From unhappy cleaner to unhappy web developer to entrepreneur

[Mike Stoian]

Hi there,

I've been on here for months now and it's finally time to say hi so ... hi, I'm Mike.

I'm 25 years old, originally from Romania but now living in London. I've successfully gotten a job as a developer with no college degree after 1.5 years of learning to code in my spare time while cleaning shit at my day job.

I'm 4 months in the job and while it's still amazing and quite fun every day, I hate the daily monotony and unscalability of a job. I figured out I wouldn't be happy at a job even if I could work from home 5 days a week and get paid a million a year.

So here I am, with both of MJ's books read and with a notepad of ideas and CENTS analyses done but still no proper action taken. My current problem, analysis paralysis.
But nevertheless, I thought maybe after this time I finally have some value to add to anyone who might be reading my posts so because of that I'm here. Hi again.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[SEBASTlAN]

Welcome!

 

[Mball]

Hi there,

I've been on here for months now and it's finally time to say hi so ... hi, I'm Mike.

I'm 25 years old, originally from Romania but now living in London. I've successfully gotten a job as a developer with no college degree after 1.5 years of learning to code in my spare time while cleaning shit at my day job.

I'm 4 months in the job and while it's still amazing and quite fun every day, I hate the daily monotony and unscalability of a job. I figured out I wouldn't be happy at a job even if I could work from home 5 days a week and get paid a million a year.

So here I am, with both of MJ's books read and with a notepad of ideas and CENTS analyses done but still no proper action taken. My current problem, analysis paralysis.
But nevertheless, I thought maybe after this time I finally have some value to add to anyone who might be reading my posts so because of that I'm here. Hi again.

Welcome Mike!

 

[GoranS]

Hi there,

I've been on here for months now and it's finally time to say hi so ... hi, I'm Mike.

I'm 25 years old, originally from Romania but now living in London. I've successfully gotten a job as a developer with no college degree after 1.5 years of learning to code in my spare time while cleaning shit at my day job.

I'm 4 months in the job and while it's still amazing and quite fun every day, I hate the daily monotony and unscalability of a job. I figured out I wouldn't be happy at a job even if I could work from home 5 days a week and get paid a million a year.

So here I am, with both of MJ's books read and with a notepad of ideas and CENTS analyses done but still no proper action taken. My current problem, analysis paralysis.
But nevertheless, I thought maybe after this time I finally have some value to add to anyone who might be reading my posts so because of that I'm here. Hi again.

Merry Christmas and welcome!

What was the process of learning to code and getting the job like?

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Mike Stoian]

Merry Christmas and welcome!

What was the process of learning to code and getting the job like?

Hi there. It was gruesome. I probably got the wrong expectations because of people who started learning and found a job 3-6 months in. In my case, it took 1.5 years of almost constant headache because I've never had to use my brain in such a way. (literal headache) But at the same time, going through Harvard's CS50 course was some of the most fun i've had in years. I realised I really love programming.

The applying part was disheartening.
And it kind of felt like the desert of desertion that MJ talks about. Weeks / months of applying to jobs without a single reply. And when I did get a reply, I did everything they asked just to be ghosted. A bit hard to get feedback and improve when they're not willing to give it to you. However as the time goes on and I add more and more stuff to my portfolio it gets easier to get replies. Towards the end of my search I realised I didn't really care for any of those companies. I just wanted to code and get rid of that shitty job. So I stopped giving a shit on interviews and then finally the ONE company that I was actually excited about were equally excited about me so here I am.

 

[GoranS]

Hi there. It was gruesome. I probably got the wrong expectations because of people who started learning and found a job 3-6 months in. In my case, it took 1.5 years of almost constant headache because I've never had to use my brain in such a way. (literal headache) But at the same time, going through Harvard's CS50 course was some of the most fun i've had in years. I realised I really love programming.

The applying part was disheartening.
And it kind of felt like the desert of desertion that MJ talks about. Weeks / months of applying to jobs without a single reply. And when I did get a reply, I did everything they asked just to be ghosted. A bit hard to get feedback and improve when they're not willing to give it to you. However as the time goes on and I add more and more stuff to my portfolio it gets easier to get replies. Towards the end of my search I realised I didn't really care for any of those companies. I just wanted to code and get rid of that shitty job. So I stopped giving a shit on interviews and then finally the ONE company that I was actually excited about were equally excited about me so here I am.

Thanks for sharing, that's very interesting. And respect for having the grit to go through that. I actually recently started going through CS50. It's amazing that we have such content available for free.

Hope you stick around here.

 

[DeletedUser0287]

Hi there. It was gruesome. I probably got the wrong expectations because of people who started learning and found a job 3-6 months in. In my case, it took 1.5 years of almost constant headache because I've never had to use my brain in such a way. (literal headache) But at the same time, going through Harvard's CS50 course was some of the most fun i've had in years. I realised I really love programming.

The applying part was disheartening.
And it kind of felt like the desert of desertion that MJ talks about. Weeks / months of applying to jobs without a single reply. And when I did get a reply, I did everything they asked just to be ghosted. A bit hard to get feedback and improve when they're not willing to give it to you. However as the time goes on and I add more and more stuff to my portfolio it gets easier to get replies. Towards the end of my search I realised I didn't really care for any of those companies. I just wanted to code and get rid of that shitty job. So I stopped giving a shit on interviews and then finally the ONE company that I was actually excited about were equally excited about me so here I am.

Was there a reason you specifically chose CS50 and not some udemy course?

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Mike Stoian]

Was there a reason you specifically chose CS50 and not some udemy course?

I did start with one udemy course taht tought the basics of html, css and a bit of javascript, then went on to freecodecamp but I kept hearing how amazing CS50 is.

So i tried it out and it's definitely worth it. It teaches you about how machines and computers work. It build a great foundation for anything else you wanna learn within the realm of programming.

 

[Puscas Cristian]

I did start with one udemy course taht tought the basics of html, css and a bit of javascript, then went on to freecodecamp but I kept hearing how amazing CS50 is.

So i tried it out and it's definitely worth it. It teaches you about how machines and computers work. It build a great foundation for anything else you wanna learn within the realm of programming.

Salut! Bravo si toata stima.
I am also from Romania and I've been learning for about a year now. Things just start click in my mind right now.I've been in Birmingham working for deliveroo and uber eats, and learning in my spare time.
I haven't been able to get a job just yet, but I am building my portfolio
What projects did you build?
I am very happy to hear that you got a job! Congrats!!

 

[Mike Stoian]

First things first: Get a website going. And just make sure it looks good and is responsive.
Probably the best thing to do is to go through cs50. You'll build some project as you go along. Around the final weeks you'll be able to do CRUD web apps. ( meaning there's a database involved. the people can add / delete stuff from the database while the web app will display that data dynamically).

Also try to make stuff you find interesting. Another calculator app isn't gonna inspire anyone, especially since you can find the code for that easily on the web.

A great ideea that I had but never got to do it since I got hired was a public survey :
* 10-20 questions which people could answer (yes/no/ maybe)
* data would be stored in the db in a table for each individual user
* at the end of the survey, a few graphs would be created based on the data in the db. some relating just the user's answers and some graphs showing % or pie charts or whatever of how other people answered.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[lowtek]

Welcome aboard!