My Story: Chapter 1

Hi, Everyone,

I have been so long in the IT industry, that I dare to write about my story in this field chapter by chapter. I will be writing every single line of this story not only as a professional, but first, as an individual, a person highlighting all the kind or ugly that can happen.

As much as I am afraid of the criticism as we all do, I decided to share my thoughts on good and bad, the darkest and lightest sides of this field helping the newcomers not lose their dreams and personality after entering this field, which is not so easy, but worth it.

It has been so many years I am in the IT industry, that I feel so old, although I am 26. I am going to share with you my path with all the obstacles during these years and the failures, which can be very useful for the junior developers and managers starting their paths in the IT planet.

I decided to write my story, because I finally realized, that I am losing my personality and forgetting my dreams, that lead me to this sphere. So many companies talk about valuing the people, but most of it has been a big lie, behind of which was pulling the trigger to make the employees more loyal day by day, making employees overwork, forget about themselves and their lives, and even if they do not overwork, care so much about the project, that one does not have a mental rest even after the work hours.

I got my bachelor degree in the ASUE (Armenian State University of Economics). I really love management and one of my goals is to become a great, keen entrepreneur and manager, but back then I was in a deep thought: "why do only bad people become politicians? That is why our country is in a bad condition", so I applied to ASUE to be able to learn management and economics to work in the Government to make people's lives easier and better. But soon, as I entered the Student's Chamber, I got to see so many ugly pre-political and political things, that I understood it is not the path I want to take, and that I can find other ways to help the people in my country.

Starting from the first year in the university, I started to learn web programming with the purpose to combine it with my profession later, when I am into every process there. My first teacher was Marina Melkonyan, whom I respect and love very much both as a person and as my first mentor. When I saw her helping us to learn and grow, creating so many great applications, I was really inspired and full of hope to become the one who is so knowledgeable and helping as well.

After my four months' course, which covered both frontend and backend, I was in love with this sphere. Here I started studying JavaScript the deepest, reading the popular thousand-page book we all know, reading it during and after the university's some boring lectures. Not Valeri Mirzoyan's and Karen Babajanyan's, or Mnacakanyan's and Suvaryan's lectures, I loved them dearly.

I tried everything I read on my first small freelance projects until I found my first job. I also was interested and was participating in every single hackathon, project, competition or workshop connected to IT programming, to try my knowledge and take as many challenges as I could.

Before I got my first job, as I already told, I was full of great ideas. The main reason for which I decided to choose the IT industry was the desire to make the world better. Not to do a boring job at the bank, faking myself for the others in Government or somewhere else, but to be myself, implement new ideas, find people who have the same desire to create many wonderful things as I have.

Starting from the first day of my job in that outsource company, I was a backend, frontend, devops, project manager and the team leader on all five projects for one client they gave to me. Although it was scary, I am thankful to that job, which made me versatile and flexible. Although some people speak badly of that company, and yes, it uses people very hard, squeezing every single power from them, I can say that as hard as it is working there, you do not become a robot. You learn to make your own time management, handle the communication with the client, freelance, learn new things quickly, think broader about the technologies and switch them easily. Thanks to which most of the employees of that company have founded their own businesses.

After I quit my first job, there started my journey with my boyfriend at that time and our friends we have and had, attempts to make a startup and much more.

To be continued.