Let's rewind to 2017 when I was a 3rd-year college student with no idea about Programming... Yes, I was. There where it all started.
It is the time when the launching of cool mobile apps is happening and it nurtured me to develop one. Well, I dreamt of developing one but I was not sure about my programming skills.
One of my friends, who used to get his hands dirty on these things came up with a cross-platform app development tool. He built one app that teachers used to save the previous year's question papers and notes for students to have as a question bank app.
I worked along with him to learn how to design an application first, Then I took this concept to actual native mobile app development using android studio.
I should thank my friend here because I used to borrow his laptop and do all these things and he never minds. "Thanks, Ravikant and Sonal Bhai...!, You both were one of a kind".
I was not sure about the test cases and edge cases of my application at that time, because for me it was big achievement. Also, the same application was presented in a competition held at Saveetha Engineering College, 'Drestein' is the event name. I and my friend clinched first place in the mobile app development event. You know how it feels right..?

Here comes the final year project. With little knowledge of native application development, I and a couple of my friends were grouped as teammates.

We planned to design an Ambulance booking app, Yes. I started to watch youtube videos on cloning Ola and Uber applications. Because the prototype was the same. Right? But I started to face hiccups when I came to explore map APIs. Those are all offered freely by google but I must sign up with a credit card account to get it. No one helped me at that time.
Days passed on, Application was ready except for the real-time navigation of mobile movement, technically vehicle movement.

Lost in hope, I reached to my senior who was working at a project centre at that time.
He fixed the issue in real-time navigation, but the movement of the device's GPS had a great lag.
Also, the application will navigate to the default browser for real-time navigation. Hmmmm., You know I felt am done with programming on that demo.

Just for the sake of marks, I presented the project in my practicals and the faculty who reviewed my project was amazed by the prototype.

During the second semester of my final year, I presented the same project in AMI (Currently working here as a senior developer) for an internship opportunity and I got selected.

I missed the internship opportunity as my principal rejected it due to my low attendance as I had joined 'QSpiders' software training centre for enhancing my programming skills. It is the place where I learned proper programming. Thank you 'Nandeesh' sir for building the most important step in my career.

With that, I have given my first interview in 'Scio Health Analytics' now known as 'EXL'. All those efforts I have given in developing my app paved the way to grab the opportunity as a Programmer Trainee. I should thank my ex-Team Lead and well-wisher 'Manikandan' and my first manager 'Saratha' for providing me with the first opportunity. Because they believed that I can work with .Net applications.

Yeah, though I failed in my written test they conducted a face-to-face interview for my attitude. I cleared that interview as I was given a task in android application with OOPs in Java. That is my first interview and I grabbed the offer.

It was an immense pleasure to feel that all your efforts and hard work paid you for that one day you're looking for a long time right? Yes.

After 2 and half years of an amazing journey, I switched to EMIS health a perfect employee-friendly product-based company. There are more things to say about the company policies. Because they care for the employee like anything.

I stayed for 1 and a half years here in this organization and learned well-structured code ethics and some code coverage software tools. I gathered a bunch of friends for life here because they are friendly to the core.

Once after a short period in EMIS, I was searching for another job outside EMIS because I was going to get promoted soon. Haha, How is it even possible?
Am gonna promoted as a father. Yes, It is absolutely hard work right..?

Now, at this stage, I cleared the AMI interview where once I was searching for an internship opportunity. You know with some of the known BGMs running back in your mind and entering into the dream place you longed to work. Yes, promoted to Senior Software Engineer and got placed into the great 'American Megatrends International' the monopoly of BIOS in the world.

This is so far my journey as a developer till the day, am happily serving for the past 7 months in this organisation. With great power comes greater responsibility, facing more challenges every day here as a Senior Dev.

Throughout my journey, I kept one person as my role model, Mr. Sundar Pichai.
1. He proved that one can reach greater heights with strong determination.
2. Anyone can become who they want to be in life with proper discipline.
3. With a calm mindset one can achieve many things in their life.
4. As always he used to say, Ideas matter more than where you are coming from.

Most importantly I should thank two women in my life and career.
1. My Mother.
2. My Wife.
They played a very important role in staying with me in my tough times. Mother is someone whom you can always count on. But, how come my wife? She knows me for the past 11 years. During all the tough times these two women stood behind my falls and successes.

That's all a wrap about my short journey of 4.6 years as a developer and am proud to say that am learning every day.
Dream big, If you can dream about something. Surely you can achieve it.
By the way, Happy Coding.....! #DevRetro2022