This is my second job in my career and I finally got my foot in the door at Audible and couldn’t be more happier to continue my journey. I started at the end of last month so I’m about to make a month working there.
I want to thank my instructors Rusi Lee and Jose Vila, along with all the TA’s for teaching me the core fundamentals so I can have a stepping stone to start off with, helping me answer my million questions, and giving me some tough love when it came to analyzing not just my work but for breaking me out of my comfort zone when it comes to speaking on a technical level and not being afraid to be incorrect.
I also want to thank my boyfriend of 4 years coming this August, who not only helped me financially by working 40 hours a week so I can study and apply for jobs even during the pandemic, but was there for me whenever I doubted myself and whenever I got too disappointed in myself amidst the amount of rejections I got from jobs all over the world. He knew my potential in being a great worker and knew that one day someone would give me a chance to show them that I can do the job even though I didn’t go to college for computer science or have years of experience as a software engineer yet.
I want to thank my mother who is in this call along with my brother and sister who also were there as a support system for guiding me in the right direction, My mother didn’t just help me during my time at Pursuit but my whole life growing up and I wish to help her work less and demonstrate that she too can depend on me as I am on her. I want to thank my former classmates, who I can go to at times when I have questions or even to catch up and I more than anything want to see the rest of us with jobs and start off or continue their careers. Lastly I want to thank my mentor, Jeff Drew, who not only saw the potential in me when helping me get the job at Audible, but is also there for me when it comes to telling him if I’m nervous about an upcoming interview or if I need some pointers when it comes to what to say or do and not psyche myself out. You really gave me so great advice that I’ve been using this whole time and helping me grow as a person and not just someone that interviews.
I started interviewing to join Pursuit, which was known as C4Q in 2015, and I got accepted in 2018. I went to a private college for web design and graduated in 2012, I didn’t have help in what to do after graduation so for a few years I took on unpaid internships until I could finally get a paid job. Unfortunately what I learned felt so trivial to what I should have learned that I wasn’t even considered for most jobs. I saw what was needed for a paid job and it felt so daunting to do it myself and learn a whole new coding language in the process. I worked in retail as well for a years to get myself to learn how to talk with people, I’ve always been shy and thought this would be a great way to encourage myself to get to know a whole spectrum of people and how to communicate effectively. It wasn’t until 2018 when I took on a second job and saw that I didn’t want to work too hard just to have a living, I wanted to do something with my intelligence and feel valued, I wanted to work somewhere where I’ll be proud of and not dread coming in to work everyday.
When I joined Pursuit in 2018, I was living in Passaic NJ with my boyfriend. He and I had a talk about how I was going to handle the program and work at the same time. Ultimately he along with the help of his father supported me during my time there. My schedule was weekends and nights. On the weekends I would stay over at my mother’s house to save money on traveling from New Jersey to New York and vice versa. She would provide me with food and a place to sleep so I would be able to focus on my studies. Traveling from NJ to NY was mostly a pain, mainly because I had to travel about 5 blocks just to get to the station and these felt tortuous on hot days. Sometimes I dreaded going to Pursuit just because of the walk but everyday I would look at my boyfriend going to work and remember what I am doing this for. That amount of motivation kept me going even if the weather was 100+ degrees or minus 0 degrees.
After completing the program I didn’t feel like I had no where to go. I had a support system and base knowledge of where to start. It was up to me to keep ramping it up and not feel too left behind technical wise.
I landed my first job shortly but because of covid I was laid off and felt a huge amount of demoralization. I went back to coding in Java, and the industry for Android is moving towards Kotlin for the future. I thought since I would be coding in Java I would have a better chance to land a job since I wasn’t confident in my skills in Kotlin. After a few months I told myself that if I wanted someone to take a chance on me and my skills I would have to put the same amount of effort and risk. So from thereafter I would take all my interviews in Kotlin still knowing that I am not an expert in it but willing to learn and put myself out there. For the past year I was rejected for about 300+ jobs and when I would get to a final interview and get rejected the amount of self doubt inflicted on myself would increase. There were still times where I wanted to call it quits and just maybe go back to my old job where it was easier. But I knew that route was no longer available, I committed myself to this and with my support system I knew that I wouldn’t be alone and I should just focus on studying. I’m not starting at 0, im continuing from 100.
I know it’s easy for me to say that you should keep going and keep applying for jobs. But sometimes its a good idea to take a break, sometimes its a good idea to study and not worry too much about interviews. There’s going to be a lot of bad days and some may be worse than others, go reach out to your former peers, instructors, mentors, and even family members. Just by telling them what you are going through they could help you or lift some of that pressure off your shoulders.
Give yourself a reason to continue this journey and every time you feel like giving up just look back and remember what you are fighting for, look at the progress you made and remember that you aren’t starting from the beginning but continuing and marching on. I highly recommend taking risks, even if that means learning a new language, software, or even soft skills like public speaking because if you don’t take risks then no one else will take risks on you.
