Camilo Pardo - Mi historia

My Story

Today I want to share with you a summary of how my life has been, since my parents’ separation until today, I also want to tell you how I have managed to overcome little by little the different obstacles and difficulties that have been presented to me to fulfill my dream to become a Full-Stack Developer.

I was born in a very humble and peasant family in the municipality of Choachí Cundinamarca, my family was made up of my parents, a sister and a half brother, everything was very nice until my parents decided to separate.

My Childhood

At that time, I was only 8 years old and suffered from epilepsy, my parents were in the process of separating when a surprise arrived that changed my life forever, this surprise was that neither of them had taken custody of me, my mother took custody of my sister and I was left in the hands of the ICBF (Colombian Institute of Family Welfare).

My Adolescence

After going through all of the above and at almost 15 years old, I realized that I could not depend on the past and I had to do something if I wanted to be someone in life. That's why I made the decision to change jobs and start having stability.

Since I was still a minor, it was not so easy to get a job, but I did.

Last Years

A few years later and through the various connections I had obtained in the past, I was able to get my first formal job, I started working as an Administrative Assistant in the company RGC Asesores, I was a little scared because it was the first time I was going to work in front of a computer.

One day I began to see how one of the engineers organized the databases so that we could work, it made me curious and as soon as I received my second salary at RGC Asesores, I bought a computer to study and learn about Excel.

One day, when the engineer did not have time to organize the databases, I told my boss to give me the opportunity to do it. My boss gave me the opportunity, I did the work, the engineer reviewed it and assigned me that responsibility.

Months later, when I started using Visual Basic for Applications, I realized that in Excel I could do many things. From that moment I fell in love with programming, I also realized that there were different tools to handle larger databases, among these Access, MongoDB and MySQL.

When I was about to finish my contract at RGC, I asked the engineer Francisco Martinez, is it worth learning about MongoDB and MySQL? He said yes, recommended me to start with Front-end development and gave me a course on Udemy. I took his advice, did the course and learned the basics of Html, CSS and JavaScript.

Then I started working in a transportation company, again as an administrative assistant. I came with the idea of putting into practice everything I had learned about web development and process systematization. I did, so much so that the work I had to do was already minimal. This caused me to be assigned other responsibilities in which I no longer found the way to undertake or get ahead, for this reason I made the decision to resign.

At the beginning of the year 2021 I left for Medellín, there I was presented with the opportunity to work as a Support Technician in Latinoamerica Hosting, a web hosting services company. I did not last long in this company, this was because I did not have the necessary knowledge to carry out my functions as a support technician, for this reason I did not pass the trial period.

Seeing that I was out of work and had no resources to return to my village, nor how to pay the rent, I decided to go out to the street to look for work, but I did it in a way that is not normal. I created my web page and made a poster in which I said: I am looking for a job, I have experience as an administrative assistant and knowledge in HTML, CSS and JavaScript. With this sign I made myself at the exit of the Santa Fe Shopping Center and El Tesoro Shopping Center in Medellin. People started taking pictures of me and sharing them on social networks and they went viral.

They began to contact me from several companies, but in some I did not meet the requirements, in others they demanded a career or a title, which I do not have. All this until I received a call from the company that has changed my life.

LEANTECH

In March 2021 I received a call from David Mahecha, claiming to be a recruiter for a software development company. He soon realized, as in previous calls, that I did not have the qualifications to fill one of their vacancies. However, that was the first of a series of calls in which I told my story. That same day I received a second call from David Mahecha and to my surprise, a job offer and the opportunity to fulfill my dream of becoming a developer.

My Family - 2023

One day, when I was in the city of Medellín, I called my mother and suggested that we return to live as a family. Taking advantage of the fact that my work was 100% remote, I gave her the option to choose the city to do it, and she chose Villavicencio (Colombia), since my sister Karol Pardo lived in this city.