Becoming Software Engineer at 19 — Journey till now
I am super excited to announce that I am joining GeekyAnts as a Software Engineer at an age of 19.
So let’s talk about my journey from having medical background till 12th (PCB) never written a single line of code to getting my first tech job in one year. It’s been a rollercoaster ride of so many ups and downs.
Let me give you guys a brief background, I was sent to Kota when I was 14 in 7th standard as a bonus with my sister 🙊, to become a doctor of course. I didn’t even know that Kota is a city or coaching. when I reached class 12th I knew I didn’t want to be a doctor not that it’s a bad profession it’s just it wasn’t for me. I did fill my form for NEET in 12th but never gave the exam.
I think rather than knowing what you want in life it’s more important to know what you don’t wanna do in life.
So last year when the lockdown was announced I came back to my hometown and somehow got the courage to tell my dad that I don’t want to be a doctor.
what do you think his reaction will be? a man who spent all his savings and took loans to make me a doctor seeing his dreams shattered? he would be angry with me, right? No.
I will forever remember what he said “Beta do whatever you enjoy doing and wanna do I am always here for you. Just don’t do anything illegal and try to figure out a way to monetize what you love.”
Coming from a guy who is a Principal of a College himself and telling his kid to do what you love I trust you. He is a legend for me.
So that’s where the journey begins, I got a video of Varun Mayya and Tanay Pratap called “College Fence Paradox” on YouTube. That’s where my belief got even more strong, about not going to college, and also I got to know about Tanay for the first time.
I learned that what the world cares about is skills, not degrees. Not the whole world, but the world in which I want to get into.
Then I started learning on my own from Udemy Courses to Youtube and like everyone, I also fell into tutorial hell.
Then came Neogcamp last year in November. I started attending live classes of LevelZero by Tanay and even got into Neogcamp levelOne.
You know when you wanna achieve something from the bottom of your heart and you have literally risked everything from your career to society, respect all because you have faith in yourself. The universe makes the way for you.
Somehow everything got aligned Learnt a lot from tanay and all the family of neogcamp. all I can say for them is you were the people who were there when no one else was.
Let it be related to coding or life, will always be grateful to everyone one of you and love you. 💖
Then after learning everything from Tanay for 6 months. I started to make my projects and to be honest, it’s really tough to make full-stack projects which take 30–40 hours each on your own without any team to work with which makes it boring sometimes and without any external motivation.
I knew what I needed was discipline as moods are temporary actions last forever.
All I remember is once my mom said to me something which was soo precious at that moment.
She said, “if you started something, you will get burned out if you panic. take rest in between but don’t stop creating things and Kabhi Na Kabhi Toh ho hi jayega na if you keep doing.”
That really pushed me so in 2–3 months I created around 5 full-stack projects.
Then comes the roc8 in the picture which is really a Rocket 🚀 for your career the way Swapnil Agarwal guides you and organizes everything is super awesome. So I polished my communication skills and projects with him and the fellow neogGrads for a month.
Then comes the interviews. I will be super honest I have faced the companies who rejected me on the intro call as soon as they hear 19 and didn’t go to college. It’s tough but not impossible.
What I figured out is. they are not my target companies anyways. There are millions of companies, what I need to find is a company that focuses on skills and how good I am with skills and people not which certificate I hold.
So after a lot of struggle came Geekyant as a blessing. they never hired anyone this young but they were super excited to have me on board because what they cared about is “who I am”. Thank you so much for giving me the opportunity and having trust in me.
Super grateful to so many characters in the story I am nothing without them. Few people from the tip of the iceberg are -Tanvi, Akanksha, Sarthak, Akshay, Reet, Dhruv, Sakshi, Akshita.
Thank you so much universe for giving me the experience of everything let it be pain or pleasure.
Will try my best to give back to the community and the people in whichever way I could. ✨
