My Tough Career Path

As far as I know myself, I work hard. Even when I was a child, I was dreaming to become a strong, successful, inspiring woman when I become a grown-up.

I felt closer to that idea when I was interested in joining the Computer Science Department at university. It was one of the hardest years of my life. I could not get enough score from the university exam and I dedicated my next year to reach this target. I had graduated from high school and registered for a university preparation course.

I had become an early bird, was working more systematically, digesting everything steps by step, started reading books, and doing sport more frequently. Finally, I got my exam score and obtained my Software Engineering diploma with a good GPA. I had become a Software Engineer! I was pretty confident, feeling that I know everything! (which I was going to learn soon that there are a lot to learn :)) )

Of course, as every new grad, I was dreaming of working at the top companies in my home country. However, there was a language barrier which my English was not enough to settle down in the companies. I was going to attend a bunch of English courses in the following years. Until that time, I jumped into the first Software Engineering offer that I’ve received which was $500 per month at the time because I was so excited to start working and paddling my own canoe.

I was so lucky(?) that the company was already having financial problems when I joined and I could not get my salary on time, but luckily I was paid back when I left the company.

I moved to another company which was better than the previous one, however, they had an awful culture where managers and employers are yelling at each other daily and extreme micromanaging! Of course, I left there too with the reason that, culture is important for me because we spend more time at work than we spend with our family.

The next company was more established and I started working as a developer there. A few months later the company wanted me to move to the testing department which doesn't include coding. I was okay with that at the beginning because the team needed support in that department and I was working for the company’s benefit. As the months passed, that situation started to bother me because it was moving me away from my career goals. I started to contact my manager to move back to the development team, and I was eventually moved to the development team after a year!

Then my life started to switch to another episode…

My husband and I met at our last company and a year after we got married and moved to the US. It was another hard year in my life. I have always fight for saving my career, to learn more in heart of the technology, and build a bright future.

There was a gap year until I get my work authorization and that year was full of productive activities such as brushing my coding knowledge, obtaining English proficiency certificates, preparing for interviews, joining speaking clubs, networking, and so on. On the other hand, I was struggling with feelings like being unsuccessful and depressive. I was always trying to feel relax by thinking that, I’ve improved myself a lot during this time, there are a lot of opportunities, and women are supported here.

Finally, I had received my work authorization and I was looking forward to seeing that “dreams come true!“. In the meantime, we had a lot of friends here at the beginning, and then, one by one, they started to move to their next jobs in different cities at fancy companies like Microsoft, Facebook, Amazon. I was extremely encouraged by my friends’ success and felt like I can pass the interviews too! Why not! And I put a target on having Google’s propeller hat which Google gives to their new hires (Noogler). With that confidence, I started applying and received a couple of interviews from FAANG companies including Google but I was not ready to ace them yet at that time.

Then I started applying for positions in other companies and got offered one of them as a short term contractor. Of course, I jumped in again without thinking because in my opinion small or big each work is an opportunity to improve myself. Again I was so lucky(?) that the company had financial problems and laid off all of their employees including managers and did not renew my contract either. I cannot even find their website now. Maybe, I should be pickier💁🏻‍♀️ what do you think?

After a few months of searching, I got into a mid-tier company that also had culture and micromanagement problems. I was trying to settle down and crying almost every day because of the cultural problem and was hopeless after all these terrible experiences. Still was doing my best though to learn more, improve my soft skills even through harsh people. It seems like it is a part of the business :) Then COVID-19 showed up and the company went downsizing, laid off some of their employees including me. That experience worsen my psychology with the help of these Covid-19 times!

As I told you before, I am always fighting and sacrificing things for a bright future for both myself and my family. Dreaming to feel the strong woman that I wanted to be. This is not only a fight for a successful career but also a psychological war. Why I am saying this? Because I also had to be strong against the critiques that I receive such as “Not everyone has to be successful, if you cook a delicious meal for your husband, that’s enough!“ or “If you had a baby while you are sitting at home, he/she would be grown-up now“ or “You are getting older, what are your waiting for to have a baby?“ that I’ve been receiving from people around me even from my relatives.

It is not that easy. It is so tough to have to deal with that psychological pressure. I am seeing successful woman stories on social media and dreaming to become one of them. Hearing from my friends “It is all luck.“ which I haven’t seen yet! I am feeling that all of my friends moved to the US because of their successful lives but I moved because my husband found a job here, not because of my own success. Of course, I didn’t stop during COVID-19, kept preparing for interviews, solved 300+ LeetCode questions so far, and received a few interviews from a couple of companies but this time they were all for senior positions. Because the recruiters see that I have 4-5 years experience and try to put me on senior role interviews although I told them "I also worked as a test engineer without coding, I am not that senior”. Besides, they do not offer junior roles based on my years of experience, which I die for it because I do not have a superego about levels or my age, I always aimed to “earn” the positions and salary not just “have” them. Of course, I could not ace them either because I am not that senior!

In the end, I’ve lost my hope, have lost my trust in recruiters because they all changed from my perspective, from “people who help me to find jobs” to “people who try to increase their candidate numbers in their reports”. They even stopped giving feedback, which is important for each candidate to work on their improvement points, because of the “company policy“. Posts regarding women's support started to look like nothing but an advertisement because I tried to reach many women to meet and apply for openings that they shared on their profiles but they did not answer even the ones that are from my home country. So, I do not believe women support anymore. I promised myself, when I reach the point that other people need my help, I will remember these days and help them, support them. I really really promise!

Thank you for your patience and reading until this line <3

While approaching the end of my post, I would like to mention what I am up to now. Based on all these experiences, I ended up with the idea that my skills are not enough to settle down in the US so I decided to have a Master’s Degree to improve my engineering skills more, discover new fields and build a better network. Started having new hobbies such as photography, learning to play guitar, and doing sport regularly which I’m thankful for them all because they helped more than I’ve imagined during these hard Covid-19 times🩹

When it comes to the Lesson’s Learned part of my experience, I remind myself:

• Be thankful that your family, you, and your loved ones are healthy, which is the most important thing!

• Never demoralize, never stop working, and keep improving yourself. It will pay back at the end of the day.

• Never compare yourself with others. Everybody lives at their own pace.

• You should learn to be thick-skinned against the people’s saying.

• Try to focus on your hobbies more.

• All these feelings will become unimportant when you look back in the future.

I hope this road map helps me to gain my self-confidence back and I hope stars align one day for me too and moves me closer to the woman that I dreamed to be.

I see that people are feeling like “The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence“ about living in the US. I just wanted to share how it looks like from this site :) and share my experience with the ones who are in the same boat, you are not alone🌺

I hope you have enjoyed reading, and please do not hesitate to share your comments or any ideas with me :)

All the best wishes to you and your loved ones.✨

Stay safe and healthy!✨