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Kartik Budhiraja
Kartik Budhiraja

Posted on • Originally published at Medium on

A journey of resilience with Jeffrey Chang

This weekend I got an opportunity to chat with @Jeffrey Chang about his journey.

From working at a bakery to working at an auto shop to becoming a software developer at Telus Digital, he walks us through all of the ups and down’s he went through.

To me personally, Jeffrey’s story stands out as a journey of resilience. A prime example of what determination and grinding it out can do in life.

Some key takeaways:

  • Give yourself a shot and take a leap of faith (Jeffrey decided to invest $10,000 for the Bootcamp even when his financial situation was not that easy)
  • Stick with it until it clicks, and trust me, it will click soon enough ~ Jeffrey
  • Find the positive out of the negative (Jeffrey talked about his “failed” tech interview, which he turned into a positive as it provided him with the desire to learn)
  • “Be a sponge and soak up all the knowledge you can” ~ Jeffrey Chang 😛

Some special advice for new grads/juniors:

  • Contribute to open source as much as you can. Ask yourself “What can I do to make this project better?”( Additional perk: Get your code reviewed by Senior dev’s around the world for free 😎 )
  • Don’t spread yourself too thin, focus on one thing at a time. No more trying to learn docker and Vue.js at the same time.

And finally my favourite quote from the conversation:

“You’re not an idiot, you just do not understand it at the moment” ~ Jeffrey

Please feel free to reach out to Jeffrey if anyone needs any help. He provides his email in the conversation.

We talked about a lot of other cool stuff, join us on youtube, Spotify, and every other place you get your podcast from. (Search for Everyone Sucks)

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/7tJlRnv4x9wKC0RbKCAYlg?si=4RHIGYp7Rnu450zoFtBkLg

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/everyone-sucks/id1477730495?i=1000501827490


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