In the endless race of achievement, self-development and career growth, it's interesting to stop and remember how this all even happened.
There aren't that many key points that influenced the profession and me as a person in general. They all seem banal at first glance, but I admit that from the outside it may look completely different.
All people are different, but on the other hand grown up in approximately the same conditions at approximately the same time, maybe someone will find themselves in this, maybe someone won't. Or maybe someone is at the start of the path and is worried about how it will be further. This is the story of one individual person.
Beginning
The first turning point was somewhere in the middle of school when a computer appeared at home. Everything suffered from this abruptly, from studies to sports sections. I, like everyone, played computer games. Games in the early and mid-2000s were such that often to run them you had to try very hard (as if something has changed now). Overcoming problems with games, and in general with the computer, I started to understand something in them and became among all relatives and acquaintances that same strange dude who could reinstall Windows and set it all up.
Internet
The second moment is the appearance of the internet. First dial-up, of course, playing CS 1.6 through telephone connection while family members complain that the line is busy with the modem.
Then ADSL, and just this time was fantastic in terms of influence. Really advanced computer use begins here, games on the internet, communication and tons of information on the local provider's network, DC++, torrents, forums and all that. From this moment I consume an incredible amount of information.
Influence of environment
The third moment - classmates started going to all sorts of programming courses for schoolchildren from the local university. And I liked messing with graphics then, started going to the same place, but to courses on Photoshop/Corel Draw/3ds max, Flash and all that. In Flash I already started programming something. It was cool, you press buttons and this somehow affects your cartoon.
End of school and admission
At school at this time Pascal was starting. I didn't understand anything at all and copied homework from my friend (who now works on assembly, of course). But closer to the end of school, the courses did their job and I, like some other classmates, already became two heads higher than our computer science teacher, we just weren't interested in listening to her.
In local internets at that time all sorts of different resources thrived, uniting people by interests. We had a forum about Photoshop and everything related to it. We brought into the conditionally free part of the internet tutorials from external ones, somehow promoted our forum, there was some community, it was fun.
As a continuation of Flash courses I went to courses on Visual Basic and C++. And there it was really cool, made all sorts of different forms, simple games with graphics that I drew myself thanks to my pumped up design skills at that time. This was probably the key moment when I already started to understand that I'm going this path to the end.
Here I had to think about where to apply, there weren't very many options in Saratov, 3-4 specialties in the city needed computer science, for all others - physics. Lucky, I got into the top specialty in the city with computer science at the end of the list.
Well, and then nerdiness in theory of such a level that we in our district school hadn't even seen close. Studying at university was incredibly difficult, had to retake exams at the last retakes with commissions. This is how steel was tempered, in short.
Admission to Computer Science specialty - the fourth turning point
Hero
My first Android phone appeared - HTC Hero for a bunch of money (13k). I start playing with firmware and all sorts of software. All this engages me incredibly. Year 2011. In parallel I'm already rushing between desktop systems, all this only adds breadth and experience. Fifth moment.
First application
In the first/second years among other math analysis there were C++/Java. We're sitting somehow at a deadly boring class on all sorts of hardware systems and brainstorming with groupmates. Decided to write a game for Android. Then pain, suffering and humiliation from Eclipse, Java and Android 2.1 for a couple of months, experience of which wasn't even close at the university at that time.
Released in Android Market. Earned 5k rubles just selling the game for a dollar. For poor students who did this just for fun - fantastic. We wrote the game to play in classes, of course. And to call this a game is conditional, actually it's an ordinary application on ordinary widgets.
Release your application to the market in the era of mobile wild west - check. Sixth epochal moment.
First job
At the end of the 2nd year they write to me on Twitter and offer a job as an Android developer at a small shop inside the university. Interview from the category "- do you want to write for Android? - get started". I agree, of course. 4k rubles salary part-time and so for about the whole academic year. I get my first professional money for work as an Android developer. This is the seventh moment, starting from which everything already goes on understandable industry rails.
Absolute chaos
In the 3rd year at the university the movement begins with division into smart and beautiful (EPAM with .NET and Mirantis with Java). Our small marginal group chose the third path - iOS courses at EPAM.
At that time I'm already a quite good Android dev, at iOS courses almost for fun. There we don't learn iOS very much, but we gain a bunch of experience how to set up Hackintosh for ourselves and most importantly - we meet people who predetermine further life.
There our teacher advises me to high bosses at EPAM who write in black a system for a taxi aggregator. They needed an Android developer on T&M. So I worked another year.
EPAM after iOS courses promised to employ us full-time. Naturally didn't employ, because "there are no projects" for 10 interns. And our teacher (also a lead at EPAM) went to another galley with the words "I have 10 mobile developers here, shall we start a mobile department?". And they started.
He became a PM there, and we were such a cool separate team with internal projects. It was a gorgeous time, we all really leveled up, acquiring cool teamwork experience.
Conditional free swimming
In a year by tradition "projects ended". Our PM leaves the company, makes an IP, we go part of the team after him to our own office laying the foundation of a small studio of mobile and not only development. So far this is undoubtedly the best time in my life, with the best people I know. There I worked about 5 years. Monstrous in its scale experience, dozens of absolutely different projects, absolutely different roles and responsibilities on each of them, and sometimes all together. There I wrote in ASP .NET, did frontend layout, did my profile Android, at some point I had to learn to write for iOS to better control the team, there were times when I wrote with both hands native applications for different platforms. This is exactly what made me like this.
What's next?
All this happened in Saratov. At some point I felt that further development in this city became impossible. In 2019 I left to conquer Moscow. The plan turned out to be reliable like Swiss watches. It was hard to choose a more difficult time. At the same time, of course, I don't regret it, I got wonderful life and work experience. Where will this life path lead? This is the most interesting question to which you never know the answer, and that's the fun of it.
Instead of conclusions
The most fantastic feeling for me is how relatively random things and random hobbies lead me to the current moment and without them I wouldn't exist. Without passion for games there wouldn't be experience working with computers and digging through heaps of information to fix and adjust everything. Without buying such a phone and entering such a university the stars wouldn't have aligned this way. All my breadth in software and firmware, all the experience of writing and publishing my applications from scratch, even passions for graphics all came in handy for me constantly over years of work, became a one-man orchestra under the guise of an Android/iOS developer. Such a path.