Reflecting on My Android Engineering Career Journey 1

I am Eniola Ipoola, and I have been an Android developer for five years and some months now. The journey to this point launched in fits and starts, it feels like I have constantly fought and learned to get here. I cannot put all that has happened in my career in one write-up, however, I will be sharing what the journey has been and I hope it resonates with someone currently struggling with where they currently are.

Also, this is a summary of the interesting and educative events of my experience in the last five years. Kindly follow along, I hope you pick a lesson or two from mine. 😁

In this series, I will be talking about the following areas. This article will only cover the first two.

• Initial interview experiences, getting my first job.
• Keeping my first job and negotiating a raise after almost a year; I almost left my first job.
• Opportunities that came my way.
• The struggles on the job and personal career struggles.
• Lessons Learned/Excerpts.
• What will the next five years look like?

My initial Interview experience: Getting my first role

I was fresh out of school and I needed a place to learn and grow. Before this time, I had a 6-month internship experience in web development. My programming language stack was HTML, CSS, and PHP. During my internship, I learned and could use most of the PHP frameworks. However, I knew I wanted to pursue a career in mobile engineering. It was out of passion I would say, I just liked the idea of being a mobile engineer, so I picked Android as my starting point. Switching to Android development and getting a role in this new field required more effort. Here I was, in my final semester at school with no project or relevant experience in Android development. I needed to show my potential employers that I have skills in this role. My resume and previous experience highlighted a different skill set.

I applied to different places while searching. At the first organization, I got a rejection. My skill level wasn’t sufficient to fill the role or meet the expected business demands the company wanted for the role. At the time, I was just wrapping up my final project at school, which was my first demoable Android project and I hadn’t even completed the project therefore it was nothing to show. Fortunately, I got a sincere review that helped my preparation for other interviews. The engineer who interviewed me made me understand that it would be easier if I came in for a web role because my resume showed a level of trust in my skills in that stack ( that was my 6 months of internship experience), he also emphasized that I needed to upskill if I want to get an entry-level role in Android engineering.

The search continued, 3 more interview opportunities came my way and I eventually got my first role ✌️🥳. I joined my first organization as an Android Engineer in May 2018 and I got exactly what I wanted out of the organization, a place to learn and grow. I spent almost 4 years in this role. Although it looked like a long time to stay at my first place of employment in hindsight, yet, staying was the best decision I made for my career. The years were filled with different emotions such as confidence, growth, anxiety, fear, and inferiority complex.

Lessons at this phase for me include;

• Identify your expectations in a role per time before you chase it. For me, I wanted a place to learn on real live projects, in a team environment and also get a means of livelihood. If money is your motivation, it is very valid.
• As time changes and entry-level requirements increase, do well to identify the requirements for the role you are pursuing. Get the required skills and build while learning.
• Rejection happens every time, but that doesn’t mean you are a failure. Access the possible reasons for the rejection and create action plans to avoid a reoccurrence.
• Ensure you get feedback from your interviews. It isn’t an adopted culture by most companies in Nigeria yet (from my observation). So, when they don’t give you one, humbly and sincerely request one.
• Feedback should be carefully assessed too. Review the feedback you get.

I know you are already wondering, “Then, how did the switch happen?” Here is a summary.

• I worked on a functioning mobile application as my final-year project
• The mobile application highlighted my knowledge of Android at the time. It showed that I could replicate given designs using XML, I could consume APIs using Volley 😅, and I understood the concept of Shared Preferences and a little bit of database management.
• I had the project on GitHub for my interviewer to see, and I had the APK file on my device as well. This showed that I have a basic understanding of version control.
• I went for the interview and related my knowledge to my interviewer, using what I had built as a reference.

I would like to mention that it wasn’t exactly this simple. Getting a job nowadays isn’t this easy. Over the years, there have been more requirements and expectations for entry-level roles. Getting a good grasp of the basics of your desired technology stack cannot be overemphasized.

Keeping my first job and negotiating a raise after almost a year; I almost left my job

Let’s talk about my first year in my role. On getting to my role, the first feature I was to work on, required that an API be modified accordingly to accommodate the feature. There was a void that needed to be filled as we were short of engineers at that point. I came in as an Android Engineer but spent the next months working as a backend engineer. My previous skill set was very useful until I could hand over the project to the appropriate team. In the course of the few months, I sometimes felt bad that I wasn’t doing what I wanted to do yet. At one point, my team lead had to fight for me to come back to my exact role, ’cause it looked like nobody wanted to take responsibility for the other project. In all, I was able to maintain my consistency in Android by working on other pet projects. Also, because I was on the mobile team, I was part of all the team’s efforts, from planning tasks to their execution, and reviews, till they got to our users. At this point, I learned that in your journey in technology, every skill that you have developed along the way is very important. You never can tell when it will be useful, so grow as much as you can.

I must confess, I fought a lot with HR during this experience. We had a lot of back and forth on the pay raise structure/keeping to the agreed contract when I was employed. After my interview process, I realized that I shot myself in the leg and didn’t negotiate appropriately. On getting to the team, I realized some colleagues negotiated better and got better deals. However, I was supposed to be on probation for 6 months, after which I would have a performance review that meant a pay increase for me. Unfortunately, this review didn’t take place and 6 months turned into 9 months. I felt my organization wasn’t serious or structured enough, and I didn’t have to be the one to call out for my review. On my end, I ensured I was productive on the team and delivering. At the same time, I was upskilling in my time. So, I started looking for other jobs. I interviewed at a couple of places and got a role that was going to pay about a 200% increase from my current job at the time. For my finances, it was a huge leap so, I resigned from my job, ready to resume at this new place.

I signed out, handed over my devices, and did all required clearance with HR. I was preparing to resume at the new place. Thankfully for me, I had a one-month break, which was to go to NYSC camp before resuming at the new organization. NYSC is a mandatory service for all Nigerian graduates. A day to camp, I requested a meeting with one of my mentors to update her about all that had been happening. Shout out to Omolara Adejuwon for the gift of timely counsel at this point. After a thorough conversation about my situation, Lara highlighted a couple of things that showed that, yes, this company may be willing to give me a 300% pay raise, but I am not going to grow in my role as they have no track record of engineering growth. Here are a couple of things we discussed about this new opportunity.

• What is this organization known for in the community? What are they building and what is the impact of their product?
• At the time, are there senior engineers on the team that I could learn from?
• Do they have a track record of great developers who have passed through their organization and gone beyond to greater adventure in their career?

Do not forget that the answer to these questions would affect the quality of my experience with them and my personal growth. Sincerely, I had no solid answers to any of the above except item 1. That made me realize I have made a wrong move that can impact the next couple of months of my career.

The lessons I learned at this phase are the following;

• As much as good remuneration can be a great motivation when chasing new roles, do not make it the only criteria you focus on when deciding on the opportunity you want to pursue.
• Never lose sight of the things that got you started in the first place. Initially, I was concerned about skill growth and quality experience as priorities, but here, I was almost losing all of that for increased remuneration.
• Have a mentor you can share your career plans with, someone you respect in your field, who is equally rooting for you and your growth. Your mentor has gone ahead of you and can share a different perspective on the decision you are trying to make. Note that the decision is still yours to take, but you can weigh someone else’s opinions. You are also well informed before going ahead to make your decision.
• When making important decisions, ensure you run it with your mentor if you have one, if not, share it with your friends or someone in your field that you talk to.
• Finally, not all that glitter is gold. Do your research, and ask the appropriate questions when interviewing for a new role. Always remember you are offering the company a service as well. Even though you are just starting, spell out your criteria.

How I didn’t eventually leave my former organization even though I had resigned…

I got lucky! After my conversation, my HOD at the previous organization called me and wanted to see if there was something he could do to resolve the issue I had with HR. He promised he was going to come in and ensure I get my review and pay raise. But that’s if I am willing to come back to work with them after my one-month break. To be sincere, everyone thought I came back due to this, meanwhile, it was just answered prayers that I don’t jump from frying pan to fire 😅. During my one month in camp, we discussed and renegotiated, I signed new contracts and sent an apology email to the other company expecting me. They were pained actually, and I am equally sorry.

And no, the new contract I signed wasn’t even up to a 100% increase of my previous pay. So, yeah, I had to figure out other ways to raise my income while I was still there. Thanks to a lot more opportunities that came my way after this phase. It has been an amazing journey from this point.

In summary, the highlight of this phase was getting my first job, and navigating the few months of not doing what I wanted to do. I also shared my ordeals at getting a pay raise, and how I almost resigned from my job in the hustle for a raise.

I hope you have been able to pick a thing or two from my experience. I believe this will be useful for someone on the lookout for their first software engineering role.