We continue a unique series of materials about Ukrainians who lost their jobs after the war started. Today, these people are learning Java thanks to the CodeGym’s donation program.
Millions of Ukrainians have lost their jobs and keep losing their savings due to the war. Maksym Krasnov is one of them. He had worked for a grain exporting company for a long time but lost his job when the war started.
“The company laid off some of the staff, including me”
On February 24, I woke up in the morning and began to read the news. That's how I found out about the war. Me and my family didn’t go anywhere during the hostilities in Kyiv. We stayed at home and decided to wait for further developments. It was a painful feeling.
I had been working for a grain exporting company for a long time. But because of the war, I lost my job. The company was quite large. It had 20 elevators in different regions of Ukraine, including Zaporizhzhia, Kherson, and Kharkiv regions, and used to export grain through the ports of Odesa and Mykolayiv. I was responsible for the work of five elevators in the Kherson and Kharkiv regions.
After the full-scale invasion started, these elevators ended up in the occupied territories. So, naturally, it became impossible to work. After some time, the company was forced to lay off a significant part of the staff, including me.
The situation with the supply of grain from Ukraine is challenging. (The interview was recorded in July 2022. In August 2022, Ukraine and Russia – each separately – signed agreements with the UN and Turkey that allowed the resumption of grain shipments through the Black Sea for the first time since the start of the Russo-Ukrainian war. As a result, the first dry cargo ship left Odesa with Ukrainian grain on August 1. 20-25 million tons of grain, which are currently blocked in Ukraine, can finally be exported – ed.).
Grain exports go through ports that have been blocked until recently. The harvest from the last year has not yet been exported; it is about 20 million tons. But, of course, a significant part of the elevators is now under occupation. Agricultiral holdings in Ukraine suffered heavy losses, so companies began to cut back.
“I’ve already completed over 20 levels of training at CodeGym”
Before my job at the grain supply company, I worked as a programmer in a bank. So, I decided to retrain as a developer. I studied Delphi and Pascal, then C#, and a bit of Java. But my plan was not to settle for just Java. I wanted to reach the level of a full-stack developer and learn a lot of technologies.
I found out about a Java course that allowed Ukrainians to study for free and decided to improve my knowledge of this programming language. Moreover, I already knew the basics.
Nowadays, you can use Java in many areas. For example, once I wrote a mobile application in Java. Also, I choose Java because this language has excellent official documentation on the Oracle website, and I can see the source code. It is convenient to study when there is detailed documentation.
CodeGym course is exciting. I specifically enjoy many practical tasks in each lesson. It is also praiseworthy that from time to time you need to solve tasks on topics you studied 3-5 lessons ago. In this case, if I don’t remember some material, I read the theory again and then crack the task.
I’ve already completed over 20 levels of training at CodeGym. Soon, I’m going to start sending out my resumes and looking for my first job as a Java developer. Thanks to CodeGym, I hope to succeed.
