Summer of 2006. 28 degrees Celsius in a container office in Tatabánya, zero professional experience in my pocket, and a 6-week deadline that meant the first paid software development job of my life. I was infinitely proud and motivated, but I had no idea how deep the water waiting for me truly was.

The Reality Check: VBA Macros instead of Web Dreams

Back then, I lived in the “holy trinity” of HTML-PHP-MySQL, so I confidently would have started the project with that: I had to build a dynamic product presentation system for the company’s 42 parts. However, the IT administrator quickly cooled me down: for security reasons, no web server could run on the network. Of course, how could I have thought otherwise… 🤬

Instead of a modern tech stack, the cold reality remained: MS Access and Visual Basic macros. That was when I learned the first and most important lesson: a software developer can’t always choose their tools but must solve the problem with what is available.

The Struggle: When Technology Doesn’t Comply

The first weeks were spent in feverish learning and struggling. I clearly remember those two days when I sat at the computer with a knotted stomach and sweaty palms, simply unable to figure out why PowerPoint couldn’t see the database. At that time, I didn’t know concepts like PoC or SPIKE – I just pushed forward in the dark, hoping the picture would come together in the end.

In the last week, I was a jack-of-all-trades: I photographed all the parts myself, retouched the images so they would shine in the presentation, and gathered technical data myself from those working on the production line.

The Realization: Differences in Speed

The mechanical designer engineer in his 30s, who was my mentor, looked at the monitor with appreciation at the end. He just said:

“In these 6 weeks, you worked more than many others since they have been at the company.”

I just blinked. Until then, I thought I was slow and was ashamed that I hadn’t finished sooner. At university, no one prepared me for the fact that in the workplace reality, people don’t work with the same speed and ambition.

Conclusion: Don’t Wait for the Golden Goose!

When I sat there in the canteen over my lunch, or when I explained an 8-line SQL script to an experienced production line engineer so he could modify the query to make the display more accurate, something clicked inside me.

I realized how many opportunities I had missed during my university years because I waited for the school to offer me a career on a silver platter. But the profession doesn’t work that way. You have to go after the results, knock on doors, and if necessary, you must be able to write that code even in a 28-degree container. Because experience isn’t given; it has to be earned.