From Digital Marketing to Programming World

“I should learn to code” — This thought crossed my mind several times in my adult life, and if you are reading this article probably you also thought this at some point in your life.

What you are about to read is how I changed careers to programming from digital marketing, starting with no relevant background experience or degree.

From Mexico to Poland

I’ve been working since I was sixteen. I started working in a coffee shop, then during summers in college I was a cook in a taco place in Mexico City, and then when I moved to Poland in 2013 my first job was in a Call Center giving tech support to a Chinese phone company.

When I was back in college, I imagined that as soon as I graduated I would be working in a multinational company, negotiating some deals for the company or making some strategies for the launch of a new product… Unfortunately, I got a punch of reality and I realized that getting a full-time job as a fresh graduate was hard! I studied International Business in one of the best colleges in Mexico, I spoke English fluently and I had some experience as a trainee in an Insurance company. My CV was not that bad, but after 10 months of looking for a full-time job in my field I couldn’t get any, and so for different reasons (girlfriend), I moved to Poland in 2013.

My first jobs in Poland were not the ones I dreamed of back in college, as I mentioned my first job was in a Call Center. Then I realized it was something I didn’t want to do for the rest of my life, so I enrolled in my Master Studies in Business in Central and Eastern Europe. Those Master’s Studies allowed me eventually to get a better job, and finally to land some interviews in some fields that I wanted to start my career.

How I Landed My First Job in Digital Marketing

The first serious job that I got during my Master’s Studies was as an analyst for a Financial company. I was working and studying at the same time. During one of my classes, I noticed that one of my friends was writing something for her fashion website, I was interested because I thought having a website was something that only companies or super-nerd people had. My friend told me that she started her blog a couple of years back and it was quite easy to set it up.

That day as soon as I got home I started to google how to create a website, and here it was the first time I saw WordPress. After reading dozens of articles I was ready to set up my first website, and this was a personal blog called Chido-Fajny, which is a personal blog where I write about everything related to Poland and its culture, traditions, food, language, and many more.

Setting up this WordPress was extremely interesting and kind of addictive, every day that passed I wanted to get home and try different things on my site, maybe change a few colors or some more advanced things like putting Google Analytics to see how many people visited my site. I’m completely aware that setting up a page in WordPress is quite easy, but at that time I felt like a hacker that had just outbroken Pentagon security.

After styling my blog perfectly the next challenge was to make some people actually read it, and here is how my love for digital marketing started. At that time, I was only using Facebook to play Farmville or just to post random photos on my wall. I had no idea about the potential of social media, or how can Google help your business.

While I was working in this finance company and spending the other half of the day on my blog I realized that working in Marketing would be the right path for me, and I decided to go for it.

It was not easy, but I got a job in a Sass company. I was giving webinars of our tool, writing articles about Social Media, SEO, and digital marketing. I was testing our Social Media Listening tools, it was awesome! I was gaining a lot of experience and knowledge, and the best part of this is that I could apply those to my blog. It was a win-win situation for me. I was living the dream!

After that my digital marketing campaign started to take shape and I enjoyed my journey. My last job was managing social media and paid campaigns with budgets of thousands of Euros. I was dealing with marketing agencies from different countries, I was planning global strategies and campaigns with people from all over the world. I felt that I had accomplished the goal that I had when I was in college.

Stuck in My Career?

You could say that I was doing pretty fine: living in a different country, stable job, good coworkers, good salary… But after some time it came to my mind this question: “Is this everything? Will I be doing this for the rest of my life?”

I don’t want to sound overdramatic but I got quite scared and depressed because I felt stuck in my career. I have to admit that I felt jealous of people like doctors or lawyers that have dreamed of their profession since they were children. I hadn’t had that feeling, I mean digital marketing was something that I liked and that I was good at, but I couldn’t imagine doing that for the rest of my life.

There were a few days when those Zoom calls seemed to last for days, that during 2 hours meetings we talked about nothing, or that I understood social media differently from what my boss understood. In marketing, as in life, everything is subjective, there are some common techniques but there is no written rule that if you apply something it will work for your company or your product. I felt that I was drowning and I had to do something to change it.

Once in a Lifetime Opportunity

In March of 2021, I felt like I had collected all the seven dragon balls and that I summoned Shenron (In case you don’t get this reference probably you are way younger than me). Essentially, I felt that everything in my life was suddenly on the right track to make a change in my life.

For the first time since I moved to Poland, I finally had my permanent residence permit, which meant that I could stay legally in Poland even if I didn’t have a job. Due to the coronavirus crisis, there was a restructure in my company and my position was terminated, but they gave me a good termination package so I was covered in terms of money for a few months. My wife was pregnant so at that point, I didn’t have any major responsibilities apart from taking my dog for a walk. For the first time in my life, I was free to do whatever I wanted.

I could easily just stay at home playing video games, or taking some holidays with my wife, or go back to Mexico for a few months. Any of those things didn’t sound bad at all, but in the end, my plans were different, I decided to invest in myself.

Learn to Adapt, or Get Left Behind

My passion for blogging and trying different things on my website never died, but I was still a complete beginner in anything related to programming. I acquired some knowledge in WordPress by reading a lot of articles or by following some tutorials on YouTube, but that’s it. I never tried anything else.

A couple of years back, my wife did a coding Bootcamp, in case you don’t know what a Bootcamp is — it is an intensive program of software development, it normally lasts a few weeks or months, and after you graduate, you are ready to start searching for a job in programming. When my wife enrolled in this Bootcamp, I was really into Digitial Marketing, so I thought it was cool but I didn’t think that was something I would like to do.

It’s quite funny to think now that fours years later, I would be doing the same thing.

Now it was time to look for the right Bootcamp, I spent a few weeks looking for the perfect match for me. One of the things I noticed on the internet, especially in programming forums was that when some people wanted to change careers to programming and asked questions about Bootcamps, the hate of programmers toward those programs was huge! I think some programmers didn’t find it fair that some people just spent a few months learning how to program and they could get a job doing something that they had spent years mastering. I kind of understand them, because it was the same story when I was working in marketing and people were doing certifications or programs in social media or SEO, and to be honest, they were ready to work on this. But as in life, you need to learn to adapt or get left behind.

Anyway, after reading those opinions about Bootcamps in general, I thought to myself: “Let’s do it! What do you have to lose?” I mean, I already knew that programming would be something that I would enjoy, and even if after the Bootcamp I realized programming was not something for me, and that marketing was my destiny, well now I would be even more prepared for my next job!

Coding Bootcamp? Is It Worth It?

My first advice for any of you that is considering enrolling in a Bootcamp to change careers is: Be honest with yourself. It’s 99% probable that if you enroll in a Bootcamp you will graduate from it, but talking seriously about programming, it is not for everyone. Of course, anyone can learn how to code, you can learn a few commands in the terminal or some rules in CSS, or how to write a loop in JavaScript, but the logic behind it, to know when you need to apply something specific is not as easy as it seems.

During the Bootcamp, you will not have time to do anything else, after each day you will feel mentally and physically exhausted. In case your previous job was something repetitive where you felt that you were not using your brain anymore, or that you could be doing your activities without even paying attention to it… well, you will feel that your brain is finally waking up.

The Bootcamp helps you to improve certain skills: think outside the box, try to find a solution to a complex problem, teamwork, it helps you to not be afraid of asking questions. A typical day in a Bootcamp looks like this:

• Fast programming exercise
• Theoretical concepts
• Lunch Break
• Small coding exercises
• Big coding projects in teams

After one month in the Bootcamp, you will know for sure if programming life is for you or it is not. You need to be honest with yourself, otherwise, you will feel frustrated and in the end, you will feel that the last few months you were just looking at a screen for hours without learning anything.

In general, I would recommend enrolling in a coding Bootcamp, it gives you the basics of your new career, if you study a lot after your classes and you do all of the exercises and studies complementary material, it will help you to land some interviews after you graduate.

In general, I loved my Bootcamp studies, and for me was one of the best decisions of my life! I never studied so much in my life (not even in college), I made great friends, I did an amazing React and Laravel application called DAS Travel app. In general, the Bootcamp allowed me to turn my ideas into something real.

But it’s not that you just enroll in a Bootcamp and magically you will learn everything and you will have a job when you graduate… this is not how it works at all. The reality hits you hard.

Job Market Is Saturated

When I was looking for Bootcamp programs, 99% of them promised you that you would find a job easily when you graduated, but this is unfortunately not true. In the case of Poland, the job market for junior positions is saturated! The amount of offers for Juniors is extremely low if you compare it with Mid or Senior positions. In case you land an interview make sure to be prepared as hell because that might be your only chance.

The other problem that some of my Bootcamp friends and I had was that some companies don’t consider Bootcamp as a professional experience, I don’t agree with this but the reality is that many fresh graduates are looking for opportunities, so you must do something extra if you want to shine when looking for a job.

Some advice that I can give you as a Junior Developer are:

• Make your Github profile beautiful — I don’t mean to style your profile by adding some emoticons. What I mean is that make sure to only have the proper repositories with clear instructions of how someone can preview your work.

• Make a proper portfolio — having a Github profile is mandatory, but having your portfolio in your domain that’s something valuable. It’s the perfect place where you can show the recruiters what you can do.

• Freelance is a good idea — what I mean by this is that you can help your friend or relative to create their website or app you can do it for free but it will be a great first step to improve your portfolio.

• Be ready to apply for dozens of offers — don’t give up! It might be possible that you will feel demotivated if no one is calling you for interviews, be patient and just be ready when someone calls you.

Getting My First Job as a Developer

If one year ago you told me that I would be working as a full-time developer, I probably wouldn’t believe you, but here I am working as a Junior Front End Developer at the Department of Web.

This was the 86th job application I did. To be honest I was not sure if they would call me, mainly because the position was to be filled with someone that spoke the Polish language. I do speak Polish, but I never worked in Polish, only in English and Spanish, but anyway I decided to apply.

After a few days, I got an email from the CEO of the company, telling me that they checked my Github profile and they would be interested in inviting me for an interview, one of his initial concerns was that I would need to speak in Polish on daily basis. I just told the truth saying that I had never worked in the Polish language, but I was comfortable talking Polish in ”normal” situations (by the way thanks to my blog, I had some material in the Polish language that confirmed that I spoke the language). They trusted me and invited me to the next step of the recruitment process.

The next step was a recruitment task: to make a simple WordPress plugin using React.js. I spent quite a lot of time making this plugin, and I sent it for review.

The next day I got a response on my task, and I was seeing one of the most brutal and insightful feedback on my job search ever. The CEO spotted my mistakes, gave some recommendations to improve my code and they told me honestly that my lack of experience was clear. I was reading the email and to be honest “Damn, I didn’t get the job…”. However, at the end of the email, they offered me a position to be part of the Department of Web! I couldn’t believe it! I felt like when your favorite football team wins the championship after a dramatic penalty kick series. I was jumping like a kid.

It has been a short but intensive journey as a Junior Developer. Every day at the Department of Web I learn something new, I feel that I’m using my brain to find a solution to a problem. The feedback I receive is amazing, it helps me to become a better developer every day. One of the things I love about is that on this job there is no room for bullshit, it is not open to subjectivity. In the end, the only question is: Does it work or not?

Was Becoming a Developer the Right Decision?

I’m just starting my journey in this new career, but I could say straight away that Hell yes! It was the best decision I could ever do for myself and my family.

I have to mention this as well because I don’t want to look like a hypocrite: Money is not everything but it’s important. I’m not making millions at the moment, but I felt that in my previous career my income would be capped no matter where I would work. Unless I became a CEO of a multinational company I considered that there wasn’t real growth for me in that industry.

Becoming a developer doesn’t guarantee a huge salary, what I love about this profession is that you are getting paid based on what you know. If you invest in yourself and get new skills you will get rewarded for this.

I’m not sure if I will do this for the rest of my life, but for now, I will do my best to become an excellent developer. In the end what matters is to: learn to adapt, or get left behind.