Learn how one professional quit their job in the public sector and successfully transitioned into a career in Information Technology (IT).
Alesya, a reader of Izba, is a translator by education. She worked in her profession for several years, and then decided: something needs to change. She retrained as an IT analyst and now truly enjoys her work. One of the difficulties is that professional deformation affects even a regular trip on the subway. Alesya shared with us what complexes she managed to overcome (for example, not considering herself dumber than male developers) and how truly inspiring is work she enjoys.
“The public sector severely limited my opportunities”
I received a higher education in the specialty of “linguist-translator” in one of the best universities in our country. Immediately after graduation, I was offered a contract job in a government agency for five years. When my contract was approaching the middle, I made a firm decision not to extend it, but to completely change my profession.
In the public sector, a person receives a stable salary, reliable life guidelines, responsive colleagues, clear rights and responsibilities. You must admit, all this is especially valuable in the unstable modern world. But predetermination has a downside. If I signed a new contract, I would have to do the same job for several years before getting the next promotion.
Chaotic energy swirled inside, mixed with self-doubt. I dreamed of being on the other side of the high fence to really test my strength. You see, the public sector was very limiting for me: I couldn’t combine this job with other employment or training, I had to stick to a strict schedule, and I was under constant scrutiny.
Finding a decent position as a translator outside the public sector is difficult. A school teacher or a personal assistant to a manager with knowledge of foreign languages? Not suitable. Something more in-demand and free is needed. Naturally, I started to feel out an IT specialist.
“Unfortunately, salaries turned out to be catastrophically low”
First, I signed up for an online course on web design, and overall I liked it, but somehow it wasn’t very clear with employment. I had to get involved in some amateur projects or come up with something myself to fill out my portfolio. Let me remind you that I was forbidden to work on the side, so I didn’t get very far.
A year later, I completed a nine-month professional retraining course as a C/C++/C# developer at a technical university. Unfortunately, I did not learn how to write code: long boring lectures, few practical assignments, checks and explanations. A month before the end of my studies, I quit and went to the sea. In the evenings, I sat on the veranda under the cruel onslaught of mosquitoes and wrote my diploma thesis (a mobile application project). That time allowed me to touch the future professional environment: I studied the necessary sources and tools, designed and drew models.
Then I wrote my own resume for a newbie developer and started studying existing offers. Unfortunately, the salaries were catastrophically low. But a friend of a friend told me about a company that deals with government projects and regularly holds internships for IT analysts. I applied and was hired, despite the high competition. Initially, I was looking at developer vacancies and knew nothing about analysts. While preparing for the interview, I discovered that the new profession was essentially similar to the previous one: both involve studying complex documentation and mediation. The internship organizers helped me understand the basics of system and business analysis in five weeks. After that, I was hired for one of the company’s leading projects, and my life changed irrevocably.
“I was the oldest person at the internship at twenty-eight.”
When a person moves from one profession to another, the successes they have achieved before are left behind. You are no longer perceived as an experienced translator with a solid position in the team, you become just a junior employee. Just like the young people, you shower them with questions, get nervous, grab onto the wrong things, make stupid mistakes. Imagine, I was the oldest one at the internship at twenty-eight.
I also felt disapproval from my family: they could not accept my resignation from a prestigious job. Fortunately, my mother and close friends, as well as former colleagues, were very supportive. On difficult days, I remembered how many people were crossing their fingers for me, and I simply could not give up.
In my new profession, I acted as a link between the customer and the development team. The analyst formulates, describes and agrees on the requirements for the system, sets tasks, evaluates the possibilities, and also glues together the cracks in communication.
I must note that my translation experience still helps me:
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Read and understand the code because it is written in English.
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Quickly immerse yourself in new areas of knowledge. Translators with a broad profile are not tied to a specific subject: today it’s politics, tomorrow it’s society news. In turn, an analyst leading a project on providing government services must understand laws and established regulations no worse than the officials themselves.
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Coping with tight deadlines: urgent texts from a translator, high-speed delivery of revisions to an industrial stand from an analyst.
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Freely express your thoughts and grasp others’. The translator identifies and conveys the author’s thoughts. The analyst translates the customer’s requirements into technical language.
Day after day, I listened to the voices of developers who usually work remotely, without having the slightest idea what these people look like in life and what they do outside of work, and yet we developed a reliable and trusting relationship. How could it be otherwise? Together, we assembled complex releases at night, completed and redid tasks, argued with related teams, sought new solutions, and held exhausting demonstrations.
At a New Year’s corporate party, I met my beloved back-end developer in person for the first time, and I, who avoids touching strangers, really wanted to hug him and thank him. He allowed it, by the way. And I will never forget how my faithful tester brought breakfast and a toothbrush when I had to spend the night in the office. I am convinced that strong IT teams go far beyond the usual understanding of a team and distributed responsibility. It becomes critical for you to know that you can fully rely on the help of another participant. For example, when I had an error during a demonstration, my entire team, including the project manager, joined in to fix it.
“I’m not going to give up”
As a newbie woman, it was difficult for me:
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Overcome your shyness and hesitation before you start asking questions in large group meetings.
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Stop considering yourself dumber than the rest of the staff, mostly men with technical education.
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Establish a common language with kids in their twenties, even if they have never tried Druzhba processed cheese.
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Put on your favorite dresses, even though you’re surrounded by sweatshirts, jeans, and sneakers.
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Not knowing something, although you should. The IT environment is filled with a multitude of different technologies and requires new skills, and it is simply impossible to understand everything at once.
I really enjoyed working on the government project, but it was terribly exhausting. The burden of responsibility caused terrible insomnia at night. The pay was low for what we were pulling. Unfortunately, the company’s management did not have the resources to restructure unhealthy work processes in the foreseeable future. Clients were breaking the boundaries of agreements. Employees were burning out. Having held on to the project for exactly a year, I finished the main shows and found myself a quieter place.
Another peculiarity of the analyst’s work is that in a new place you literally have to learn everything all over again. Granted, it’s a bit annoying, but I’m not going to give up. The thing is, I’ve truly fallen in love with the new profession and the IT culture. And here’s why:
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A wild adrenaline rush that you quickly become addicted to. It’s hard to explain in words: in the process of close interaction with other people, you are focused on one specific problem that needs to be solved quickly and safely, and your contribution is significant.
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You watch your ideas become a new reality. A week ago, you and the guys implemented a new feature for the app, and now thousands of people are using it.
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Constantly expanding your experience and knowledge: no two tasks are the same.
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Enjoying the fruits of IT culture: decomposition, planning, training, events, fruits and nuts in a cozy office.
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At first, no one knows what to do, but after a million efforts, everyone is great.
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Unlimited possibilities for creation. I’m serious, but let’s not forget about the budget.
As you know, there is no accounting for taste, and not everyone will respond to the IT specialist. Let me warn you about possible serious shortcomings:
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High level of personal and collective responsibility.
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Too deep immersion in the technical environment to the point of professional deformation. For example, you ride the Moscow metro and think: how do they calculate the time interval between stations to display on the digital panel. Fixed time or a sensor? I wonder how much such a sensor costs and where they buy it.
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A lot of business communication with colleagues, including on weekends and holidays. As a result, your loved ones will acquire new names.
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Omnipresent thoughts about current tasks.
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Frantic pace and daily novelty.
I am very glad that I found the strength to change my life dramatically. Who would have thought that my assertive character and purely humanitarian education would help me fit organically into the fabulously huge world of IT. Sometimes there are days when I want to stay in bed and watch TV series, and not go to my favorite job. But most of the time I see myself with shining eyes.