How I Became an RPA Developer and Won a Hackathon in 3 Months

It was around 4 PM on Sunday (11th Aug 2019) evening, and I was anxious to know the results of the first-ever Hackathon conducted by UiPath in the United States. Judges were doing their job inside the panel room, and students and folks who participated were happily networking. I was completely silent, sitting in a corner doing nothing. I remembered my past three months, thinking about what made me choose this path of RPA journey.

Returning to my story, in the last week of April 2019, I was randomly googling about automating a task for a routine software job. Then, I found a YouTube tutorial of a bot performing this task with simple commands. I was intrigued by it, and I started digging deeper. Then, I found that UiPath came up with a technology called RPA. Then, like everyone, I googled “RPA Acronym” in Google and found the three amazing words Robotic Process Automation. After that, no one could stop me. I started looking through UiPath’s website and found that they offer a free Advanced RPA certification until June 30, 2019; after that, it would be costly. Then, I prepared a plan that night and decided to get certified by any cost by June 2019. But the time is short. I only have two months in hand; my other commitments are as a full-time employee with a Programmer Analyst role.

But I never stepped back, and I prepared a rigorous schedule for achieving it. Then, I enrolled in all the Academy courses UiPath offers and installed the UiPath Studio software. The key thing is my wake-up time every day I used to wake up at 4 AM in the morning to have a fresh start with UiPath and spent almost 3 hours continuously having short breaks between every 25 minutes. I’ve also split the time wisely in the short breaks to do some pushups every short interval, drink water every time, and get ready to work. After that 3-hour UiPath workout session, I used to rush to my day job from 9 to 5. For the important thing to note here, I’ve watched the academy videos at 1.75X speed and used to take notes for each video. In the evening, after returning home, I used to spend the time preparing my lunch and dinner and used to prep for one more hour. I followed this routine for 45 days, which made me an Advanced RPA Certified developer with the best plan and schedule.

Then I found this meetup by UiPath’s team, which is coming to Dallas for their RPA League event. Due to my professional commitments, I couldn’t attend the first meet-up conducted by Diana, Judy, and Nadia. But, after a few weeks, I met Ronald Davidson from UiPath at a local meetup in Dallas. I felt so happy and positive about UiPath after chatting with him. Then, after attending the second RPA League meetup in Dallas, I got to meet Judy from UiPath and Dalton, a student from UTD. We were trained there to build a process for completing the RPA Challenge, which was awesome. At the end of the event, they announced the key points about the 24-Hour Hackathon that happens on 10th — 11th August 2019. I decided to participate at least to see how this would go.

Returning to my Hackathon scene, after I was sitting idly and thinking about my 3-month RPA journey, someone greeted me for the presentation I’d just made at the event and said it was so unique and I’d win a prize. Hearing the same from some students and folks made me eager about the results. Then, the judges exited the panel room and started announcing the results. I didn’t believe that I would win this as there are equally good ideas at the panel. But, when UiPath’s Product Manager Andrew Hall started calling the winning teams and said that Naveen and Dalton won the first prize for automating the College Admission Process, I was shocked and surprised for a moment. Then, I and Dalton started congratulating each other for the constant effort and the hard work we’ve shown to win this. When I was going to receive the prize, I realized that a clear plan and commitment to any task you do in life will fetch you success and take you anywhere.

So, to all folks, keep working hard and dream big but with crystal-clear planning ahead of time.