TL;DR:
Over the past few years, I’ve navigated working student jobs, online courses, and personal challenges while trying to find focus in tech. In this post, I reflect on the lessons I’ve learned, the mistakes I’ve made, and how I arrived at my first personal project with clear purpose: toplivres, an AI-guided full-stack app to track book sales and inventory.
1. Who I am and why I write
In 2022, I wrote my first blog post about the “Top 5 websites that helped me land a tech job.” At the time, I was a working student, balancing a bachelor’s in Math with my first professional experience. Looking back, that job gave me a window into the professional world and introduced me to tools and practices I hadn’t encountered at university.
A little about me for those who haven’t read my “About” page: I’m a student expat in Germany, aspiring to build a career in tech. My journey hasn’t always been linear. Initially, I thought it was enough to get a working student job while pursuing my degree. But my heart has always been in computers. My first line of code wasn’t HTML—it was C++ in Code::Blocks, running in the console. Frontend development came later, mostly because it was immediate and visual: I could change colors, reload pages, and see results quickly.
2. Early learning and first jobs
After my first exposure to coding, I started building small projects using HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and Python. Listing these on my CV helped me land a working student position. Soon, I was introduced to Django, which opened the door to backend concepts like MVC, ORM, and database design. At first, progression felt unclear—there were no straight paths, just a series of concepts to wrap my head around.
My next working student role exposed me to Firebase, FastAPI, Django, and React. I even got to attend Google Cloud Next ’22 in Munich. I was excited, but also scattered: the abundance of learning resources led to shiny-object syndrome. I completed multiple learning paths on LinkedIn Learning and Google Cloud Skills Boost, but despite certifications stacking up, I realized I wasn’t truly learning. I had access to ChatGPT at work, but didn’t know how to leverage it. Months slipped by, and I struggled with time management, goal setting, and learning strategies.
3. Challenges — mental health and direction
Last year, I faced a major personal setback: I experienced burnout that forced me to step away from studies and work for several months. During this period, I had to pause everything, but even then my desire to make it in tech never went away.
Reflecting on this time, I realized that my technical foundation was solid, but my direction was scattered. I was considering roles in backend engineering, cloud engineering, DevOps, data engineering, and SRE. Without focus, it was impossible to make meaningful progress.
4. Finding a project — breaking out of tutorial hell
I needed a concrete project that would anchor my learning. People often build blogs repeatedly, but there are plenty of platforms and SSGs for that. I wanted something personal with real operational workflow. That’s when I thought about a spreadsheet I’d been maintaining to track book sales across multiple locations. It included:
Data: books, sales, stock levels
Rules: no new deliveries until feedback is received
Multiple entities: locations, deliveries, feedback, books
I decided to transform it into a full-stack API. This project would allow me to practice backend engineering, database design, and APIs in a real-world context. I called it toplivres, and it’s the first project where I felt a clear sense of direction.
5. Why toplivres matters
Toplivres is more than a learning exercise. It combines technical skill-building with personal purpose. By structuring data, implementing rules, and managing multiple entities, I get hands-on experience with concepts I’ve only read about in tutorials. It also allows me to experiment with AI-guided features to suggest books or track inventory more intelligently.
The project has already helped me focus, break free from tutorial hell, and start building something tangible. It’s a project I can iterate on, show to others, and continue learning from—without chasing certificates for the sake of completion.
6. Conclusion — forward-looking and encouraging
I’m currently on a break from formal studies, and I’m still figuring out if I’ll complete my degree. But that won’t stop me from pursuing a career in tech. The main lesson from my journey so far is this: direction matters more than endless tutorials, and personal projects trump certifications when it comes to building real skills.
In the next post, I’ll dive into the development of toplivres: the architecture, code snippets, and lessons learned along the way. If you’re struggling to find focus in your own tech journey, I hope my story shows that it’s okay to start small, face setbacks, and still keep moving forward.
