you're coming from all these different internship and part-time and all of a sudden you you're switch, what do you remember from that? Did you like your job? Like your first three months as a developer? What do you remember? Was it nice, was it easy, was it hard? I think I was first of all very lucky because you were you were pretty advanced back there, you had I remember you had internships that were much closer to the code in I did and you helped me quite a lot.

I remember sleeping on the floor of your apartment and doing react tutorials, and trying to fill my gaps as soon as possible. And doing this for a good month and a half until I found a position. So people say the market today is complicated. I think the market in 2008 was complicated. Uh, this is not the first time the IT market was complicated. And it's not the first time, the developers have to level up for them to be competitive, right?

And, um, yeah, I was sleeping on this apartment, not doing much for a month and a half, just doing tutorials. Then I got this job and it was pretty tough. bit of JavaScript and you're done and then we are having like professional deployment pipelines, having life cycles, having all the scrum, rituals, methodologies. So it was a very tough period of my life. Also new city, new language, all that and uh and I paid the price because I remember we were working very long hours, uh my health deteriorated, I was, you know, trying to catch up as much as possible.

It never seemed like enough. I was coding a lot at nights. Okay, and uh what happens next? Well, I uh magically pass my probation probation period there. And this is very funny because, you know, when you have a lot of pressure, you all your kind of mind, all your brain, it's pointing towards that goal, getting rid of that JavaScript. But as soon as I had like a fixed contract and uh things were a bit easier, I kind of melded into the routine and I think, you know, I really paid the price for that later when I wanted to switch the job because I passed probation, I get my contract and then I'm like, oh, I can enjoy life now.

And that's great. But still my, you know, my technical gaps were there, my bad habits were there. I had I never did like a proper life coding lead code interview. I, you know, I got my job just writing react and what I wouldn't realize is that the market would change completely in the next coming years when I have to go back to the market again. Right. So, what happens is I get comfortable and funny enough.

Like two years go by and I'm in the same spot, I'm still writing React code. I still don't like my job. I I didn't got the promotion. And when I asked my when I asked my boss, hey, I, you know, I think I'm ready for a promotion, they tell me, hey, yeah, sure, but, you know, you better waiting there, you don't have a CSD grade. Not only that, but they hire someone in my team that would share my responsibility, right?

Like they they got another front end developer in, this person was very competitive, I felt very insecure, I felt like I'll never get promoted because now they can compare me with this person. So, you know, it was very it got a bit political, it wasn't nice, I wasn't doing well, not mentally. Again, my my health was was degrading and out of desperation. You know, I I remember I would go to meetups, I would go to any kind of events and ask like people, like more advanced developers, how did you got where you are? I want to get to senior, I want to work for one for one of those companies.

companies, front companies. And all the all I got, it was, you know, just just just hanging there. Things are going to get better. Then you go to the internet and you go to the YouTube and everybody has an opinion, everybody says do this and that and that. And after a while like I couldn't do any course. Like I got so sick of them because I tried and I tried and and it never worked. And I almost lost hope, I did want you to make more money.

That's a fact. So I put together a CV and I get a an interview, and this is a big one. I get an interview with, you know, a very nice company. They were building a tech product, big company, nice salary. And that was a a very harsh moment because I almost got humiliated doing the interview. I I go to their offices back in the days, this was pre Covid, you would still go to their office, they would ask you questions.

Of course, I pass the screening call and I get to the next interview. And then they they ask me a question about React. I mean, they asked me what you're building, blah, blah, that was all okay. I could react all that, but then they asked me, I mean, they asked me about some some function that got deprecated in the last release of React. And um, you know, that really breaks my confidence. Then they started asking me more questions and at some point, the product manager in the room is like, you know, I was kind of, no, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know.

And even the product manager, and that was the tipping point, says, you know, I even even I know that question. And that that was a tough one. I remember I I almost got a panic attack, I went to the room, almost threw up. And that's when I quit it, I decided not to interview anymore. I I stopped sending application. I was like, I'm gonna, you know, stick in this job, see what happens. And by luck, and this is what's going to bring me to the next step.

I'll still hanging out in the community and I got in touch with a I got to meet a a senior dev who became my mentor. Later on who really introduced me to this professional way of building software. He recommended me some books. We started having lunch, we started having a relationship. And I was just asking him about my problems, he would tell me how he did it. Right, and that's where it all kind of changed.

That's when I started getting things seriously in terms of, I do want to become a senior an engineer. And this is something I want to to emphasize. For the first three to five years of writing code, I still thought my thought, I'm an I'm kind of an impostor. I thought, uh, you know, I'm just doing this for a while. Let me see how it goes. And I think this is one of the reasons why I not fail, but I could have helped And that's where I really committed.

From moment one, if I saw myself as a software engineer, I said I'm going to do this for the next 25, 30 years, take it seriously, commit to it, dude, finish your stuff. Like invest in your skills. I haven't done that. I was a bit back and forth in that, hold me, held me back a lot in my first year. That's the point where I you know, I start doing things like waking up on time, like coming to work early and working on myself.

You know, I look at my addictions, you know. I stop eating so much junk food. I stop eating drinking so many Red Bulls. And it looks like, you know, those are tiny things, but because I had such a messy lifestyle, you know, it was kind of a mess of a person. This would reflect in my job. And that's something I want developers watching us to understand it. If you have personal problems, they will show up in your job and they will show up in your code.

Because in the end, the work you do is just a reflection. It's a reflection of yourself, not only of your knowledge, but of the standards you have for yourself. And what I would tell that person, it's, dude, you have a lot of talent, looking back. What would I tell myself in that setup? It's, you have a lot of talent. You know, you are very ambitious. But unless you solve your discipline problem and unless you take things a little bit more seriously, you're not going to make it anywhere, seriously.

Because you compete with very smart people. They also want the same. They want the nice job. They want the remote job. They want the the high paid, the six figure pay. And that's where little by little, I mean, this, you know, I'm telling the story, but this has been maybe a six months to a year transformation where little by little I I change stuff, um, but I still had one big problem. You know, so I was working up okay.

I was doing my sports. I got like my life in order, but I was still in the same spot. The reason being as, yeah, I changed a lot as a person, but my technical skills. You know, I'm still in the same job, writing the same code, and I'm starting to get a bit desparated, right? I'm doing all these courses. That's when I got into like microservices. I never knew what what those things mean. And and that's when I decided to give it yet another shot.

Go back to interviewing. Get over my fear. I was traumatized like because of that experience that I had. When they said, you need to come in the office and and have a an interview with us, I would just freak out completely, right? And and I really had to push myself and I remember you helped me a lot back then and other people helped me a lot. Uh, with with practicing and with getting over the nerves and getting over that experience.

And that's when I got I really got out of that job. Finally, a company decide to make me an offer. One of the mistakes I've done is I did not negotiate it. But I did manage to switch jobs to a more prestigious company and to a company that was much more rigorous about building software. And that's where the second part of the story begins. I'm in this company and of course, you know, I got the job.

I passed probation, they actually cut my probation period. I get involved in a lot of um, you know, horizontal architecture, architecture meetings. I get to see for the first time I get out of the front end, we're willing a mic front end set up there. And I I get into the server side, I try things with Java. Another programming language. It's also very tough because I have like very experienced devs around me.

They are not all of them are very nice, they're a bit grumpy, so my insecurities are still there. But again, I try to get promoted in this company. And I don't know, I had this dream of becoming a CTO or a tech lead before I make 30. Didn't happen. But because of this, I tried to move towards a tech lead position and I wanted to have a team. I just wanted to get a team as soon as possible because I heard that good developers they get promoted to tech lead and management and all that.

Right, so um, funny enough, you know, my manager tells me, yeah, but you don't have experience leading a team. And that's where I realize I need to get that experience because I have this chicken and egg problem. I need to get that experience coaching people, helping people offline. And out of total self interest, I I sign up to a a charity that was helping, you know, people from disadvantages backgrounds like refugees and um get into tech.

And the thing is my job was to help students get jobs. So it was students that went to a program, very basic program. And my job was to help them close the tinker gap, help them with the CV, help them get jobs. Uh at the same time, I got a part-time job at the boot camp, which was very fun, but it stole all my weekends. And that's where I got in touch with education and I realized, hey, this is how our curriculum looks like.

And, you know, this is those are the gaps that usually senior devs have. And I never thought this would become a um a business or anything like that. It's just that I got more and more students, my my my students were getting results, they were getting jobs. But it got to a point where I had my job, I'm getting burned out, I cannot satisfy both. still I'm falling into those bad habits again of like fast food, late nights, alcohol just cuz I'm working too much.

And that's when one of actually my original mentor tells me, I wish I mean, you know, you got to pick your fights. My company, I was getting promoted on my company, but wait tells me, look, you can either stay here and become a front and tech lead, then an architect, whatever. But you're always talking to me about this little project, this side project, you mentoring people. You know, life is short, I'm way ahead of you. I can tell it flies by, so it's better that you jump in and you do this.

And that's where, you know, in those weeks code code with which became the senior dev, got found it. But I'm still on my job. So I didn't quit in my job. I started code with and I say, hey, if I really want to help people, if I really want to do this and I wanted to have I want this project to go, I need to do it full time. And that's why later I quit my job and I get full time on this and as you know, you join shortly after.

Name change to the senior dev. Um, so looking back to everything, uh you did, what would you say was, let's say the best choice you made and the worst one that you wish you never made? Well, that's a definitely a tough question. I think, you know, I would go and talk about text stacks and stuff like that, but those things come and go. I think the best choice, and that's a choice that you make every day, it's not to quit.

Um, there were all those low point, low points in my life. And because I had some skills, you know, I was communicating pretty well, I understood the business side. You're always tempted when the programming side of things goes wrong, you're always tempted to to switch. To be like, oh, maybe product management is for me, maybe I should do something else, maybe I should start a Bitco company. blockchain company, right? And uh do not quit.

Stick, go through the low points and really believe that you will that you will somehow in the end figure it out. And I think that's a choice that you make every day. Uh, it's not something that you, you know, you you choose once. That's that's the hard thing with choices. There are some choices you do every day. You got to show up and you got to persist, right? And that's the best thing I did. Like despite all my shortcomings, despite my bad habits, despite of my things I get distacted despite all that stuff.

I did, I kept at it, and I kept doing it and I I did the stuff that I didn't like. I pushed myself through the bad stuff, hoping that one day it will get better and funny enough, it did get better. That's the best thing. I the worst thing goes in line with that, which is despite me pushing and I I did, you know, I kept persisting, I never really fully committed, until, you know, the senior dev, until, until my all my all my life was at stake, right? Because when you quit your job and when you start doing these things for a living, that's when you have no choice, right? And and there's there are more back stories to that.

But what I mean is never fully committing in my first years writing code, being like, oh, that's an in between thing, you know, this is this feature or even the whole coding, becoming a developer, right? The best thing I did was to keep going. The worst thing I did was not to commit. Okay, and in the same line, if you were to go back, um, you know, 10 years ago, when you're just starting coding, right? With the Python scripts and you're just kind of getting started, what would be the one piece, the number one piece of advice you'd give to your to your younger self just starting out or to your mid-level self grinding the the front and back in the days.

It's got to sound a bit cliche, but I, you know, I wouldn't change what I've done so far. It got me here and there is no way to know, right? And I bet that this this 20 year old me was pretty stubborn. Talked, even he had a lot less experience than now, but he talked in kind of knows it all. So I don't even know if he would take that advice, but it's um, it goes in line with this with this discipline and and focus.

Like this is your life, you know? And you don't get to live twice. And you realize this as you hit your, you know, 30s, 40s, you realize you only got get one shot at life. And it's your duty to make the most out of it. So don't half ass it, you know? Don't just try, like if you try something, and if your thing it's you want to become a developer, you want to become a software engineer, and work like I see so many developers every day, they're telling me they have these dreams, I want to do this, I want to do that, I want to get a job out of the Fang, or I want to get a remote job, I want to make more money for my family.

Very few of them actually act on those and very few of them act on those on those wishes and then they commit to it. Because it's not only saying I'm going to do it, it's waking up every day and do you and that's what I would tell this this um this guy it's, you know, you have amazing things waiting for you. And you know, it's been a pleasure to build the senior dev and to, you know, I have the best job ever, I think.

Really with you. I I work with like talented devs, developers. We help them reach new levels. I teach the things I like the most, which is software engineering, JavaScript. I mean, I would almost do this job for free, for sure. And um I really I'm really happy that I'm not I never quitted that way. I kept going and and it got me here, right? But the one thing I will tell to everybody, it's define what you want.

Like be very clear on the things you want. You don't need to to justify yourself why you want something to the world. And I say people if you want to make more money, then write it down how much you want to make. If you want to get a certain promotion, write it down. Don't judge yourself, make a plan and commit to it. Commit means sacrifice things. Okay? I there was one year in the senior dev. I wouldn't recommend everyone to do this, but I remember waking up at 5:00 o'clock when this whole thing started.

Um, you know, I had my job, you had your job. We were doing this part time. And we had to wake up at what 4:30 in the morning and work until 8. Right? I don't recommend anybody to do this for a long period of time. But that's the kind of commitment you need. And I think it's a great opportunity to also show yourself how much you want to achieve what you want to achieve. Okay. Thank you so much. Cool. Bogdan, next time we're going to talk about you and for the folks watching us, if you want us to do a second part of this where we can talk about the senior dev, how it all started, more about the senior dev itself.

Then we will gladly do that. We'll see you folks in the next one. Bogdan, thank you for the interview. See you folks in the next one. Have a good one.