- Why did you get into the field? What did you focus on at first?
I've always been fascinated with technology and trying to figure out how things work. I got my first computer at age 8, it had QBasic. I programmed a small number of games on it.
I spent a lot of time dis- and reassembling this computer, reinstalling DOS, Windows. We didn't have internet or manuals, nor did I speak English.
Later on played with Linux which really helped me understand how all of this works under the hood.
Actually programming came much later.
- What are you doing at your job? Is it everything you dreamed of and more?
I've been in the field for 11 years now, currently in an SRE role. SRE seems to be a different thing wherever you go. Not really my dream role in its current form right now.
- How did you break that first-job barrier?
QA internship in the gaming industry. Turned into full-time position, later on QA Engineering and then Software Engineering. I jumped on opportunities when they cropped up.
I made myself useful in QA rather quickly as I have a low tolerance for doing repetitive tasks manually, which got me into automation and tools programming.
- What were you doing before this?
I tried my luck studying computer science for about 2 years but that didn't really work for me. That opportunity for an internship came at the right moment and I took it.
- Any tips for the rest of us?
Find yourself a mentor. In my first role in QA there was one person in particular who was very open to all my question and taught me how to approach complex problems in legacy code bases. It really helped me gain a lot of knowledge and also confidence in my craft.
I should reach out to my first mentor and thank him, I am not sure he's aware of the impact he's had.