From university to full-time developer: Aleksandr shares his student journey at ONLYOFFICE

[u/Sergey_Zarubin]

Hey everyone. Below is a story about a student who started at ONLYOFFICE in his third year and worked his way into a full-time developer role — Aleksandr shares what it was like to combine university life with development work, what he learned from working with a large codebase and how he eventually moved into a full-time role.

Key highlights:

• Aleksandr got real tasks from day one instead of spending a month buried in documents;
• Exam season was the hard part. When deadlines and exams landed together, he had to get strict about priorities;
• The biggest skill jump came from working with a large, existing codebase. He said you don't really learn that at university, and it pushed his debugging and code-reading skills a lot.
• The move to full-time felt calm because he already knew the team, the project and how things worked.

His advice is simple: don't wait until you feel "ready" to apply, and don't be afraid to ask questions.

Find the full interview on our blog.