Meet Daniel Szasz. A Successful Career Change
As you guys have been used to in the last couple of weeks, we get to do various interviews within our company and share it with you. Through this, we want you to have a peek into our organisational culture and also to meet the team. This time, we will approach a very interesting topic (we hope) and that is career change! More specifically, how does someone cross the road from a common job into the challenging field of technology, IT&C. I want to thank Daniel Szasz for taking the time and talk to us about his experience in career change from an accountant to an iOS developer at Mobiversal!
A: Hi Dani! Thank you for taking the time to talk with us about your job-crossing experience! First of all, tell us something briefly about yourself so that everyone reading could get to know you better.
D: No problem, Alex. I’m happy to share my story and eventually encourage others who are in the same (or similar) situation in which I was three years ago. As you said, my name is Daniel Szasz and I’m 30 years old. I have a beautiful wife and three gorgeous children. I consider myself a very active person but lately I don’t have an awful lot of time for my passions; if I do have some then I love to play football and play on the bass guitar.
A: Speak to us briefly about your academic education and what were you doing professionally before joining Mobiversal?
D: After highschool I had to choose between going to Cluj to learn programming or to stay in Oradea and learn Economics/Management. For me at the time it was a pretty easy choice. My mother had an accounting firm and was (she still is) teaching Accounting and Ethics at the University, so we could say the path was laid down for me and I only needed to follow it….and so I did.
A: When was the first moment when you said to yourself that IT would suit you better? How did you came in contact with the field as it is very different from Accounting.
D: I don’t remember the first time but I do remember that I always wondered what would have happened if I had chosen IT instead of Accounting and if I would had been capable of doing it. Beside this “wondering” the whole decision making process was an interesting journey and it took me about 3 years to make the final decision. I did learn programming in the high school so it was not a completely uncharted field and I also had some friends working in IT.
A: Were there any schools that you followed in order to learn programming or did you learn at home? How was the learning process for you and how difficult it was?
D: It was the “Informal School of IT” who made me fall in love with IT (again) but the hardcore learning process began after I was hired. It is always hard to be a junior no matter the field, but it’s harder if you were already NOT a junior in something else. Thank God I had all the passion and the help needed (from my colleagues) to ease that process. In fact you have to follow one rule and probably it will turn out Ok: “Be better than you were a day before.” It’s that “simple”. (hint: it’s not)
A: How did you hear about Mobiversal and how did you fit in as an iOS developer?
D: Almost every week during this professional course a firm was presented to us and the funny thing is that only time I couldn’t be there it was when my colleagues presented Mobiversal. Eventually I’ve managed to speak with my current boss at the ending ceremony of the course.
A: If you were to give some advice to someone who is trying to change careers, especially moving into technology what would you say to them?
D: I can only say what my friend said to me when I was having second thoughts about all this big change: Decide if you’re willing to sacrifice your current professional life and start from scratch; and if you are, don’t look back.
A: Daniel, I want to thank you for this interesting interview! Indeed changing careers is not an easy task, but with great effort everything is possible!
D: Glad I could be of help! I hope that others will also have the courage to bring a change in their lives!
