How I Moved From Helpdesk To Frontend: My Story

Hello everyone! My name is Rodion, I am an engineer in the interface development department YouMoney. In this article, I will share my experience of moving from one direction to another within the company and the junior reflection that those who change their profile may face. I will tell you how I did not pass the interview on the first try, interned in two teams without quitting my job at the help desk, and almost burned out from such a workload.

Before moving to frontend, I worked in the helpdesk department – I was engaged in user support and some infrastructure services, such as the SCCM access control system, managed antivirus client applications, supported local and external events organized by the company.

What I liked most about working as a helper (that's what we're called in the company for short) were the tasks where I had to deploy new services or improve existing onesbut there were few such tasks and only within the framework of quarterly projects.

While I was working at the help desk, six out of nine of my colleagues found themselves in related areas within the company: in information security, testing, development, DevOps and others.

People begin to master new directions when they want to solve more complex and interesting problems.

A few years ago, when I wanted to get into front-end development, YouMoney there was no clearly defined process for moving from one department to another, as there is now. Therefore, the easiest way was to contact the head of the department you want to move to, ask for preparatory materials and test task.

To me I needed to write a weather forecast service based on the user's current geolocation using the client and server parts of the front-end application. Since I had no experience at all, I had to show that I had at least the basic skills necessary to work in the interface development department.

I acquired basic skills in the Helpdesk team, when I wrote scripts in Bash and Powershell to automate the configuration of macOS and Windows.

Around the time I got my test, I got a mentor from the interface development department. He worked with ЮKassa (our b2b direction), and he wanted to teach newcomers, share his knowledge.

The important quality he possessed was ability to direct. When I encountered
with difficulty, he gave me a little less information than was required to
solve the problem. Created a space where I could search for everything myself, but at the same time not
allowed me to reach a dead end. With the help of a mentor, I completed the test,
At the same time, he invited me to take part in a small project – to recreate
the full process of developing a front-end application, which is what interface developers work on. It was a regular to-do list, but with a client and server part. On the client part, records were created, which were added to an array on the server part, and on the server part there were to-do list methods for adding new records and deleting existing ones.

What I studied before the interview and test task

I took JavaScript Learn as a base, read and studied working with CSS in JavaScript. In the two tasks I mentioned above, I tried to use TypeScript: the second to-do list project was written in it using React and NEST.

The weather app test and to-do list project helped me understand front-end development.

I uploaded the finished projects to our BitBucket and asked the head of the interface development department to look at my repository. Afterwards, I was invited to an interview, where I had to write code in real time and answer questions along the way. Alas, I didn't have enough skills for the interviewI failed him.

Livecoding in front of everyone is stressful, especially if it's your first experience. This fear can only be overcome with time.

In the end, I decided to do an internship in the interface development department, but at the same time continued to work as a helper. It's good that YuMoney has such an opportunity: to try your hand in a new direction, but at the same time not to take risks and not immediately move to another department. I had a detailed roadmap, according to which I had to work in two different teams in the b2c and b2b directions for the next three months – in my free time from the main tasks.

Here's what was on my roadmap for the three months of my internship:

• Learn approaches to development (task release cycle, GitHub Flow, working with a task tracker).

• Get acquainted with the company's products, test environment, Frontend Platform App, department technologies (repository overview), client architecture, client stack (React, Typescript, Jest).

• Learn more about team workflows, planning, decomposition and task estimation.

• Learn and work with UI libraries.

• Complete the task on the client code and put it into production.

• Master the principles of working with a Java backend (Swagger, monorepo), with Kibana and Grafana.

• Conduct a live release yourself, including edits to Node.js

• Work with a mentor on business tasks over two sprints (one sprint = two weeks).

The mentor set me tasks in such a way that I would get acquainted with all the technologies that a junior needs one by one. According to the written scenario, I learned how the client and server parts of front-end applications work, mastered the development tools used in the company, and participated in team agile activities. At the same time, we regularly met with the mentor to analyze the tasks and make plans.

During my internship in the interface development department, I continued working in the help desk – my tasks did not go away. The workload increased, and I realized that I did not have enough time to recuperate. Since then, I have learned: it is better to put off training for a few days so that this “dandelion wine does not become insipid”, and when you get bored, return to work with renewed vigor.

The first team I got into were guys from the b2c direction who deal with money transfers. In a month, I got acquainted with the technologies of the client part of the application, completed a number of tasks related to layout, editing texts and adding new sections to the map (this is a data structure that contains a set of “key-value” pairs).

Based on the review results, I was transferred to another team from the b2b direction for the next two months of the internship. There I had to master the server part of applications and perform more complex tasks – for example, transferring applications to a new version of Node.js.

Upon completion of the internship, I was informed that I had successfully completed it. About a month later, a suitable vacancy for a front-end developer appeared on the team. I fully transferred to the development department and have been working on improving for over a year now ЮKassa.

What helped me adapt faster

1. I changed my social media feed to include more information about front-end development. This helped me stay in shape even in my free time from work and study. Instead of entertaining videos, I watched videos of interviews, code reviews, and test assignments.

2. During my internship, I was eager to take on more challenging tasks, because you grow slower on typical ones, like adding new parameters or changing the size of a button. Of course, more complex tasks can be stressful. But, as my colleague said, there are no unsolvable problems – there are those that haven't been thought through enough.

3. During my training, I did not wait for feedback from colleagues, but asked for it from my mentor or reviewer.in order to quickly improve the development of missing soft and hard skills.

   By the way, I'm good with software, because I had to constantly interact with different people in the help desk. But I had to work on perseverance, which is important for a developer. When I was a help desk person, I often did several tasks at once, and I literally developed attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

I believe that many developers lack empathy — to understand not only code, but also people. To find a common language with different colleagues. But specialists with a systematic approach to learning can develop this in themselves.

4. I wasn't afraid to approach my mentor with questions, even if it seemed like I would look incompetent in his eyes. It's okay to not know something, especially at the learning or adaptation stage. At one of the reviews, I was told something that I now try to follow: don't be afraid to be uncomfortableI began to come to my mentor with ideas or solutions to problems that I had doubts about, and we discussed them together.

If you also want to change your specialty, it is important to understand that this path will not be easy. But it is worth it. Do not let toxic comments on social networks or under educational videos discourage you from this desire. Put all doubts aside and take the first (or second) step towards your dream. I wish you success!

Do you have any questions? Ask them in the comments, I'll be happy to answer! By the way, right now in our team vacancy open JavaScript developer – please apply, we'll be happy to chat. And if you're still studying and ready to take a junior position, we're waiting for you for an internship.