Self-taught
When enough is never enough.
Ironically, the first time I heard this term, it was in school. It was from one of the teachers who eventually became my mentor. The word “autodidatta" fascinated me right away. That wasn’t my first encounter with the word, but it was the first time I saw someone waving it with pride, as if it were a badge of honour. I was hooked. It described exactly how I’d been living my life and how I would acquire knowledge, most commonly through meticulous observation and scrupulous repetition.
At that point in my life, I learned how to draw at a very young age, ride a skateboard, a snowboard, use every piece of software I could get my hands on, and drive—way before I was legally allowed to. However, if you listen to my dad, I still can’t drive today. All of this was accomplished without the aid of the internet. The badge was something that made us play for the same team. Little did I know that all the effort I would pour into learning what I was passionate about in the upcoming years would mean absolutely nothing to the “real” working world. My skills weren’t recognised because I didn’t acquire them in a traditional way through tertiary education. So, like many others in a similar situation, I had to accept apprentice work and be grateful for the opportunity given.
My first job as an apprentice graphic designer paid me about €400 per month—pre-tax. Funny thing, during my time with this company, I was helping all the interns that would come in and out from university. It just didn’t make any sense to me. Some people were in their first semester, others in their last semester. They all shared a lack of practical skills. I had an extensive conversation with the interns, asking what they actually learned. An enormous list of subjects and curricula was provided, including software they could not use.
Since I was fresh from high school and still considering the option of going to university—particularly the same institution that the grads were coming from, as it was the only one in my city that “covered” design—the interaction with the interns sealed the deal for me, and I decided to continue working instead. Not that I could have afforded to attend university on a $5k/year salary, but that’s a different story. At that point, I’d already given up on tertiary education due to financial reasons anyway, after only landing a partial scholarship with my dream university—maybe I’ll write more about this in the future.
Sure, I had just finished high school, but that wasn’t my first working experience. That was the real difference between me and the interns. They would get stuck every time a problem came up. They didn’t know how to deal with clients, what to say on the phone, or how to justify the boss being late for a meeting. I realised the university wasn’t teaching them one of the most important things—the thing that allowed me to land clients as a freelancer when I was 16 years old, the thing that made it possible for me to learn English software despite not knowing the language, and the thing that led to my first “real” job: problem-solving.
You see, I dedicated entire sleepless nights to mastering my skills. I would spend countless hours trying to do something and getting stuck. Self-assess. Try another way. Make a smidge of progress and get stuck again. After you do that for 4-5 years, your problem-solving muscles are basically on steroids. And I didn’t stop there. I was learning programming languages without documentation to refer to. Learning software development in the early 2000s as a non-English speaker didn’t make things easier either. So you can imagine that my tolerance for problems and what would mean for me to “get stuck” was much higher than someone who was just starting to tinker with a computer.
I kept going, learning new software, techniques, and everything that even had a remote chance of increasing how much I was earning. There was only one problem with that, though. Because of the lack of "papers," potential employers were extremely sceptical, and I was only given an opportunity after proving myself. On my side, I had the emerging web technology at the time, which was a bit comparable to the Wild West, and people who wanted something done were happy to take their chances.
What I discovered about being self-taught is that you never feel like you have truly arrived. The Dunning-Kruger effect couldn’t be any more accurate to explain how I feel every day. I once spent two years learning everything I could possibly get my hands on about computer science so I could finally master one programming language. That happened when I decided to fully transition from being a web designer to a developer. I always had my hands in the code since I started using a computer, but I saw that as collateral. I thought, surely everyone does that.
So, after going to some interviews and hearing people tell me off for stating that I could design and code what they needed, I decided to prioritise one and stick with that. That’s when I understood that the Web Master role was going to die.
Am I gifted?
No—there are plenty of people capable of designing and building something.
Back to the transition: I used a bleak time in my life, where I couldn’t work, as an opportunity to delve deeper into software development. I moved cities and started applying for jobs. I landed a 6-week contract as a front-end developer. I was nervous. I had never walked into a business with that title before.
What if there were things on the job that I hadn’t taught myself? After all, the interview process was fairly simple; I only spoke to a recruiter. What if they figured out I used to be a designer? I really needed that contract to work. After almost two years without being able to work, my savings were almost depleted. I couldn’t let K down.
The starting day came. I had a knot in my throat. I got on the tram; I was anxious. I got off only a couple of stops after the tram entered the CBD. I crossed the road, and I was in front of the building. I was early—that’s one of the many things I learned from my dad’s ethos.
I took the elevator and went up to level 4. The main entrance door of the office was wide open, so I slowly poked my head in. The open-plan office was bustling with people. Someone passing by the door noticed me and asked if I needed help. I told them I was looking for one of the project managers, and they politely invited me to take a seat on the couch while they went to find the PM.
Not long after, I was welcomed by a friendly guy who was noticeably on a mission.
We had a quick introduction, and then he swiftly set up a meeting in one of the boardrooms.
At that point, I was self-regulating; I thought he seemed nice enough, and there was no reason for me to be tense. That changed quickly as we were joined by the tech lead and two software engineers who would onboard me on the project.
I thought, okay, there you go; they’ll see I have no formal education and kick me out of the office in the blink of an eye. They entered the boardroom together. They too seemed on a mission and appeared quite serious.
The tech lead started sharing information about the client and what we were working on, while one of the engineers gave me access to the project. I started the download right away. The tech lead went on to explain how they weren’t able to “run” this project that the offshore team had built. I was dying to see the code; that was going to be the determining factor in whether I could make it or not.
The download finished, and I frenetically opened the entry file of the project. Everything seemed clear. I thought, okay, let’s see if I can get it configured. I started the installation and setup as the tech lead went into the fine details.
Okay, I’m all set. I took a deep breath. I was relieved, yet confused as to why they couldn’t get the code to work. Anyway, I didn’t think much of it, and now I could fully engage in the conversation and ask some questions I had.
The meeting came to an end, and as I was about to get up, the tech lead told me to get the project set up on my machine and come back to him. I cut him off halfway through a sentence, turned my laptop, and said that I was all good to go.
The room fell into silence. Everyone stopped talking and looked at me. They looked at me like I had insulted the guy. I regretted cutting him off. I didn’t mean to be rude; I was just trying to prove my worth. The tech lead looked at me and, with a faint voice, said, “How?” The PM lit up like a Christmas tree and couldn’t contain his excitement.
I realised that they had gambled on hiring a contractor as their last resort to salvage the project. It was their lucky day, and the bet paid off.
I thought to myself, they all have degrees in this room, and yet I was taken back to my early days of helping intern grads. I thanked my incessant self-teacher and moved on to my next problem to solve for the day.