It was at the beginning of 2019. I had a Communication company with a friend, and we had tried for the past 4 years to earn a living. But even though we were proud of our work, it wasn’t enough. That’s when we decided to close it and move on.

The decision

At that particular time, I needed to decide for myself. Was I going to put myself back in the Communication market and work as a journalist or a press officer? How this would change my financial situation for the better? I don’t think I’ve ever found myself at such a crossroads.

Amidst all the confusion in my brain and wondering what choices I had left, I grabbed a sheet of paper and started to take notes on what I could do. The first things that came to my mind were what I performed in my own company or previous experiences: writing press releases, managing social media accounts, planning content creation, photo editing, building websites, mediating press x company relations, creating press campaigns, and writing blog posts.

Looking at this paper, I realized that working in Journalism or Public Relations wouldn’t put me where I wanted to be, in a self-sustainable position. I’ve always known that I always scavenged my way into doing things that required a digital skill set. I have created many websites for my clients, mainly with Wordpress.org. And even though sometimes it was tiring to get the website done, I’ve enjoyed the process of finding the tool needed for my creativity and what matched the client’s brand.

Okay, programming. This is something that I could do. Could I? It’s time to get a new white sheet. What are the pros and cons of this decision?

Now, I have to pause the story for a moment and tell you that I’ve been down this path before, kind of. I froze my Journalism Course at university because I thought that Journalism was not for me, and I wanted to try IT. I got myself into a C# Training and then joined Information Technology at another institution. It was 2009, and the IT scene was quite different. Coming from a course where men and women were almost balanced in the classroom, I came into a room with only one woman besides myself. The experiences were mixed - some already working in the IT market, some with almost no prior fundamental knowledge. Despite all the difficulties of balancing working during the day and studying at night, I got an internship with an acquaintance. And that was when things went wrong - some months were enough to undermine what I thought I knew and made me go back to the Journalism course feeling dumb for trying something that wasn’t for me.

With that background in mind, I wanted to ensure this wouldn’t happen again. I also wanted to understand why I kept doing programming-related things if that was “beyond my abilities”. Returning to the university was no longer an option; I needed to change careers quickly, and I couldn’t guarantee that my experience at uni would be different a second time. I started looking for intensive courses that would give me the foundation to enter the market in a reasonable time. I found Digital House, and its intensive boot camps lasted 6 months - fair.

My last decision was to choose the course, and I knew only what I didn’t want to do: front-end development. I wanted something completely different. I didn’t care about iOS, nor did I have the resources to develop for iOS. That left me with an Android Intensive Course, which 100% fitted my only requirement: something new - I was completely clueless about the details of Android development.

Still looking at the pros and cons paper, I made a deal with myself: this is my only option now — my “way out”. I needed to put all my efforts into it. I would dive into it during the six months of boot camp. No excuses.

The turning point

The first class, Introduction to Java, was an old nightmare when I was at the university. Should I continue? Maybe I should have learned more about Android development before, but it is what it is, and sometimes, rushed decisions become great opportunities. The first steps with Java were the basics of programming logic, operations, syntax, and OOP. It was a good starting point then, and the teacher was good, so I felt comfortable dedicating myself to learning.

Then it came to Android Framework, Lifecycle, and MVVM. When the topic didn’t stick the first time, I would take a good night of sleep and review it the next day, researching more information until I felt like I really understood it. I talked to myself a lot at that time, I draw diagrams in my whiteboard. In class, I also wanted to help others, and I thought we could motivate and learn from each other.

In the end, I got to build an Android app with my classmates as the final project, and then I created my first study project, Weatherly. I started to apply for some junior roles and heard that TruckPad (a startup for truck drivers) would be a great place to learn best practices. I applied, got a take-home test, and got into a very intense debrief session with 4 Android developers.

The first experience

When I joined TruckPad in January 2020, it changed everything I understood as a work routine. I have never worked in a company with more than 10 people, and being on a team with people from areas I didn’t even know about (sorry, Agile and Product people!) was crazy.

I started working on the newest app; that was the first time I learned about Clean Architecture and modularization. My team and the other “Androiders” patiently taught me every step of the way, answering questions, reviewing my code, and explaining business logic. I learned how to work in a cross-functional team there - no egos, just valuing each other’s knowledge, helping when we’re overwhelmed with bugs, and going on meet-ups to learn together.

I was glad to work on-site after many years of home office, but then, exactly 2 months after my first day, the lockdown hit. I’ve spent more than 4 years working from home and was really happy as a junior, having the office environment to learn from. Back at home, I had to make sure to not being isolated again. Fortunately, I went to virtual meet-ups, participated in team events, abused of the asynchronous communication. I changed to another team and started working in TruckPad’s main app, mainly in Java, migrating to MVVM from MVP, a single module.

It was challenging but really fun to improve this code. I moved part of the code to separate modules and implemented some unit tests. I created a plan to make a big update of the Gradle version. I got to the Notification, Location, and Service API internals to implement a new location tracker. I learned a lot, became a mid-level engineer, took more responsibilities and made many improvements I’m proud of, even if they’re imperfect.

This opportunity removed the stigma I had of the IT market, that it was only for smart people who are very good at math. That I had to be ready to adventure in those waters. My communication background is part of who I am and makes me a more critical engineer.

After almost two and a half years, I moved to a different challenge. But that’s a story for the next time. See you!