In the photo - a freelancer's mobile workplace. This is a ferry that runs between Malta and Gozo. Leaving your car on the lower level of the ferry, you can go upstairs and have a cup of coffee, open your laptop and work
Today we publish the story of GeekBrains student Alexander Zhukovsky (), who changed his profession at the age of 30 and became a front-end developer, participating in the implementation of fairly large projects. So far, he is at the beginning of his journey, but he is determined to continue his career in IT.
In this article, I would like to share my personal experience of obtaining additional education in the field of IT and talk about how new knowledge and experience helped me start a new page in my life. Yes, my name is Alexander, I am 30 years old. I must say right away that I am developing websites, front-end. This topic has always been of interest to me, and in the past, from time to time, I worked on relatively simple web development projects, knowing only HTML and some CSS.
Knowing about this hobby, acquaintances, friends, friends of friends addressed me. Someone asked for free help, and someone paid for the work, albeit a little. Actually, I didn’t take much, because there was almost no knowledge and experience.
Why do I need web development
Orders like “help make a simple page” came in regularly. After a while, customers began to contact me with serious projects that required more in-depth knowledge in web development. They offered a good reward, but the problem was that I could not fulfill the order, because there was no specialized education. He sent customers to his other acquaintances, who implemented these projects. At one fine moment, I decided to change everything in my life and start developing professionally.
In general, I had a choice - I wanted to become either a programmer (I had previously graduated as a software engineer), or to do web design. Since education is quite “IT”, I think that I would have coped with both without any problems. But the soul lies more in web development.
One of the motives for changing professions is freedom. Many IT specialties allow you to work from anywhere in the world, as long as you have a laptop and a network connection. In terms of working outside the office, there are also two options - full freelance, and a rate, but "free".
History in brief
I thought about changing my career about a year ago. The decision did not ripen immediately - for some time I discussed various possibilities with my friend, who also wanted to get an IT education. Several times we saw advertisements for GeekBrains courses (as well as courses from other companies) on the net and decided to give it a try. I don’t even know why they chose this particular company, perhaps because the advertisement was well designed.
Together with a friend, they signed up for courses and set to work on the granite of a new science. By the way, my friend had a slightly different motivation. The fact is that he was initially far from IT. But, as an inquisitive person, he was constantly interested in issues in the field of web development. Constantly asking more and more questions to his friends who are in the subject, he did not want to, and decided to eliminate the problem once and for all.
Both went on course . The course description says that developers will master JavaScript, HTML, CSS, and, in general, everything is true, we have received the necessary skills and knowledge.
The training format turned out to be quite comfortable, so that in a short time I was able to get almost everything that was needed to implement the serious projects that I mentioned above.
What has changed?
In short, a lot. Indeed, I stopped going with the flow, now you can choose what I like. Well, I like the fact that those projects that I previously gave to others, now I can do it myself, without outside help. As time goes on, I take on more and more complex work, which I do, I think, quite well.
Another plus is that there is additional income. I haven't quit my day job yet because freelancing is less profitable. But the additional income is gradually growing, now it is about a third of the basic salary. Perhaps, if right now you give up your main workplace and do freelance work or work at a rate, but remotely, then the income will be higher. But I'm not risking it yet, maybe I'll be a 100% freelancer in a few months.
An additional nuance: the speed and, most importantly, the quality of my work have increased significantly. Gradually I get new experience, which helps to work this way. Well, I see the result immediately, as soon as the site that I am making is posted on the hosting. Satisfaction is complete, I am also pleased that my customers are completely satisfied.
Working in Malta
I also have a full-time job, for several years now I have been the head of technical support in a technology company. Three years ago, I was offered a job (albeit a main one, not a frontend one), and I moved to Malta on a work visa. I note that the work is interesting, there are few negative points. But I want more freedom, so to speak.
I have several people under my supervision, and together we serve the facilities with the company's equipment. Our task (as well as the task of any technical support team) is to ensure that the equipment works as it should, if necessary, repair it and carry out preventive maintenance.
Since freelancers often move to warm countries where they work, I will talk a little about Malta as a possible immigration point.
Malta at night
The advantages of this place are that it is warm here, the sea, delicious food and beautiful girls. Cons - difficulties with registration. So, getting the right to stay if there is no work here is difficult - basically, this option is available when buying real estate, there is also an option to officially obtain citizenship for 650 euros. For obvious reasons, I did not consider both options. But a work visa is quite an opportunity. While officially working for a Maltese employer, you can stay by confirming the existence of a contract every year.
Paperwork, if there is an offer for a contract, is not particularly difficult, another thing is that the opportunity to receive such an offer is issued infrequently. Due to the fact that every year you have to renew your visa by providing documents on the renewal of the contract, as well as to deal with other bureaucratic operations that also affect the employer, many local companies do not want to deal with “come in large numbers”.
By the way, the plus here is (as in any other European country) that you can order gadgets without taxes, a lot and at once. I've ordered a bunch of stuff, which I'm very happy with. We are talking, first of all, about tax fees when buying gadgets in online stores in Russia, Belarus, Ukraine and other CIS countries. Loyalty of local customs laws allows you to order goods from foreign stores (from Amazon to Aliexpress) without paying customs duty, although some goods still have it.
Hobbies - yacht repair, I am responsible for electronics, engine
Current frontend projects
Since the completion of training at GeekBrains courses, there have been many orders, I would not call them especially difficult. But there were two major projects worth mentioning.
The first is an online store of household appliances. I wrote it from scratch, because the store that the customer already had was hopelessly outdated (his CMS is ). One of the wishes is the ability to integrate with 1C version 7.7. After nine weeks of work, I completed this order, and now it works perfectly, without any complaints, which I am glad about.
The second major project is the development of a corporate portal for a fairly well-known company. I am currently in charge of this project. Its core is WP. During development we use PHP, Java, jQuery AJAX, HTML5, CSS. Everything is used, plus asynchronous, GZIP, Lazy Load, a number of frameworks. As far as the channel and memory allocation is possible, resources are loaded to each connection from other sources, such as a CDN. The resource identifies the user's device and loads only those elements that are currently on the display.
The final product, the website, will enable the company's employees to work from anywhere in the world. They will be able to access accounting and legal documents. Unfortunately, I can't say more. As for the implementation of the project, I manage a team of developers, each of which performs its part of the work. I also do several tasks as a developer. I have already managed large projects, albeit not so large-scale ones, but now I am a part of it - not only a manager, but also a developer. I can proudly say: “Look, I did part of this project!”
Tips for those who are afraid to go into IT
Actually, I will be one of those who urges not to be afraid of anything. And this is true, because when you get an education (whether on your own or in courses), you learn, educate yourself. In the future, all the knowledge and experience gained can be very useful. Even if nothing works out - well, you will stay at the starting point, without losing anything. But the plus is that usually everything works out - if you strive for your goal, then you can achieve it with some effort. Someone needs to make more effort, someone less, but the result will still be.
Source: habr.com