Greetings, dear readers. I am Ankur Ray, the author of this blog aimed at individuals who are not well-versed in technology but are interested in pursuing a career as a software engineer or are contemplating exploring this field to gauge their interest. In this blog, I will share my personal journey – from graduating with a BA in Sanskrit as my major to working as an analyst in a multinational corporation, where my tasks mainly involved complex copy-pasting. While at the MNC, I attempted to prepare for the UPSC exams, driven by the desire to achieve success early in life based on societal standards. However, after three unsuccessful attempts in the prelims, I decided to let go of my dream of becoming an IFS officer and began exploring alternative career paths, ranging from Learning and Development to commercial banking.
My quest for clarity led me to immerse myself in self-help books and explore various career options from October 2022 to April 2023. During this period, I delved into roles such as an Import-Export Manager, Accountant, Teacher, and even a Data Scientist. Additionally, I initiated a weekly book review activity within my organization, which proved to be beneficial in my personal growth. Each learning experience contributed to my knowledge base, and eventually, a unique opportunity arose within my organization – a chance to transition into a software engineering role.
Drawing from my diverse studies, I successfully navigated through the interview rounds for the software engineering position. From acing the CSAT practice to excelling in the Mathematics, Reasoning, and English objective papers, my preparation paid off. During the interview, my commitment to continuous learning, as evidenced by the weekly book reviews, stood out to the interviewer. On July 10th, 2023, my journey as a software engineer commenced with a boot camp provided by NIIT, spanning over three and a half months. Despite the rigorous schedule, which allowed minimal time for practice, I dived into various aspects of software engineering – from CLI commands to Python, and explored topics like Software Development Life Cycle, databases, and Cloud Computing. Bootcamp also involves the fundamentals of various front and back end languages such as HTML, CSS, Bootstrap, JavaScript, Java, and Python with the framework React. However, for me, it felt like skimming through the index page of a dense book without actually delving into any of the content.
After several challenging months, I eventually joined the Agile Apps team as a back end developer. This team is responsible for creating applications for the operational teams within our organization. Despite my eagerness to dive into real work after the onboarding process, my manager recognized my need for guidance and advised me to familiarize myself with the work of my colleagues before deciding on my career path.
Although it has been nearly four months since I joined the team, I still lack the confidence to troubleshoot errors. Our back end projects heavily rely on Spring and various third-party services, making it difficult for me to grasp the entire process. I now understand the disparity between using an app and actually developing one. To address this, I am embarking on a new journey to learn these technologies, and I plan to document my progress through daily blogs. My next post will focus on mark-up language or .md files, which are essential for every developer.
Thank you for reading, and let’s continue learning together.
I have thoroughly read the article you wrote, and it has inspired me greatly. It is not mandatory to advance in the specific area you have studied so far. You can pursue a career in any field, as long as you have the determination to succeed.
Thank you so much for reading and getting something out from it, Priya
After reading this article I must say that you can achieve success in any field if you have urge to do. The way you introduce every character in your story is so inspiring so keep it up and thank you for sharing such a great journey of yours with us. Cheer!
Thank you so much