2022... What a year it has been!

It's one year I won't be forgetting anytime soon. It really tested me.

It tested my belief in tech, my belief in myself, my abilities, and everything I've hoped for.
Incredibly, 2022 is the year I got into Flutterwave! Yeah! You heard right! Flutterwave!!!

Still can't believe it.

'How did I get into Flutterwave?' You may ask or 'How exactly did 2022 test me?' You may also ask. Allow me to narrate just what happened in 2022 starting with how it started.

How it started - The Hackathons

2022 started on a positive note. I had just completed the FlutterwaveXReloadly hackathon in 2021 and though my team did not win, I got motivated to try again since it was my first hackathon ever and I felt I'd only get better.

I took the Frontend Developer Career Course on Scrimba to strengthen my frontend skills (having strong Backend skills at this point), prepare myself for future hackathons, and to start applying for jobs online.

At the start of February 2022, I had built a full movie web app with ReactJs and I was so proud, I even posted it on Twitter 👇🏻

I had completed the Advanced section of the Frontend course by the end of February and I was feeling so powerful. Bring on the Hackathons, Bring on the jobs!

Then came HasuraXClerk Hackathon on Hashnode in March.

Of course, I joined the hackathon but I did not win. At the end of the Hackathon, I realized there were still some things I needed to learn like writing efficient code, using linting to make my code readable, and several other things so it was a positive experience overall.

In April came my next Hackathon. DevXAppwrite Hackathon.

Long story short, I still didn't win this one too 🥲

At this point, I started feeling like there will always be thousands of developers out there who would be way better than I am so I don't stand a chance in Hackathons. It's time I look for a job instead.

The Rejections

In May 2022, I started signing up on several jobs posting sites. RemotePlatz, Arc. dev, Hired, Indeed, etc.

Tried to tweak my LinkedIn profile a little and I turned on job notifications.

I started following Senior Devs on Youtube, Twitter, and LinkedIn. I read articles on the best approach to take when job searching. I learned that I had a better chance of finding a job if I had a couple of good CVs, and a portfolio and if I just kept applying to any job ad I see. Doesn't matter if I don't meet all the requirements. I just keep applying which I did.

By July 2022, I had intensified my efforts since I had gotten a couple of rejection emails in June. Here's a screenshot of mail in July:

But all the responses I got were something like this:

Rejection, rejection, rejection.

It was sad and heartbreaking because I wished they could just tell me what exactly I didn't have so that I can work on it and be better.

I guess that's not how the world works.

Nothing seemed to be going my way and I had already made up my mind to start applying for non-tech roles. Then came Flutterwave.

My First Big Break

Never in my life did I ever imagine that my first tech job offer would be in a big tech company like Flutterwave.

The funny thing, with all the email notifications that I do get in my emails and that I also follow up with, I never saw the Flutterwave job ad.

My sister sent it to me via WhatsApp and when I saw it, I felt it the job ad wasn't real and probably just clickbait from bloggers.

It wasn't and I applied.

I applied for the job during the first week of July and I also wrote the online test and coding challenge sometime during the month and then I forgot about it.

The 2nd day in August 2022 came and I saw this in my email:

Pardon me, I can't show the full email 😊

Did I pass? I passed?! How? What exactly did I do? I just kept wondering. (I'll tell you what I think I did later. Keep reading 😉)

Now the next stage of the recruitment process was on the first week of August which I passed and a day after, at around 2 am, I checked my mail and this was what I saw

No one in my home slept that night (or morning) because I screamed! It was so unreal!

I accepted the offer right away and the following day completed all the requirements I needed for onboarding.

Wow! Just wow!

Read about Flutterwave here

Interesting facts about the job

1. It's a Graduate Trainee role

2. I got in as a backend engineer (I'll tell you why)

3. A total of 11,000 people applied for the role

4. Only 200 people got in

5. Both tech and non-tech persons made up the 200 of us.

200 out of 11,000. You can imagine the odds of getting in.

Hmm... I'm just grateful I was one of the 200.

Grateful to Flutterwave for giving me the opportunity I so dearly needed. Grateful to God for making it possible and also grateful that I didn't give up.

So I owe you two explanations at this point. One, what did I do to pass the first stage, and also how did I get in as a backend engineer?

Let me try to explain

How I passed the first stage

The first stage of the recruitment consisted of an online computer-based test and a coding challenge.

While the online computer-based test was tasking, the coding challenge was one I found very interesting.

It had two options. I could either do the Frontend challenge or the Backend challenge.

The Frontend challenge was to be written in VueJs while the Backend challenge was to be written in NodeJs.

Though I had previously built some demo apps with VueJs and I had also used NodeJs in one of the hackathons and in the movie-library app I built, these two languages weren't my strengths at this point.

I was more of a ReactJS and Django Dev at this point. How will I take on this challenge?

I had to read the instructions carefully to decide which one would not require deep knowledge to try.

It was the NodeJs challenge. The NodeJs challenge involved building a demo payment API and the rules were:

The code written should be efficient and the efficiency will be tested with the response time of the API i.e the time it will take the API to respond to a request.

This was exactly what I was learning ever since my last hackathon because I felt that my code quality would have been one of the reasons why I didn't win.

So right away... I wrote the code... I tested it over and over... I rewrote the code again and again.

What made my API faster was when I changed from using a Foreach loop to a For loop. This sped up my API response time significantly together with other changes I made.

So when the response time was within close range to that stated in the instruction, I hosted the API on Heroku and submitted it.

That was what I did. Learning how to write efficient code did it for me. (I was fortunate too though I can't explain this)

My experience from the hackathons did pay. Above all, not winning the hackathons made me want to be better (even though I was sad at the time).

How I got in as a Backend Engineer

I guess you should know this by now. I wrote the backend challenge that's why.

I'm 5 months in the job and I must say, what I've learned these 5 months has really opened my eyes to so much more.

Now I'm even more than a backend engineer. There are so many sub-divisions in backend engineering that I didn't know of and it's nice knowing this because I feel I can now focus on a particular area to specialize in.

The takeaway from this article

I'm not a motivational writer but I feel if you're in the position where you're still waiting for your first tech job, this is for you:

1. Keep learning, keep building. Regardless of the rejection emails or any other failure you've experienced so far, you have to keep building and learning. This is because you have to be ready when the opportunity eventually comes. By improving yourself each day, you get to improve your chances of taking the opportunity. Keep building. Just keep building.

2. Get busy in hackathons and writeathons too if you can. One way or the other, you learn in hackathons. For me, at the end of the hackathons, I always go back to read the judging criteria and see areas where I should improve. I also get to review the code as well as the apps built by the winners. It helped me and it should help you too.

3. No matter how downhearted you may feel about the disappointments so far, you should not take any opportunity for granted. For any job posting you see, make sure to apply. Apply, apply and apply. Keep trying. Also, make sure to have different versions of your Resume (and CV) so that you're fully equipped to keep applying.

4. Lastly, I wish you the best in your endeavors and I hope that come 2023, I get to read your own story just like this with a happy ending too 😊.

Okay, that's it for now. That's my contribution to the #DevRole2022 challenge. I hope you found it interesting.

Let me leave you with some important links and screenshots

Important links and screenshots

My big announcement on LinkedIn (Didn't want to do it but couldn't help myself)

To improve my chances of finding a job, I built my portfolio. See the link here: GeorgeIsiguzo.xyz
You can create one too if you don't already have one. Also, add it to your Resume as well.

Here's the link to my GitHub profile (click on the image):

Find the link to my movie app and other hackathon projects there.

Here's the link to the NodeJS API I built for the Flutterwave interview:
https://github.com/Mr-Georgie/lannister-pay-api

Here's the link to the Scrimba Frontend Career Course: https://scrimba.com/learn/frontend?topic=react

Feel free to reach out to me if you have any questions or if you just want to connect.

Alright then. Thanks for reading this far 🙌🏻.

Bye for now