Path of a developer. Path to financial freedom

My journey to financial freedom. A story about how I went from having a programming job in Slovakia to an instructor at Udemy. I talk about the challenges I faced along the way, how I became an Independent Developer, and how I took a course on Udemy.

After graduating from University, I was working for different companies. I started in the city (Kosice, Slovakia) where I have been studying Artificial Intelligence for the last 5 years. I was pleasantly surprised when I got a very nice position at Siemens Healthineers (Siemens branch), where I was working as a software developer (C ++, C #). I was assigned to a project called Ultrasound. We maintained and developed new imaging functions for a medical ultrasound. It was a very interesting position and I was really pleased to be contributing and helping in something meaningful.

Nothing lasts forever, my passion slowly faded. The Slovak mentality is quite different. Don’t get me wrong, Slovaks are very nice, but I always knew I didn’t belong here. It was hard for me to listen to issues that don’t really matter, and I wanted to escape and see more of the world.

So, I took a step forward. My plan was to start working as a freelancer, to be totally independent. The big question was: How do you become a freelancer with limited experience?

If I’m good at something, then it’s my strong will. When I decide to do something, I will do it with total passion and spend all my time doing it.

I was always interested in Web Development, I found it fun to develop web applications or applications for smartphones. You can see the progress of your work immediately. You can find jobs all over the world and you can work from home. I got my first programming experiences at school, with my personal projects and at Siemens, but I didn’t know much about modern frameworks. So, I took online courses from Udemy. I watched them for more than 8 hours every day, until I got familiar with React and Angular.

I started applying for various jobs, but it is difficult if you have no prior experience in Web Development. But I found a job after 2 weeks!

It was a job as a Junior Frontend Developer in Barcelona. The work was amazing, because they also provided training. It was something like University, before I started working on real projects. So they hired me and about 20 other employees and trained us for at least 3 months. In the last month we divided into groups and worked on projects until we presented them in front of the company on the last day.

But that would be too perfect … They didn’t keep us all in their company, and unfortunately I was one of them, because I begged to disagree, but they gave no explanation.

Should I be angry or disappointed after something like this? I think it is a normal reaction, but you should always keep in mind that “If you are brave enough to say goodbye, life will reward you with a new Hello” – Paul Coelho. You can still find new challenges and opportunities. Nothing is as bad as it seems at first glance. I was in a beautiful city, I had good experiences and I was able to move on.

I started looking for a job as a Web Developer and focused on Angular. After a week, they offered me a couple of opportunities, even with twice the salary I had in Barcelona. I decided to look for a job in Berlin, so again it was time to pack my things and take on the new challenge.

I arrived in Berlin in December 2016 before Christmas. Berlin was dark, gray, and cold. I was out of luck and I was living in a really terrible room in some dirty Berlin neighborhood, next to an “adult” cinema … It was really bad. Weak heating in winter, did not have normal access to the bathroom, toilet and kitchen. I had to leave the apartment to a common area and enter another apartment to get there (I moved after 2 weeks). My deposit was not returned! This time I had to borrow money from my parents. If the story continued, it wouldn’t end …

A few days later, I had my first day at the office. The work was very challenging and as I always dedicate myself completely to self-improvement, I spent crazy hours working during and after work as well. I wanted to be as good as the other developers and I wanted to dig deeper. I met some really nice people, but I was always struggling to find friends. So he was mostly alone there.

After a while, I decided it was time to leave Berlin. The company was very surprised by my decision, but luckily for me we agreed that I can work for the company as a freelance developer. That was exactly what he wanted from the beginning and it finally came true. I could not believe it.

I started traveling, I went to see my family and friends in Slovakia and then I bought plane tickets to Las Palmas, Gran Canaria. I was almost 3 months in a very nice hostel and I was working every day as usual, but with a view of the sea: D.

I almost always stayed in Spain. I went to Portugal, a couple of times to Berlin to see my colleagues. He lived with other freelancers in Tarifa in a very nice shared house by the sea. I learned kitesurfing and climbed mountains regularly.

One day I received a phone call from the CTO of the company I worked for. The company was moving to another country and they had to fire the entire development department in Berlin. You know outsourcing … However, I had a long-standing plan to start something on my own. I really had a great experience with modern JS frameworks and always enjoyed explaining useful information to others.

I decided to take a course on Udemy. I wanted to create something on my own to share with others and, most importantly, I wanted to be independent. I was working on my little 13 ‘Mackbook pro, I just bought a mic and started programming and recording. I was recording my course in different places: in Spain, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Germany. I had my laptop and microphone with me all the time.

I started to prepare some material for the course. I created the first applications that I wanted to show. At first, I was planning to cover even more frames. I decided to exclude Ember and Rails. He worked every day, even on weekends until late into the night. My life was about recording. After 3 months of all the time I spent recording, I was finally done. It was an amazing feeling, but there was still a lot of work to do to put everything together, which took me another 2 weeks.

And on June 28, 2018, I launched my course, I was quite nervous about the reaction of others. It has now been 3 weeks since the launch and the feedback is very positive so far, but I will see how the reactions will be regarding the course in the future.

I still have many projects in mind, but for now I want to invest time in my Udemy course, it requires a lot of attention. I want to integrate more functions to the applications so that my students enjoy and get the most out of this course.

My message to you is: Never give up on your dreams, no matter how difficult they seem to fulfill. If you put in enough effort, time and passion, everything will be possible. Believe in yourself!

Greetings and good luck

Filip