Believe in yourself! Read my story and find out what it meant to me
Updated in September 2021.
In Oct 2018, I had my first talk open to the public, and it was to tell our journey as women in technology. In doing so, I realized that my story inspired some people and, I thought I could inspire others here as well. So, here is my life story:
My name is Marina Haack, and I graduated in Computer Science at UFPE. It’s one of the best universities if you want to do Computer Science in Brazil. However, I must say I was lucky. When I had to choose the graduation I wanted to enroll in, I had no idea what to choose. I knew I wanted to build technology in some way, but that was it. I discovered Computer Science because of a friend that was considering that, but I didn’t even know what coding was.
When my university accepted me, the first thing that my mother said to me when she learned about the course that I choose was: “Isn’t that too difficult for you? Shouldn’t you do something else?”. I couldn’t believe that she was saying that, but, thankfully, my reaction was: I’ll prove to you that I can do this.
Easier say than done. On my first day at the university (2011), my main concern was: I couldn’t learn how to code. It didn’t make any sense to me. After a while, I even started to think that Computer Science was not the right course. I felt I had to do something else, but I had no idea what to do, so I decided to talk to my course coordinator. He told me that I should go through the third university term because it would be when I would see what real computing was. He told me that the first two terms (first year) were too introductory. Consequently, I waited for the third term and continued to study hard, as always. After all, I had promised myself that I did not want to do any recovery tests.
The coordinator of my course was right. I fell in love with Computer Science in the third term. I still couldn’t do code very well, but I always compensated by taking high grades in the theoretical part of the subjects. And most importantly, I knew that I was in the right place to be.
When I finished the required disciplines (the most challenging part of my university course), I thought that would be the perfect time to actually learn how to code because before finishing the required disciplines, I had no time for anything else other than studying for the tests, doing homework, and doing projects for the subjects. I started from the beginning, from my first term subjects. I did all the code projects again, at my own pace. Many of my friends said, “Why are you doing this? Why are you doing projects from the first semester? What a waste of time”. Yet, I didn’t listen to them the same way I didn’t listen to my mother when she told me that I shouldn’t do Computer Science. Turn out it was the best thing that I did. I finally started to learn how to code. More importantly, I began to love coding.
After that breakthrough, I started believing that I could do whatever I wanted if I just worked hard. I changed my life forever. Later, I did my first internship (2015) in my city (Recife), where I learned a lot. I started to realize that working as a developer was very different from studying Computer Science.
A year later (2016), I got a job at the best startup (at the time) to work in the same city, and I finished my graduation with an average grade of 8.99 / 10 and not doing any recovery test, as I promised myself I would. Throughout that experience, I learned clean code, learned the differences between front-end and back-end, and how a toxic environment can decrease your confidence. So it was when I decided, two years later (2018), that I needed a change, and I received an offer to work on a startup in Rio de Janeiro.
There I started to learn that communication skills were as necessary as coding skills. There I had the best time. I was working if great people, and one day my tech leader told me that I had the best front-end code of the company (I was mainly doing front-end work at that time) so I felt recognized too, which improved a little bit the confidence that I lost in my previous experience.
For personal reasons, one year later (2019), I moved to London. It was a different language, a foreign country with a different culture. So, I decided to “play safe” while applying to small companies (greater chances of receiving an offer). I applied to front-end roles and not full-stack roles because I did more front-end projects during my full-time life until there. On the other hand, I also applied to big companies. I’ll be completely honest, I didn’t expect to receive an offer, but I wanted to try anyway, working hard and given my absolute best.
Within two weeks after I started to apply, I got three offers from small companies and got the opportunity to interview for Google and Amazon. I accept one of the offers to work as a front-end engineer since I wanted to guarantee a job and continued to study hard after work and during weekends. I was able to reach the on-site interviews for Google and Amazon. I couldn’t believe it. I never got to that stage before for big companies.
In 2019 I received an offer from Amazon. I cried so much. I always dreamed but never thought that I could work for a big company. It was proof to me that if I worked hard, I could go above and beyond. Working on a big company changed again my perspective on how to be a developer. I learned about system design, scalability on a grander scale, and how to think big.
After a while, I decided that I deserved better and applied to Spotify and Facebook. I didn’t pass to Facebook’s on-site interviews, but I did for Spotify. I didn’t receive an offer from Spotify, so I decided to work on getting a promotion on Amazon instead. A few months later, Spotify contacts me to try again as I did well on the interviews. That time (late 2020), I received an offer and a promotion simultaneously, and it’s where I’m currently working.
No, it was not easy. I had to study a lot, I mean a lot, and I cried a lot too. After all, I’m only human. I had to sacrifice many things besides also having moments of doubt. I received many no’s, but the critical part of all this was not giving up and believing in myself, believing that I could do anything or at least try to give my best.
I hope to inspire someone with my story. Thank you for reading it.
You can check this article and others on my website: https://www.marinahaack.com/articles/Believe-in-yourself!-Read-my-story-and-find-out-what-it-meant-to-me
