From Cab Driver To Software Engineer, Here's How Online Coding Course Changed This Bihar Youth's Life

A cab driver from Bihar has managed to get past his driver life and is now working as a software engineer at WebEngage. Thanks to a 30-week course on coding, which he believes, landed him a software developer job.

Hailing from Munger, Ashish Raj is the son of a farmer whose family is not financially sound. After completing his school education, he shifted to Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, for higher studies. His father spent his life savings for his son's first-year fee in college.

Upon his friends' and family's advice, Ashish took up a diploma in electrical engineering hoping to get a government job. However, he struggled to make his ends meet while in the city.

Poor Family Background

"I don't come from a financially strong background, which meant limited opportunities for me growing up. Growing up in Bihar, there is only one goal for youth, get a government job. When in school, the mindset was to become an engineer as it is the shortest way to get into the government sector," Ashish told News18.

"The financial situation was terrible for a joint family like ours. I saw in the first year that most of my seniors who passed from college did not get jobs at all. I couldn't take a loan at that time, but I needed money for myself and my family, being away from home," he added.

To make ends meet, Ashish took his cousin's help to learn to drive a car and obtained a driver's license within some period. He started working as a driver in Bhopal with the cab aggregator Uber.

"My entire family was highly disappointed because they had spent everything for my education. Indian families value education more than anything. That was the hardest time I have ever faced," he said.

He was caught in a catch situation. He could not stop driving because he needed money and driving left him with no time or resources to study. He could not buy additional supplies, including books, hostel fees etc. needed if he curtailed his work hours.

Stumbled Upon Short-Term Coding Course

This is when the Bihar native stumbled upon a short-term 30-week course in full-stack web development at Masai. In April 2020, he took the course and learned HTML, Javascript, CSS along with the MERN stack. As part of his project work, he also built a clone of the professional networking website LinkedIn.

Ashish always had an interest in computers. It reminded him of his childhood days when he spent a lot of time in his uncle's cyber cafe. He took a chance with the coding course, as he did not have to pay anything for it. "If it doesn't work out, I won't pay them any money and if I get a job, anything will be better than driving a cab," he said.

On completion of the 30-weeks course, he now believes, "There are people who do four-year of CS and have lesser knowledge than me at this point. Right now, I am working in the field that they can't get into because they have no software development skills," he adds.

For Ashish, it took him nearly three weeks to get the job after completing his course. He did not land the first job he applied for as he lacked interview skills, but he took each interview as a learning step. "I appeared in 6-7 interviews. I prepared for them by taking feedback from the past, and tried to improve," he explained.

For his job at WebEngage, he had to go through a coding test first, followed by a technical interview. Later, interview rounds with the manager and HR were conducted, after which he finally got the job.

Although he did not disclose his salary, Ashish said it's more than what he was earning, plus "doing better work".

The quest for better does not end here for him, "I want to grow more, get a better salary package in future. First, I just wanted to do good in life, now I want to improve as a software developer, make more money, and help my family. I just want to continue doing this job and growing and earning more by doing something that I loved doing as a child," he said.

When asked about how important knowing English is for tech jobs, he says communication and understanding are essential factors. Hence, knowing English helps. "I am improving my writing skills, but coding is a language of its own. Once you understand what needs to be done, you can do it. I think English is a crucial, basic skill. The more fluent you get, the better, but knowing English is important in tech," he said.

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