Perhaps we could have chosen another superhero movie, but let’s break it down using this one as an example.

Any movie of this genre follows the same structure:

• The main character is basically a loser and doesn’t know what they want to be.
• Their life is falling apart, and they realize they need to do something about it.
• They turn to a mentor and learn an important lesson (with great power comes great responsibility).
• An event gives them superpowers. The hero enjoys their newfound strength.
• A critical situation occurs (death or injury of a loved one, for example); the character initially gives up but then realizes it’s time to take control.
• The hero grows and becomes who they wanted to be, thanks to self-belief and support from loved ones.

Doesn’t this resemble the path into IT before landing your first job? If you don’t see the similarities, let’s dive in deeper.

Step One: Life “Before”

So, you’re an ordinary person, studying in school or university, and in your free time, you’re glued to your computer. People around you constantly ask what you want to do in the future and what you want from life. You don’t know exactly, given your age, but you suspect it will involve computers. Computers are interesting: there are web browsers, games, videos, and all kinds of fun stuff — you want to work in this world, but you don’t know in what role.

Time passes, but you can’t make a choice. You try video editing, making music, writing articles, and other cool stuff, but nothing feels right. However, by learning new skills, you learn how to learn. You don’t have money for courses, so all information comes from Google, YouTube, and other open sources. You figure some things out on your own. Each day, your confidence that you should work with computers grows.

Or imagine a different scenario: you’re already an adult, but your life isn’t satisfying. You don’t like your job, the pay is low, your professionalism isn’t appreciated, and your colleagues only talk about kids and household chores. It all starts to feel frustrating. You want a different life and feel capable of more.

Step Two: Crisis

You reach the end of school or your first year at university, and the skills you’ve accumulated weigh on you: with so many possibilities, you don’t know what you want. You face choices:

• Videomaker
• Journalist
• System administrator
• IT support
• Designer

Perhaps you make a mistake and choose one of these paths, hoping that university will help you grow and become a professional.

Or you give up on that and become a programmer because you’ve heard they earn huge salaries and are generally awesome — but it’s completely unfamiliar to you; maybe math has always been your enemy.

At university, you’re taught some really strange basics: data structures, algorithms, binary systems, lots of theory about memory and how computers process data — all supposedly important. In practice, though, this knowledge is mostly useless. How to create your own Facebook, write a cookie clicker, or build a new Tinder? University doesn’t tell you.

As an adult, it’s unclear how you could leave a comfortable job for vague prospects. You feel anxious about failing because information is harder to absorb, risks seem scary, and it’s tough to decide what to retrain in. Diving into a new field from scratch is intimidating. On top of that, balancing work is difficult: studying takes time and effort, and with a full-time job, you barely have a couple of hours a day for learning (forget about family). So time passes, you’re stuck in anxiety, blame yourself for indecision, but are too scared to act.

Step Three: Mentor

At university, you meet an interesting guy who really works as a programmer and earns a lot of money. He shares his experience and tells you how he got there. Maybe he’s a geeky overachiever who’s been learning Pascal since childhood. Or maybe he’s a 200 IQ genius who just watched YouTube courses and now codes like a pro in any language.

Or, while searching for a homework solution, you come across an article about getting into programming, get hooked, and decide to try. A programmer friend gives you advice on what to focus on and how to pass interviews.

If you’re an adult, you might reconnect with a school friend who used to tinker with computers and is now earning a huge salary as a programmer. Inspired by their example, you see an ad for a course and finally decide: it’s time.

Step Four: Gaining Power

You start diving into the subject, and the more information you absorb, the more confident you feel: everything works, tasks rarely require deep knowledge, and new skills come easily. You just do interesting work in the evenings after studying or work. This is the moment of gaining superpowers — for you, there are no obstacles. You realize you can Google anything, solve any problem, and enjoy it. People ask you for advice, even to fix minor issues, and you start understanding IT humor. Your new profession feels like a blessing.

Energized by success, you’re determined to get a job. But first, you need to organize your knowledge, see what interviewers ask, and understand requirements for test assignments — all tedious. You also notice that you keep using the same techniques from project to project, no real growth. But it seems minor: if all lines and methods are similar, why reinvent the wheel?

Putting doubts aside, you go to your first interview, thinking they’ll snatch up a talent like you right away.

Step Five: Failure

Your first interview is a complete failure.

You discover your knowledge is useless; you should have studied based on job requirements, not online articles. You lack real skills or have only the basics. You get rejected repeatedly, and no one hires you. Beaten and desperate, you crawl back to your “den,” unsure of how to move forward.

Now comes reflection. What’s next? Neither YouTube, Google, nor courses help anymore. The situation seems hopeless.

Then you remember the person who inspired you to become a programmer. Or a friend who’s been in IT for three years. You reach out, and they kindly tell you it’s not time to give up — here’s a plan. You improve the necessary skills, ask for detailed feedback after interviews, complain to your loved ones about how hard it is, and they support you and celebrate every success with you. Gradually, you regain confidence that you can achieve your goal.

Step Six: Success

Your old code now seems terrible, projects become more meaningful, you build an impressive portfolio, and after thirty interviews, finally — the thirty-first is a success! Pop the champagne: our hero has finally landed the desired job. A happy ending worthy of a superhero movie.

Key Takeaways

Trying to see if you have what it takes to be Spider-Man? My answer: yes, you are Spider-Man. Why? Because you fell a hundred times and got back up a hundred times. You faced difficult problems and solved them repeatedly. You learned not to give up and to fight to the end.

Who will pick up production after a junior drops it? Who will configure servers so clients can see results? Who will repaint that button red on the homepage if not you? Exactly — no one. You took responsibility for your employer, client, and yourself. That’s why you cannot fail at the next challenge; every project must be more complex, implementation simpler, algorithms shorter, and memory usage smaller.

Each of us is a Spider-Man who, despite challenges, handles them and learns to live with them. You’ve struggled a hundred times over a hundred years, yet you never think of quitting because the feeling of swinging on your web (solving a problem) is why you became a developer.