MY YEAR REVIEW

Earlier this year I created this resume blog with the purpose of adding content that documented my journey through the year, this includes personal goals and work-related goal, so far, I didn’t do much of that, however it has been a year remarkable change and growth for me. You see the year started on a very low note for me, coming from the year 2021 where I had experienced a potent amount of loss, job, family and my business, while I had come into a bit of money from savings which I had accidentally locked away and was now available to me in December 2021 it quickly dried up, and of course by the second week of January it was all gone.

The Beginning of My SEGE (SHAY-GAY)

This was for me really the beginning of my SEGE (pronounced SHAY-GAY) at this point I was dead broke, so I was dependent on friends and family and usually I was only certain of 1 meal daily. By the end of January, I was certain, that grief gives up its hold on you when you lavish in hunger, this as well as the fact that in my circle of friends, each one of us a tech guy, I was the jobless one, ironically, I also had the most years of experience, since I had worked in a variety of jobs across industries so I had and still do have bandwidth, that being said I was ChatGPT or stack overflow that was just a call away.

Job Hunting and Interviews

The month of love or False love started and getting a full-time role was my goal so between the month of February and May here I was juggling Indeed, GitHub, LinkedIn and on occasion, Wellfound (previously known as AngelList) between my skills as a Full stack Developer, a Backend Engineer, an AI Engineer, I got a couple of memorable interviews 2 of which I will speak about.

COHERE

The most memorable interview I had was at COHERE, I didn’t get the role, but after the interview I really wanted to upskill myself enough to get a successful application next time.

Data2Bots

The next was Data2Bots, they gave a coding test which I completed, and while the role I was applying for was that of a data engineer, I figured with my experience I was qualified for the role, anyways long story short, I was offered the job, but I turned it down.

Now you will probably ask how come someone who is dead broke and probably starving get an offer and turns it down. Hence, for more context I turned it down for a variety of reasons;

According to the contract, I was going to work Monday till Sunday, for a pay of 100k, which was originally 50k in the initial offer

While the employment came with the possibility if emigration by job, I figured I would slave through 6 months (which is their programmer evaluation period) then get emigrated, they stated that their pay after emigration was about 3000 EUR according (I verified this and discovered this is minimum wage). They were going to provide housing and the living necessities, but I would have to sign a 3-year bond after the emigration is successful.

Maybe this is just me but how high were they going to hoist the red flag, anyways that is that.

Turning Point

There is a saying from “WARCRAFT” I really like ‘from light comes darkness, and from darkness light’ I am going to be honest and say I became the most religious I have ever been during this dark patch, so naturally I am inclined to believe I was given a divine opportunity which I grabbed like my life depended on it, and truly this was the last straw so it did.

My previous business was a freelancing career on Upwork, as it would happen, a close relative of mine sent me 25k so transport myself as I run some errands for him. I used 20K to buy Upwork connects, and this risk paid off, yes, I had to walk a lot because obviously, since I had no money for public transport but, I was able to revive my freelance career, while this didn't happen with magic, to some extent I was lucky and favoured, but I also did the work. I applied too role that played to the core of my knowledge and experience, I added my certificates in applications, I built myself a portfolio website, updated my Upwork profile, a couple other things I can’t remember.

Looking Forward

As I write this today, I have made well over 200X of that 20K. With that said, I am excited for the coming year, I know paths can be thorny, but I can’t wait to grow.

I would also like to specially thanks my friends (Muyiwa and Kelvin) for their immeasurable support and my Baby Sister; I don’t know if I could have mentally coped without you.