Decode your power

Professionally, I had never been involved in IT before. I studied international relations - interesting studies, but they did not provide the prospect of a quick entry into the job market - at least not 10 years ago. After graduation I started working in a related profession - I was in charge of foreign cooperation in public administration. Unfortunately, this job did not give me the opportunity for professional and financial development. A little bit after, the need of the market, and a little bit because of my interests, I changed the industry to logistics and worked in different companies for 5 years.

In the meantime, I realised that my current job is not something I want to do all my life. I decided to take a career break. My girlfriend and I decided that we wanted to travel the world for a while. The original one-year trip turned into three years of living out of a suitcase, during which we traveled through the Middle East, Asia, Australia and New Zealand.

Before returning, I started thinking hard about what I could do. I was inspired by Ania, a colleague I met during my trip. She successfully changed her profession and started working in IT. I also started thinking about it. I was not completely fresh from the oven in the subject of programming, because in the old days, in high school, I used to learn PHP on my own. However, back then I couldn't imagine working as a programmer. I didn't think anyone would take me seriously without a degree.

I started learning Python before I even got the idea of attending a bootcamp. In the meantime, I found the Coders Lab on-site course in Poznan.

There were moments when I felt pressured and overwhelmed by the material. Every day after class I spent 3-4 extra hours studying. On Wednesdays and Sundays, I took a break from coding. I didn't want to give up, but it was also important for me to have a balance with such an intensive learning mode.

As a final project, I wrote an application that processed text based on an image of a receipt and created expense reports. I tried to use technologies that I would need in my work. After finishing the course, I felt satisfied, but I was also aware of how much learning is still ahead of me.

From the middle of the course, I looked quite intensively for opportunities in the Poznań market. At the end of the course, I was at the stage of arranging recruitment interviews.

In total, I took part in two recruitments, which I recall positively, although both experiences were extremely different from each other. The first thing that struck me was that IT recruitment is much more professional and the people who recruit you are not only able to assess your current skills but also your potential.

I found a job within 2 weeks of completing the course. I started at the company I was at for my second interview, it was my first choice though. I still work in Merixstudio - the second biggest Python software house in Poznan. The first two weeks were an introduction to the technologies used in the company. From the beginning, I could count on the support of the team leader and team members. After the implementation, I went straight to the project, which in the further phase I finished by myself.

If I had continued to learn on my own, I would not have been able to change the industry in such a short time. On my own, I would not have been able to mobilize myself to code for several hours a day. When you learn on your own, you have a lot of materials to choose from, not always proven, which give you shreds of knowledge in different areas. The course gave me a clear direction.

Each graduate had different motivations and doubts at the start. But they made a bold decision and took that first, difficult step toward change. They let go of past achievements and lessons learned and... changed their professional lives. See how they did it.