"But there never seems to be enough time
To do the things you want to do once you find them."
Time in a bottle.
Jim Croce

Hi! My name is Mary, and I'm the Head Of the Development Department in a cloud provider. I'd love to tell my story because I believe that's what could inspire and give hope to someone.

So when I was a baby, my mother saw a dream that I was a violinist. This is how I spend almost 20 years of my life. :) I've done musical school, college, and conservatory, and at the end of this way, I understood that it was not my thing. I could play the violin better than others, but still, it wasn't my mission.

I decided to have one more degree because it was almost impossible to find a non-musical job in my formal profession. It was not easy. I worked in the orchestra on Sundays and as a night manager in a hotel. Also, I still had 2 years of conservatory and the second degree in distance education.

Don't do it. It led me to health problems, and I had to lower my pace.

Finally, the conservatory was finished, and I quit my hotel job. I found a comfortable full-time job as an air transportation specialist and even could prepare for my exams here. This is how I spent the next 3 years of my life.

I met my husband during that time, and we decided to have a baby. This is how my IT story begins :)

I should say that my main driving force is to learn, study and growth. So after 3 months of my daughter's birth, I started learning English. I had a lot of teachers before, but it wasn't successful. I even thought that I would never learn English. I established 2 lessons each week with a personal teacher, started to watch everything only in English, and finally, I became confident in a year and a half. Speaking, reading, writing, and even listening to English and understanding it! I was so proud! :)

My daughter was almost 1.5 years old, and I didn't want to continue my work as an air transportation specialist. There weren't a lot of possibilities for growth here, and I started to think about changing that profession too. This is how I turned out on a programming course. I did not know much about programming. I only knew that I could use English here, I'll have to learn a lot, and if I am bored, I could change the programming language. So here is how I decided on a profession. I can't understand how I dared to do it when I think about it now.

While learning python (this is my first language), for the first time in my life, I had an experience that time could stop if you do things you wanna do. This is how I understand that I finally found myself.

But it was just the beginning. Before I found my first job, I studied for 10 hours each workday and 4-5 hours on weekends. I had to read 15 - 20 articles just to understand a simple conception. I cried a lot because I could not understand easy things. It was painful and awful. My parents started to tell me I'd better quit programming and go to a real job. A lot of pressure. Thanks to my husband, he supported me. He and my baby daughter.

When it seemed that I should start work as a trainee or a junior developer, I searched for a place to work. I responded to hundreds of vacancies, but there was only silence in response. Of course, I kept crying :) But not only crying. I continued to react, and finally, I had my first job as a Junior python developer. It was a miracle, and I achieved it myself! Can you imagine my joy when I had my first salary? :)

It was difficult. It was even painful, but it was worth it. Don't hesitate to try if you think you can make it.

If you have questions or smth else, you can contact me via LinkedIn.

Good luck!