From Trainee to Junior developer in 5 months (or the power of soft skills)

When I started on the programming path I didn’t know for sure what I was about to do, all I had in mind was that it will not be easy (at all) and that I will have to study a lot, every single day. I was changing my life, making a career switch, which will demand me courage, but above all, resilience.

I have a bachelor's Librarianship degree, and in the past 15 years I had the privilege to work for enormous pharmaceutical companies, which allowed me to experience many things as department changes, company merges, people coming and going, new implementations, and tools to learn. This path I’ve been through provided me with a wide point of view of how things can change, most times with no warning, and that I had to be prepared for (almost) everything.

So when I finally got my first tech job, I had to use everything I learned from all my previous experiences to face many new challenges. I read a lot, did everything to learn with my colleagues, stepped forward to tasks that I was scared of, and did my best to remain polite, gentle, and active no matter with whom or what kind of situation I saw myself in.

And due to this, an opportunity came, and the company decided to give me a Junior position. I still have to walk a long road regarding my hard skills, but now I know that preserving in my mind all I’ve been passed through helped me in this journey, and will keep doing so.