How I became a Salesforce Developer

I was wondering for quite some time, how to begin this article, so I will go a little bit back. Some quick introduction about me: I have graduated from a language high school in Bulgaria with first language German and English as second (but I have not spoken in German may be more than 15 years ago), after that, I went to university and I have Master’s degree in Tourism.

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Life continued and for some reason I found a job in the insurance business, no coding or mathematical experience so far at all, back than I was about 22 or 23 years old. While working as an Insurance Inspector I had to deal with some specific software used for everyday duties: issuing insurance policies, filling some data, issuing reports and so on, nothing so special.

The thing that was bugging me was, how actually when I fill up some client's data into the system, by clicking a button, for example “Generate Policy”, the system was giving me a PDF file, ready for printing with everything ready. I had no idea, what was going on in the background, hidden from me, so I started looking around (after playing dozens of hours on Diablo, Counter Strike or some other game). Thus, I found HTML and I started looking around. One thing led to another and I started reading about CSS, JavaScript and so many other technologies. I was so overwhelmed by the information and everything seemed so different from the things I have done up until that moment. Therefore, I did what probably most of the people do when they hit the wall … I quitted (first mistake). Couple of years later I decided that I want to learn how to code and I found a tech course for beginners with C#. May be on the second week I decided that I couldn’t do it, so I quitted again and another cycle of 3-4 years passed by … biggest mistake of my life.

When I had more than 12 years of experience as an insurance specialist and the COVID – 19 pandemic hit my country, due to some circumstances, I was laid of my last job, right before the second lockdown … no job, my wife did not have a job and with a 6 years old son, wondering what to do.

I was ready to start a career as an international driver, because this is was probably the first thing that came to my mind in order to provide for my family and do it fast. Then was the moment that I decided, I could do something else instead. Because I was unemployed, I had the option to benefit from our Unemployment State program for exactly 10 months and I decided to go for it: I would have the time to study the whole day for 10 months in order to become a developer.

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On November 5, 2020 I signed up to learn Java in a small online group with a live lector. It was a complete disaster: most of the group decided to quit the program because the tutor was an academic Professor, who had experience teaching people from mathematical universities and not some random people, who just wanted to learn how to code. For example, every simple thing that could be explained in few simple words was given in such sophisticated way, that I fairly understood 75% of it. I was completely discouraged and again I started thinking about some other options, but I said to myself “Ok, I have a backup plan, why I don’t try to push myself a bit more and if I fail, at least I tried”.

I found Code Gym, an amazing website for Java learners, which has so many articles and challenges to tackle. So, I continued with my course, started learning on Code Gym as well, found some other articles or YouTube videos for each topic that I could not understand and I spent more than 10 hours per day, every day, researching, coding, solving tasks and pushing forward.

Couple of months later, after going through multithreading in Java (Asynchronous Java, another topic that blew my mind), I banged my head against the next impossible task: to start Spring Boot. The entire program with a live lector was about 6 months and went from no coding experience to watching how to develop a web application in Spring Boot. For those of you, who do not have coding experience, this is nearly impossible to comprehend in such a short period. I mean, you can go over the material, but you will not understand anything of it, same as I do. But my mind set was different “I DON’T QUIT!”, so I kept pushing.

While learning on Code Gym, I met a person from the US, who helped me tackle some of the tasks and actually, he became one of my best friends and we are still friends, although we never met in person. He made me keep pushing, never let me quit again and never stopped believing in me. Lupe, if you are reading this, I am forever grateful for all the help and support!

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When the coding program finished, I felt discouraged again and once more I had no clue, how to proceed. The people from the program had promised us, that they would find a junior software developer positions for us (we were only three people left finishing the program), but that never happened. We have been told that we are ready for junior positions, but that was not the case. After more than fifty applications I still didn’t have a single job offer, so I decided to try to become an intern, even unpaid, I wanted to learn and get a job.

Again, more than twenty applications, but everybody was looking for fresh graduates from technical universities and I was 34 years old. Until one day, I had three emails from Bulgarian software companies, who were willing to give me a chance.

I did some research and I picked one of them, maybe it was a mistake to disregard the other offers, but I decided to focus on one thing. The process was hard:

- on the job offer there was about 2500 applications (about 500 people were let to continue)

- we had to solve two coding tasks on Hackerrank and to take a test about programming methodology(about 250 people after this step)

- we had an interview with an HR officer and with a Senior / Lead developer, to check our motivation, know a bit more about us and to check, how deep every person knowledge was

- about 54 people started the internship, divided into two groups Java and .NET

- the internship consisted of a team project. We had to develop a web app, following Scrum methodology, having daily meetings and one-on-ones with our “direct manager”

- many people decided to quit the program, because it was too much (3 times per week for about 3 hours live and the rest of the time we had to solve some tasks, fully dedicated)

- we had a test technical interview with one Mid and one Senior developer, preparing and giving us some notes about our final interview for joining the company

By the end of the program, we had to present our team project to Senior developers and our manager and to prepare for our final technical interview. Two key points here:

- on one of the meetings with my manager, I have been told, that I was not the best candidate and I did not have that much knowledge as everybody else, in fact I was probably the least knowledgeable person of the group and I was offered to quit the program. I told them that if they want, they can disregard my application at any point, but I WILL NEVER QUIT

- the last month we had a presentation from the Salesforce department of the company and I totally fell in love with the technology, I knew that this is the thing for me and this is what I want to do for a living. But still, what was Salesforce, I had no idea, the feeling when I first saw java code came back, I was scared, what if I go wrong with this. I started digging the entire night, of course ended up with David K. Liu's youtube channel ( David if you are reading this, I will be forever grateful for your advice ). I was watching David's videos one after another and it seamed like the most amazing thing I have ever seen, I looked around Trailhead, the community, everything I was able to find ... every website that I saw, amazed me even more, but the most important part, I decided to write an e-mail to David and ask him for an advice on what to do, should I dive into Salesforce universe? I knew that the chances of getting an answer weren't big, but guess what, David answered my e-mail:

I was super amazed!!! David is like a super hero for the Salesforce ecosystem and to get his advice, man oh man! I am all in!!!

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And so, the final date for the technical interview came, I was preparing like my life depended on this meeting … oh, wait, it did. It was the 10th month and my time was finished. The interview was about an hour, going through programming concepts and different questions (I will make a separate article about coding preparation). Couple of days later, the e-mail came: I was going to join the company as a Junior Salesforce Developer … than I got the COVID. The first week of being sick I thought I was going to die right at the finish line, but as I told you, I never quit! I manage to get through it and in 14 days, I was hired as a Junior Salesforce Developer.

Ever since, nearly a year already passed by, I try to learn something new every day and to upskill my self! If you want to achieve your goals, just keep pushing and never surrender! The only difference between you and all other people, trying to achieve the same is who is going to be more persistent.

P.S. The year is 2023, I have 5 Salesforce certificates and the feeling of being part of Salesforce universe is AMAZING!!! You have to be part of it in order to understand what I mean! Go for it!!! https://trailhead.salesforce.com/