Late at night, I often wonder how I ended up where I am today. It all stems from a series of choices I made after graduation!
I often reflect on how choices are often more important than effort. Looking back over the past ten years or so, these decisions have had a crucial impact on my journey to where I am today.
1. Going to Shanghai After Graduation#
In 2009, when I just graduated, my goal was simple: to find a job related to my major, regardless of location or specifics. I had no plan, just the need for a job that could support myself.
At that time, some classmates had already found mobile phone testing jobs and were sent to Shanghai on business trips. I learned that they were still hiring, and I applied.
I remember that shortly after the interview, I got on the train home. As the train departed from Shenyang North Station, I received a call from the company informing me that I had passed the interview and could come to sign the contract. As the train arrived at Shenyang Station, I didn’t hesitate to get off, even refunded my train ticket, and embarked on the first truly significant choice of my life.
That’s how my first testing job began. I was really daring back then, just packing up and leaving, and then going to Shanghai alone.
Shanghai was a fresh and magical city for me. Even living in the company’s suburban dormitory, life was still happy and exciting.
In Shanghai, I visited the World Expo, the opening of the first Apple store, and of course, Nanjing Road, the Bund, and West Lake in Hangzhou. I also watched Liu Xiang run the 110-meter hurdles in the Diamond League and attended Jay Chou’s Shanghai concert. On weekend nights, I would have dinner with colleagues until midnight. Everyone was a fresh graduate back then, and the relationship between colleagues was more like that of classmates.
2. From Shanghai Back to Shenyang#
After more than a year of business trips in Shanghai, it was time to choose again: return to the Shenyang branch or resign and find a new job in Shanghai? I and some colleagues chose to return to the Shenyang branch.
Back in Shenyang, the office, cafeteria, factory, and dormitory were all in a large factory area, surrounded by suburbs. I could only go out for a stroll on weekends.
I felt like a cog in the factory in that suburb, seeing a life that was clearly predictable.
Although life was stable, it wasn’t what a person in their twenties should be pursuing. I knew this wouldn’t last long, and if I didn’t adjust in time, I would be passive when I had no skills in the future. I started thinking: if I want to go to Dalian in the future, my current mobile phone testing job would be hard to find there, so I need to switch to Web testing, go wherever they need me, and all I need is relevant work experience.
Later, I interviewed at Dongsoft Shenyang and got a position at Dongsoft Beijing with a salary of 3000 yuan, so I resolutely went to Beijing.
3. From Shenyang to Beijing#
That was March 2011. Before I went, I contacted my college classmate Gangge. I could stay at his place temporarily before I found a place to live.
So, I got on the train to Beijing.
I finally got the real software testing job I wanted, and that’s when I started to learn some scripting and database-related knowledge.
At Dongsoft Beijing, I experienced two outsourced projects and found that I didn’t like this kind of outsourcing. Firstly, the work location was unstable, and secondly, I regularly changed teams and met new colleagues. In less than a year, I decided to change jobs.
The first resume I submitted was to Baidu. I had an interview, but I don’t know why I didn’t pass. Maybe I was too inexperienced back then; I was just a web testing newbie with less than a year of experience, and I wanted to interview at Baidu? It was unlikely.
Later, I submitted a few more resumes, and by chance, I interviewed at JD.com and passed. I remember the salary was 6500 yuan, which was a huge sum of money for me, double what I earned when I first came to Beijing.
The two or three years I worked at JD.com were the years I truly entered the testing field. There were indeed some colleagues worth learning from, and I learned Python, Jenkins, performance testing, and functional testing from them.
Although I learned these skills, I knew that if I wanted to find a good job in Dalian, just having some technical skills wasn’t enough. I also needed English, because only foreign companies in Dalian offered decent salaries.
So I started searching for foreign companies in Dalian while in Beijing, and I also started preparing to learn English.
I enrolled in New Oriental, the tuition was several thousand yuan, and I remember each class cost tens or hundreds of yuan. I thought the cost-effectiveness was not high. After listening to a couple of trial lessons, I decisively refunded the tuition.
I thought the best environment to learn English was to join a foreign company. I started trying to interview with foreign companies in Dalian from Beijing; one happened to have a branch in Beijing, so I went for an interview, but unfortunately, I didn’t pass.
4. From Beijing Back to Dalian#
There was no way to find a foreign company in Dalian from Beijing, so I resigned from JD.com and returned to Dalian to look for a job.
After resting for a few days back in Dalian, I found that not having a job made me feel down, so I started looking for a job.
I interviewed for an outsourced position at Citibank, but I didn’t succeed. At that time, I also had the idea of switching to development!
This was influenced by a colleague at JD.com. At that time, there was a testing colleague who could develop and had good skills, responsible for writing unit tests for the development team. I thought that was amazing, and I wanted to do that kind of technically demanding job.
Therefore, my other plan at that time was: if any company was willing to hire me, someone with only testing experience, to train me to be a developer, I would be willing to take less money, or even work for free. My salary when I left JD.com was already 12,000 yuan, but I still wanted to switch to development, even starting as an intern. Unfortunately, the market didn’t give me that opportunity at the time. I needed a job, so I found a junior testing manager position with a salary of over 6000 yuan. I worked in this position for a few months and found that it wasn’t the environment I wanted to continue working in, and I started looking for a job at a foreign company while still working.
Later, I accidentally applied to the foreign company I had applied to in Beijing before. This time, the interview went well, and I was officially hired. I started a ten-year career here, my most hardworking ten years.
5. From Testing to Development and Then DevOps in a Foreign Company#
As mentioned above, I wanted to switch to development. After joining the new company, there was an opportunity within the team to switch from testing to front-end development. I was extremely envious of this opportunity, but unfortunately, I was too late; they already had enough people, so I could only continue to shine in the testing position.
Until 2018, due to business adjustments, I had another opportunity to switch to development, but it required an assessment.
Although it was a big challenge for me, I thought it was the right thing to do. Two reasons:
- If my programming skills were strong enough, I could become the best technically skilled person in testing;
- Developers usually have more say and more opportunities than testers, such as technical immigration.
I applied to become a developer without hesitation!
It was a very stressful period. I wrote about it in the #Programmer’s Musings series. But in the end, I successfully transitioned to development. Later, the team needed a Build Engineer. Honestly, it was the perfect role for me!
The role was previously called a Build Engineer, but because I was very passionate about doing this job well, I did a lot more than just Build work, so my responsibilities gradually expanded to the DevOps field, and later everyone called me a DevOps engineer, responsible for DevOps/Build/Release related tasks.
6. From Dalian to Europe#
Years ago, I started to have the idea of going abroad to see the world, looking for a DevOps job in Japan or Europe that could provide a visa. If I didn’t go abroad, I might not have any chance when I turned forty.
This idea may have come from my previous independent trips to Thailand, Japan, and the United States. After that, I enjoyed listening to audio programs like “Quietly Talking About Japan” and “Casually Talking About America.”
I updated my LinkedIn profile, and occasionally someone contacted me about opportunities in Singapore. To be honest, it was uncertain whether I could go or not, but I wasn’t very interested in Singapore; it felt too competitive.
After the pandemic and the birth of my child, this idea was put on hold, and there was no progress. After the well-known changes in the general environment, a sudden opportunity arose.
But honestly, at this time, I had far more concerns than when I went to Shanghai, returned to Shenyang, went to Beijing, or returned to Dalian.
Because of my family, my child, and my parents, making the decision wasn’t easy. But in all my past choices, there were no perfect opportunities. In this uncertain era, the only constant is change. Besides, such an opportunity would almost never come again.
Staying might mean being forced to engage in meaningless competition, like adults competing for work and education, and children competing in their studies. Thinking about this, I knew it was time to choose again—to go abroad.
Finally#
Since graduation, especially during the past ten years working for a foreign company, I’ve worked hard. I worked hard, unyieldingly completing tasks; I persistently wrote blogs and public accounts for seven or eight years in my spare time, using teaching to promote learning and contributing to open-source projects.
I believe in the value of hard work, but I also remind myself not to fall into the trap of “self-satisfaction.” Hard work is certainly important, but we shouldn’t let tactical diligence obscure strategic laziness. We must look up to see the road ahead, seize key opportunities, and make wise decisions. After all, if the direction is wrong, no matter how hard you try, it may be in vain.
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