The Scrimba Podcast

Emre Albayrak:
I always told myself, I will find that job eventually. Maybe it won't happen in six months, maybe it won't happen in a year, but I will not give up and I will continue to practice. I'll continue to grow myself, develop myself, and I'll eventually land that job. That was my confidence.

Alex Booker:
Hello, and welcome to the Scrimba podcast. On this weekly show, we speak with successful devs about their advice on learning to code and getting your first junior dev job.
I'm Alex, and today I'm joined by Emre Albayrak from Turkey. Emre just got hired as an entry-level developer on his one-year anniversary of learning to code. Growing up, he was encouraged to study music because he has perfect pitch and even went on to get a degree in musicology. But after graduating, he decided musicology wasn't the right career and trained to become a commercial airline pilot instead.
Can you imagine having a front-seat window to London at night, flying into Heathrow, the shores of Mallorca, or even the Ötztal Alps? I'm sure it would've been a great job, but can you believe it? After completing the training to become a pilot, the pandemic hits and aviation just stopped. So, now Emre looks at a computer screen all day instead.
Jokes aside, after just one year, Emre landed a position at a company working for clients like Mercedes-Benz. There he works on a team with four other entry levels and under a seasoned front-end architect who mentors them daily, truly earning to learn. It's such a great interview, where we get into the nitty-gritty of the interview process so that you can better prepare and learn as well.
As always, rather than interrupt the episode later, I wanted to quickly ask now that if you like the episode of Emre, that you share it. In particular, we are always looking for key takeaways or your favorite quotes to read aloud with your name in the next episode's break. If you want to support the pod, while also getting a shout-out, you know what to do.
You are listening to the Scrimba podcast. Let's get into it.

Emre Albayrak:
I haven't wrote a single line of code until it was 2021, November. I wrote my first code in Python. Before that, I wasn't really into coding. I was trying to come up with other things, but they didn't work out, so I made up my mind and started coding.

Alex Booker:
What were you doing before coding?

Emre Albayrak:
Let's start from the beginning. I'm a classical pianist. Since I was 10 years old, I got into this really strict conservatory life. For my whole life, I was being raised as a musician. And since I was 18, I've worked in theaters, playing the piano, and I gave some private piano lessons.
But living as a musician, doing professionally this job, isn't desirable. The quality of life is actually bad for musicians. And I'm not saying this in Turkish situation, but as in the word, general, so I decided to change my job then, back in 2020, before the COVID.
I graduated from my conservatory in 2019, and I immediately started studying for becoming a pilot. I was really into aviation then, and I had a possibility to become a pilot because some airlines opened some [inaudible 00:03:31] positions. They would pay for your education and you would pay back when you started working for them.

Alex Booker:
You wanted to be a pilot, flying commercial flights, like British Airways or something, from A to B.

Emre Albayrak:
Exactly. I was working very hard for it. I studied seven months for it. And then what happened? COVID hit the world. Maybe you remember, when COVID hit, the aviation industry got hit really hard. All the flights closed, some airlines just bankrupt.

Alex Booker:
How did you feel at the time? What did you do about it?

Emre Albayrak:
I would say that was the lowest moment in my life. I already decided to move on from one thing. I raised as a musician from my childhood, and I already started to move on from that. And after a very motivational six months, I had to move on again.
At that point, I really didn't know what to do. I didn't want to continue as a musician, but during the first year of COVID, I really didn't know what to do, so I decided to move on with my master's degree in music. I studied musicology. But as I said, it wasn't for me, I didn't want to do it and I lost my motivation so quickly, so I decided let's give a chance to coding in 2021.

Alex Booker:
Did you finish the musicology master or dropout, essentially?

Emre Albayrak:
Technically, I'm still a student. I was writing my thesis, so I finished the lesson years and I was on my second year, writing my thesis. But no, it's not for me. I started coding then.
When I first started coding, I wasn't very serious. I wouldn't think this will be my new job. But, first of all, coding was fun. Just first months, I was starting to get the feel of, this is real for me. I'm really enjoying doing this. Maybe I can do this as a job.
I had a friend who is a front-end developer and I contacted him, said, hey, I'm into coding now. What can I do? What should I do? And he steered me in the direction of front-end development as well. That's when I started HTML, CSS [inaudible 00:05:43].

Alex Booker:
But you started with Python?

Emre Albayrak:
Yes, for a month. In Turkey, the government has a special program for software development things. The government offers free online courses for everyone who wants to learn these things, so I started from there. And as I said, I really enjoyed the Python course for a month and then decided to move on from that to become a front-end developer.

Alex Booker:
How did your friend convince you to do front-end development when there are so many other avenues you could have gone down, like mobile development, for example?

Emre Albayrak:
Honestly, I wasn't sure about anything, so I really didn't know what to expect from any of those areas. But since I had a role model in my friend as a front-end development guy, and he was showing me the way around the HTML, CSS, I decided, hey, I can ask him any time, any question about front end, so let's focus on that.

Alex Booker:
Wow. That's such a good idea, because you had an advantage in a way. And it goes to show when people ask, "What programming language do I learn?" there is no definitive answer. It depends on your circumstances and if there are jobs for a particular technology in your area, or you happen to know a friend doing front-end development who can attest to how successful of a career it can be, but also help you. It sounds like a great idea.
But of course, your friend probably couldn't help you all the time. How did you go about teaching yourself front-end development?

Emre Albayrak:
He introduced me to freeCodeCamp. I started doing HTML from there. I started from zero. Then I was looking into freeCodeCamp's YouTube page. I saw Scrimba there. I saw... I think his name was Bob, who has the React course?

Alex Booker:
Yeah. Bob Ziroll, of course.

Emre Albayrak:
I saw Bob's full React course on freeCodeCamp. And I met Scrimba there, and I checked out the page, websites, all the courses. I also looked into Per's JavaScript course, and I was immediately in love. I really looked up various courses on the internet, and Scrimba was the best for me.
It really worked for me and I decided to get the front-end developer path, and so I enrolled in it. And that's my journey. I finished it. When I finished the front-end career paths, I felt like I was ready to look for jobs.

Alex Booker:
You finished the whole thing. To be honest, finishing the whole career path is a huge accomplishment because it's pretty, pretty long, especially if you are doing the solo projects and challenges and things like that. I'm just piecing together the timeline a little bit, we're talking about less than a year here, I think, from you discovering freeCodeCamp and Scrimba, switching to front-end development, and then feeling ready enough to apply to jobs.

Emre Albayrak:
It took me exactly one year. I started first coding Python in 2021, in November, and I found my first job 2022, November. Timeline goes like this: I started Python for a month and in the winter I switched back to freeCodeCamp. But as I said, I wasn't very serious back then, just coding in my free time when I wanted to. But at the end of winter, I was very dedicated and I wanted this to be my job.
At spring I started to learn from Scrimba and I finished the course at the end of summer. And at the beginning of September, I started to apply for jobs and went through some interviews. At November, I got my first job.

Alex Booker:
Congratulations, man. That's a really, really great strong timeline and I love how you felt confident, basically, applying to jobs at that point. What was your thinking there? What was your strategy to apply to these jobs?

Emre Albayrak:
I didn't stop working on my own projects and I didn't stop developing myself. I was searching on LinkedIn and I was looking for jobs with expectance of only maybe a year of experience or two years of experience. They're very hard to find, by the way.
But as I said, I was doing my own projects and I was developing my GitHub page. Because for us, our resume is our GitHub page. Even if we finished 10 courses like Scrimba, it wouldn't matter for any job givers. They only look for your resume in your GitHub page, what kind of projects you did. And thanks to Scrimba, my GitHub profile page is actually stacked because of all the solo projects.

Alex Booker:
Nice.

Emre Albayrak:
Because of that, I felt very confident. It wasn't a matter of, if I can find the job, but it was a matter of when. And to be perfectly honest, I think I found my job quite early, actually, just two months after I started searching for jobs. And I think this is quite fast for someone like me.

Alex Booker:
What do you attribute that speediness to exactly?

Emre Albayrak:
I think practicing for interviews a lot. Before I first landed my job, I got an opportunity interview for another startup company. The first interview went great. They didn't ask me a lot of technical questions, just general things. Then they wanted me to code a test project. Test project went great as well. They liked it.
And after it, there was my last technical interview and they said, "Hey, we are going to talk about your test projects." And because of that, I only practiced about my project, what could I have done better, what I did, what kind of technologies I used. But in the interview they asked me completely other things, the things stuff I really had no idea, so I botched that interview so bad. And it felt really bad. I felt like I wasn't ready, so I have to be better.
And that interview really helped me a lot for my next job interview, which got me this first job.

Alex Booker:
You take that experience with you, don't you?

Emre Albayrak:
Exactly. I can give this advice to anyone who's learning by themselves: Just because you had a very bad interview and you didn't get the job, don't make this affect you in a bad way. You got a unique experience, that very valuable experience from that, that you can use in your future interviews.

Alex Booker:
I think you have to look at it as a learning opportunity, and also recognize as early as possible in your job search that you ideally don't want to be making these learnings for the job that you really want. That's going to feel like a bit of a gut punch.
But if you start looking for jobs early, if you can somehow get some interviews early, even if you're not completely thrilled about the opportunity, it's going to be a very humbling and enlightening experience, I think. Because then when you do get into the interview seats for that job you really want, you're not going to be making basic mistakes. You're going to be better prepared, I think.
All right, Emre, I want to get more into exactly what they asked you in the job interview and how you're getting on. But what do you say, we do a quick round of quickfire questions first?

Emre Albayrak:
Of course. I'm ready, go on.

Alex Booker:
When we're learning to code, we often hold our favorite teachers and courses near and dear. Who are some of your favorite coding teachers in courses that come to mind from your journey so far?

Emre Albayrak:
I would absolutely say Per and Bob. Per's JavaScript course and Bob's React course, they were incredible. They were really fun, engaging and educational. Of course, I wouldn't say any other courses on Scrimba are bad, but when I first went through all of the courses on Scrimba, those were the two that really impressed me.

Alex Booker:
Python was your first programming language and then you went on to learn web technologies. Is there any tech or languages you want to learn next?

Emre Albayrak:
I would like to learn some backend as well, so I would need to learn some, maybe Java, or not JS. But currently they're not on my agenda because I'm still new, beginner in front end, so maybe in the future.

Alex Booker:
Apart from Bob and Per, is there anyone else you look up to in the tech community that we could look out for? Maybe someone you follow on Twitter or subscribe to on YouTube, for example?

Emre Albayrak:
Kevin Powells.

Alex Booker:
That's so funny, because I've asked this question recently and Kevin Powell was the answer as well.

Emre Albayrak:
He's a CSS god, so you have to follow him and watch every single YouTube video he's making.

Alex Booker:
I'm really curious to hear your answer to this. As a pianist, what music do you listen to while you're coding?

Emre Albayrak:
I think this will come as a surprise to everyone, but I don't really listen to music. I am cursed with, when I listen to music, I hear all the notes and I don't mean as melodies, I hear every single note. I think it's called perfect pitch. And because of that, I can't concentrate anything when I'm listening to music. That's why I can't listen to music whenever I'm doing something.

Alex Booker:
That's fascinating. Meanwhile, I haven't got a clue what's going on, I'm just bopping my head to lo-fi, trying to [inaudible 00:14:59] JavaScript into place.
How do you fuel your workouts? Tea or coffee?

Emre Albayrak:
Water.

Alex Booker:
Neither tea or coffee? Interesting.

Emre Albayrak:
I really don't like coffee. As a Turkish man, I enjoy drinking tea, but water is better for me.

Alex Booker:
No music, no coffee. You're coding on hard mode, my friend, but I respect it.

Emre Albayrak:
I would say it's actually easy mode.

Alex Booker:
That's it for the quickfire questions. I know I sprung those on you, Emre. Thank you for being a good sports. I really want to learn a bit more about the job interview process, because I think for someone listening, it can be really helpful to understand the expectation.
If you're wondering, am I ready to apply, can I succeed at a coding interview, it could be handy to know a little bit about what kind of questions they asked you and what you found challenging, and how you dealt with those challenges.

Emre Albayrak:
In a general sense, I would say, if you finished the front-end career paths, you are ready for applying for jobs. At that point, you learned all the basics. You just need some interview experience and you need to start coding your own projects at that point.

Alex Booker:
Can you tell us a bit about the company you're working for, what services they offer, and what kind of code you're writing there?

Emre Albayrak:
To be honest, I'm not on a project yet. My company is called adesso and I am what they call a young adessi. I'm not even a junior actually right now. I will be junior in a month or two hopefully, but I'm still at learning side. I'm still trying to develop myself in my coding. I am, for example, learning Next.js right now, so I'm not on a project just yet.
My company is international, they have offices throughout Europe. They provide services to companies. For example, the last job we got was Mercedes Benz. Mercedes Benz wanted us to develop an app for them.

Alex Booker:
You're working an agency essentially?

Emre Albayrak:
Yes.

Alex Booker:
Oh, that's really cool. And by the way, what are the things that have stood out to you in your first few weeks there? Are you learning a lot compared to, say, teaching yourself at home?

Emre Albayrak:
Yes. We were a group of four people who were all young adessi. We got assigned an front-end architect, and he basically went through all the basics, all the things we would need in the job. Even though we all had the basics, that was very helpful.

Alex Booker:
You're getting paid to learn now, as opposed to paying someone else to learn, for example, at university. I often hear on this podcast, and then speaking with friends though, you learn so much more on the job. Not just more faster, but you learn things you couldn't necessarily learn at home, like how production systems work, and how software gets made, not only in a team environment, because on GitHub you can create a team environment, but a team environment where you have external pressures, like if you're an agency, you have clients, they've got deadlines.
I think it's a really exciting, new, fresh environment where you get to learn a lot. I'm really excited for you to get that first opportunity to work on a project.

Emre Albayrak:
Yeah, I 100% agree with you. Because no matter how much you study alone, it's nothing like working in a group, working in a real project, solving real problems.

Alex Booker:
You found this job on LinkedIn, right?

Emre Albayrak:
Yes, I found it on LinkedIn.

Alex Booker:
And what was the interview process like for this company?

Emre Albayrak:
They first contacted via email and sent a test project. That test project was about Age of Empires 2 units. And they wanted us to filter all the units, depending on their costs. They also added the second parameter with which age, Dark Age, Stone... I really don't remember the ages.
It took me a week to complete that project because they actually asked me to use Redux.

Alex Booker:
What?

Emre Albayrak:
I haven't used Redux before, so I had to learn it throughout that week. After two or three sleepless nights, I figured it out, I coded it, and they were happy with it, so they wanted to continue with the technical interview after that. The technical interview wasn't that technical actually, they just asked me some general questions. I was talking with the lady from the HR and the tech lead from front-end department, and after interview ended, the tech lead asked me all the questions and he was satisfied. He left the meeting.
And the HR lady told me that, "Hey, normally we contact with candidates one day later, about if we are going to move on with them or not, but since this interview was so successful and..." Technically told me, I'm not going to waste your time and we would like to continue with you, just immediately after the interview.

Alex Booker:
That's super charming, Emre. That must have felt good, right?

Emre Albayrak:
Yeah, I was the happiest guy ever, in that moment.

Alex Booker:
And that was the final stage?

Emre Albayrak:
No, I wouldn't say there was a final stage. But just in case, they wanted me to go in a English exam. Since this company is international, they require to have a certain amount of English before joining them.

Alex Booker:
That makes sense. And obviously your English is great, so I'm sure you breezed through that. Where were you when you got the news about the job, and how did you feel?

Emre Albayrak:
I was in my home. They called me and, "Hey, your exam was fine too, so there's nothing left for you to work with us." I was in home with my family and we celebrated the event for a dinner. As I said, I was the happiest guy, after all that work paying out. I can't really express my feelings right now. It's lack of words.

Jan Arsenovic:
Coming up, what can you do if you feel nervous before a job interview?

Emre Albayrak:
Just before concerts, your hands will become ice cold.

Alex Booker:
I will be right back with Emre in just a second. But first, Jan, hey, come here. What have people been saying about the podcast since last week?

Jan Arsenovic:
I think a lot of people really enjoyed the episode with Saron Yitbarek, the founder of CodeNewbie. Our own Guil Hernandez said that that's one of his all-time favorite interviews on the Scrimba podcast.
[inaudible 00:21:27] said, "I love audiobooks and podcasts, so of course I found CodeNewbie at the start of this journey. Then, just a few days ago, I discovered the amazingness that is the Scrimba podcast. And who is this week's guest? Everything is pointing to me learning code. I love it."
Awesome. Welcome to the show. We have a lot of great informative and inspiring episodes for you in our backlog. So, happy listening.
And [inaudible 00:21:52] Meru Awemoya, I really hope I'm pronouncing that right, tweeted that he went back to his Scrimba account to pick up from where he paused and decided to listen to one podcast episode a day, because they really help him feel better and more motivated. His highlight from the episode with Saron was, when she emphasized that there are going to be a lot of ups and downs and points of failure along the journey. Trusting and believing the process makes the difference. It'll all make sense through persistency. Meru, you got this, good luck.
If you're enjoying our show and you want to support us and help us keep doing it and get better and bigger guests, please talk about it, I might even give you a shout out. But for now, we're back to the interview with Emre.

Alex Booker:
Was the decision to leave musicology behind and pursue coding the right one?

Emre Albayrak:
Yes, absolutely. I would do it 100 times again.

Alex Booker:
That's really cool to hear. Would you say it was a smooth journey or were there some challenges along the way? It's hard to tell from your description so far, because you did it in a year, you had all the resources right there in your friend.
Can you remember any of the tougher times, where you maybe doubted yourself or had to push through a little bit?

Emre Albayrak:
Yeah, for sure. I was really motivated because the coding was fun. I was having fun. I really wanted to make this as my job. But it doesn't matter how much motivation you've got, after some months you always doubt yourself. Will I be ever ready for a job? Will someone ever going to hire me? Those thoughts will always hang around on your brain, no matter what you do.
What I did is, I listened to your podcast, I listened to other guys who managed to change their lives, who started coding without prior knowledge. And they helped me move through those tough times. And I also read all of the I-Got-Hired section in your Discord page. The people who are just like you, who has other jobs, just trying to learn code for themselves, finding jobs, they really motivate you hard. At least, it's worked for me, so maybe it can work for others too.

Alex Booker:
And you seem quite confident applying to jobs. A lot of people take a while to warm up to it. They [inaudible 00:24:06]. Understandably, if there's something you've not done before, interviewing in this environment, in a brand new industry no less, it can be really daunting.
But you felt confident, it sounds like, applying to these jobs early. You've had this mentality that if you fail, you've not really lost anything, you've only gained knowledge. Where did that come from? Is it an inherent trait of yours or is it something you learned through, maybe, content you read and looked at online?

Emre Albayrak:
Don't get me wrong, it was daunting. No matter how confident I feel, when it comes to waiting for that interview, the last half an hour, last 10 minutes until the interview, it's so stressful.

Alex Booker:
I hate those 10 minutes as well, man. They are tense.

Emre Albayrak:
You cannot get ready for that. No one in the world can be ready for that. Yes, I was confident. My confidence come from this: I always told myself, I will find the job eventually. Maybe it won't happen in six months, maybe it won't happen in a year, but I will not give up, and I will continue to practice. I'll continue to grow myself, develop myself, and I will eventually land that job. That was my confidence.
I wasn't really fearing the interviews in that way. I was okay with failing. Of course, when I failed the first interview, I felt really bad. But, it only lasted three days. After three days I was okay. I got this. I will continue.

Alex Booker:
Only three days. But it does hit hard, doesn't it?

Emre Albayrak:
Yes, of course. No one can be impervious to such feeling.

Alex Booker:
Absolutely not. You're right. I think your point is that after a few days you felt absolutely ready to get back on the saddle of the horse and keep at it. That kind of grit is essential, and so is that perseverance and clarity about, this is the thing I want to do.
I strongly believe that is a huge motivator for anyone learning to code. If you do a job interview and you fail and you're like, eh, oh well, I didn't care anyway, you're probably in the wrong industry. But if you fail an interview and you get knocked down by it, that to me, is the clearest indicator that it's something you care about.
You can think and plan in your head what kind of job you want. Is it a small company, a big company, an agency, a product company? Do I want to work in my home country, from home, or do I want to travel? You can think about all these things and it's really easy to overthink and you don't really have all the information to get to the answer.
But you know when you're browsing LinkedIn, you when you're browsing Indeed and these other job websites, you know when a job stands out to you as something, you're like, yeah, actually I'd be really excited to. And when you do the interview, and whether you succeed or fail, it's your feelings that are going to guide you in that respect. But I really like as well that you listened to the podcast and you were inspired by successful stories, as I'm sure people listening today will be inspired by yours.
Honestly, it's just one of those things where we impose these limitations on ourselves, sometimes, when we're trying something new and hard. And just seeing someone else having done it, whether it's your friend that does front-end or someone you hear on a podcast, I think it just goes to show that if you want it badly enough, as you clearly did, Emre, there are tools out there, interpersonal tools, interviewing tools, job-hunting strategy tools that are going to get you where you need to go.
That combination is really powerful and I'm super happy you managed to land this position and now it sounds like you'll have a great trajectory from here.

Emre Albayrak:
Ah, definitely. Definitely.

Alex Booker:
It totally relates to what you said, by the way, about feeling nervous before the interview a little bit. I'll go the whole day without thinking about it sometimes, but then 10 minutes before the interview, I start to get a little bit nervous. How did you deal with those nerves?

Emre Albayrak:
I'm a pianist, so I deal with that feeling all my life just before concerts. It doesn't matter how much you practice before, just before the concerts or your important exams, your hands will become ice cold.

Alex Booker:
You're kidding. Why is that? You'd think that you lift a heavy weight enough times, it feels light. But then when it comes to things like this, there's always that feeling in your gut of nervousness.

Emre Albayrak:
That's like stage anxiety, because there's no taking back. If you make a mistake, even though you didn't do it before, in exam, in concert, if you do it, now there's no taking it back.

Alex Booker:
The stakes are high.

Emre Albayrak:
There's always this anxiety in your head. Of course, after all those years you learn how to deal with it. You accept that feeling. This is a normal feeling that everyone feels, this is normal. And when you accept this, you'll be a much happy person in life. The same thing goes for interviews.
You will feel the anxiety just before the interview. That's normal. That's okay. Just because you are feeling like you are not ready, it doesn't mean that you are not ready. But, good thing about all my concerts and exams, after you finished them, the feeling, the dopamine, that excitement rush you feel, is undeniably one of the best feelings in the world.

Alex Booker:
Incredible stuff, Emre. Thank you so much for joining me on the Scrimba podcast. It's been an absolute pleasure. And what a wonderful note to end on as well. You're always going to feel nervous before an interview, but the first step is to stop fighting it and to accept it, and then you can have a great interview and hopefully a great career.

Emre Albayrak:
Once again, thank you for having me, Alex. It was a great pleasure for me as well.

Jan Arsenovic:
That was the Scrimba podcast, episode 1-0-7.
Next week on the show, Rizel Scarlett, developer advocate at GitHub, but also an open source advocate and an advisor at an organization that teaches women of color and non-binary people of color to code.

Rizel Scarlett:
I didn't really understand truly what coding was, and I didn't have other people in my life who were really in tech. What happened is that, I was studying psychology in undergrad and then I realized I don't have enough money to continue to the next semester. And that made me realize, okay, if I don't have money to continue to the next semester, maybe I won't really have enough for the next following years. And usually with a psychology degree, you need to get a graduate degree to essentially start making money and actually have a career as a therapist or a psychologist.
I decided to go back to the drawing board and figure out what careers I would still be able to make a living without having to go through years and years of school.

Jan Arsenovic:
Rizel is next week on the Scrimba podcast. Subscribe so you don't miss her.
Make sure to check out the show notes for all the ways to connect with this week's guest, Emre, as well as the resources mentioned in this episode. The show is hosted by Alex Booker. You can find his Twitter handle also in the show notes, [inaudible 00:30:35] the producer, and we'll be back with you next Tuesday.