“There is one bridge between my personal and professional life, and it is a challenge. I started as a hard-core backend developer, and now I am working as a full-stack developer. Without challenge, I probably would not be here now.”
In our latest TechForward series of webinars, you had a chance to hear our Marija Barjaktarovic as she takes you on a journey to the world of frontend and uncovers all the obstacles she came across from the moment she first stepped into this world.
In this webinar, you will learn more about:
- Why Marija didn’t use to like frontend
- What main obstacles she had to come across on this journey
- How frontend helped her master her backend skills
- Her advice to all engineers who are willing to step into the unknown
Watch the video.
Marija starts her story by reflecting on her childhood days and explaining that she didn’t choose this career path by accident. When she was a little girl, she used to play a lot with her grandma — she took the role of a person working in a bank, and grandma was her client. Today she is working on one big project from the world of finance and banking, so things seem to make perfect sense.
“There is one bridge between my personal and professional life, and it is a challenge. I started as a hard-core backend developer, and now I am working as a full-stack developer. Without challenge, I probably would not be here now.”
But her road to the world of frontend was not so smooth and sudden. As a matter of fact, she used to hate frontend as she considered it to be totally different from the backend, like some kind of art, a real rollercoaster with a lot of ups and downs.
“The beginning of every adventure is easy, but then it gets more challenging. I am not sure why it is hard for all backend developers — you need to change your mindset, to shift it to the mindset of an artist, and this is probably the main problem.”
After the webinar, we had a chat with Marija.
H: What’s your impression of the webinar?
“It was an enjoyable and exciting experience, and I am thrilled to have had the opportunity to speak in public — it helped me gain more comfort speaking in front of a larger audience. I was positively surprised by how well it all went. I also think that webinars are a great opportunity for everyone to develop their public speaking skills and focus their attention on other non-technical skills such as giving presentations. I believe public speaking is essential for our personal and professional development, especially when we have interviews or meetings with clients. I also like the fact that this gives people an opportunity to share their views, knowledge, meet new people, and gain experiences.”
H: What’s the biggest obstacle you had to come across on this journey “into the unknown”?
M: “It is definitely the fact that I had to shift my mindset from backend to frontend and use a different approach to solving issues. Besides technical challenges, I had to change the very way of thinking since the backend has an entirely different set of problems. In contrast, the frontend has some features that may seem simple at first, but once we start working on the project, we realize that it is not that simple and that we have to consider many more aspects than on the backend.”
H: What advice would you give to engineers who are about to take on the challenge?
“You can always choose to stay where you are, or you can choose to get out of your comfort zone. In most cases, it turns out that getting out of your comfort zone was a great idea. But we should definitely say to ourselves: “Let’s try something new,” even though it may be hard at the beginning. And it’s a completely normal thing! We need time to get used to things and learn them to become better at what we do. In the end, we will feel much better. Even if we fail, we will still know that it didn’t work, so we can move on and start a new adventure. I think that by leaving our comfort zone, we can gain much more than we could lose, especially if we want something badly.”
H: Are you planning to “jump into the unknown” again any time soon?
“Big yes! There is a whole range of technologies I would like to learn and so many things to do on my list. Currently, I am pretty much busy working on a project, so I am not sure when I am about to start a new adventure, but it sure is one of the priorities.”
H: What do you think is the best part of being a woman in the industry?
“The opportunity to be better than men! 🙂 🙂 Jokes aside, I must say that men have always surrounded me throughout my education and career, and there is a general misconception that men can do more. But I believe that women can also make amazing progress, so I am kind of driven by an ambition to give my maximum potential so that we can build amazing things together, no matter whether we are men or women.”
Moving Forward
Wondering who our next special guest is? Stay tuned for the next Tech Forward webinar!
In the meantime, read about two of our many amazing women colleagues in tech Jovana Mitic, and Aniko Kovac Krnjajic.
We are fully committed to empowering young girls and women to find and develop their career path in the world of tech and advancing gender equality in both society and workplace.
