I Learned to Code. Now I Have to Explain It.

I started with frontend, then moved into backend development with Java. Later, a good friend of mine recommended me for an internship involving Python, Docker, and AI agents, so I focused on those together. That opportunity helped me find a direction I wanted to keep working in.

Got an interview. Got the internship offer. Then I couldn't take it because of university and visa restrictions. Awesome.

Anyway, preparing for that internship got me interested in AI agents, and I kept working on agent projects afterward. I like both backend and agent development. There are concrete decisions to make: what the model should do, what belongs in ordinary code, and how to check the result. Theo's videos helped me get started with concepts like tokens and context windows. Working on projects gave me a reason to work through those ideas myself.

I built a website, worked on projects, and made some connections. Then I started getting emails with internship opportunities. That's what I wanted, right? But being able to work through a problem and explain my decisions in an interview turned out to be different skills.

Well. Language.

I can speak English, Chinese, and Russian. One of the reasons I started this blog was to improve my language skills (but also, I just like talking about things, so there's that). But actually using these languages to explain technical things in an interview? Oh. I tried. Turns out that's harder than I expected. A lot of "hm," "so," "um," "this thing," 那个东西, 这个东西, 就是...

It probably doesn't even matter which language it is. An interview for a role you care about can be stressful, even when you know the technical material. Even if you speak the language perfectly, stress is stress. Okay, there's one exception: if you don't really expect to get the job, it can actually be pretty exciting. That was my Tencent attempt. I expected absolutely nothing, so I was just having fun. Then I somehow made it to the third interview, and suddenly things weren't so funny anymore.

I've spent a lot of time learning frameworks and building projects, but I gave less attention to explaining the decisions behind them. Why did I choose this approach? What went wrong? What would I change? Those are things I need to practice saying out loud too.

So yeah, I wish I had started practicing my languages out loud earlier. My goal now is to explain a technical decision clearly in English or Chinese without losing the thread when I get nervous. I don't need every sentence to be perfect. I need the other person to understand what I did and why.