Today, I had a coding test and I did horrible! Yep, you read it correctly.
I just sucked at it and I have my excuses ready for myself and believe they are excuses (or maybe not, I don’t even know).
Here's the thing, I recently became a software engineer, I interned for 15 months while I was studying at my Uni. I did work for which I didn’t get paid much but I did it because I loved the job and hoped that it would give me financial stability and a sense of satisfaction when I land a good job after I graduate. Now, I am not ungrateful for what I have right now, not at all. But all this work should have resulted in more fruition, yet it didn’t. I concentrated on developing more rather than data structures or algorithms because I love development, what I discovered later was that it doesn’t matter if you are good at developing. All they will ask is algorithms and data structures.
Some of you might point out that this is a post out of frustration and that DSA serves more than just interview questions but from the experience that I gained during those internships I found out that DSA is rarely used! Most developers google it, use libraries, etc. While I understand that knowing what those functions are doing behind the scenes to efficiently use them is important but it is not something that can’t be learned or should be the basis of someone's skills as a software engineer. I feel ashamed because of the statement I just made because it makes me feel like a coward but there is some truth in it. Being a software engineer, there is this feeling where we are never good enough for the job because we lack here and there.
But I have started to ask myself, do I have to be good at what I do or be a genius to get a nice job, because I am not a genius yet I am good at what I do, I strive for more and I work hard for it but somehow what I lack in is the biggest obstacle in my life.
I started writing this on the 26th and today it’s the 4th, over this duration I have overcome a bit of my pessimism and the after-effects of that little coding test. I have decided that I won’t give up just because I am weak in DSA, as a matter of fact, if I was weak in other areas, I wouldn’t have given up!
They say hard work always pays off and it does, maybe a bit late for some people but that grind won’t go wasted, when I was interviewing for my current job they didn’t even think for a second I wasn’t good for the position and I was hired immediately so it gives me, it gives me hope to see a lot of engineers same as me eventually making it out, maybe in 2 or 4 or 6 years but they do and hence why I will learn more of DSA along the way and hone my skills.
If you are reading this and connect with me on some level, I want you to keep working for that future because, in the end, that future is what will give me peace and a sense of pride that I won’t feel If I give up halfway! So good luck to you my fellow humans!
