Let's get to know the Force Academy training program - an interview with Kamil Gadawski

What prompted you to participate in the Force Academy program?

The Force Academy program offers the opportunity to develop as a consultant - programmer. It was this characteristic of the position that attracted my attention. Salesforce technology is already used in a large number of companies, resulting in a multitude of interesting and out-of-the-box solutions. The variety of industries that use Salesforce made me want to join the Force Academy program.

Did you already have knowledge of the IT industry before participating in the program? If so, where did you get your work experience?

Yes, I have already worked in IT-related companies. My first job was selling Internet services. The company was a provider of hosting, domains, dealt with the creation of websites and everything related to e-commerce services. Curiosity about how they work, the services offered, made me start creating simple applications myself after hours. At that moment I already knew that I wanted to get into programming. After less than a year, I ended up at a company where I was an implementer of proprietary programs for courts and prosecutors' offices. This position allowed me to learn how software is produced. Already having a basic knowledge of programming, I made minor adjustments to programs on my own. Thanks to this, I learned what a programmer's work looks like and what he has to deal with when implementing a solution. After three years of such work, I made the decision to apply to take part in Force Academy training. This courageous step made me like my current job very much.

What did you learn from the program?

In the program we learn a great deal about technical solutions, technology and software that indirectly relates to the position for which we are being prepared. The training also helps in the development of the English language, because all the documentation, a large number of meetings - is in this language. Another thing I learned is how to make decisions about the implementation of solutions. We decide how something should be done, and it helps in the project at the client's place to decide which solution to choose, what is better and what is not.

What did the different stages of the program look like? 

Each stage of training familiarizes us with the frameworks that are used in Salesforce technology. This approach prepares us to work on different projects. We do all this on a test application, which we develop throughout the training process. Thanks to such activities, the knowledge we gain is grounded and we develop good practices for working with code from the very beginning. This is important because in each project there are established clear and transparent procedures by which we work.

Why did you decide to tie your career to Salesforce technology?

Salesforce technology caught my attention because we are not closed only to the backend or frontend. We implement solutions directly for the end user and also all the logic that is already invisible to the user. The APEX programming language, because that's what we write applications in, has a lot of common solutions that we find in C#, a language I already knew. The flexibility of the position is what I was looking for the most. The variety of tasks we have on a daily basis prevents us from falling into monotony.

To whom would you recommend Force Academy?

Force Academy is a program aimed at people who want to acquire a large amount of knowledge in a short period of time. They are determined to solve problems and to ask how to solve such problems. The training requires a very large amount of work, learning a very large amount of new knowledge. I can see from my own example that nowhere have I learned so much as in the training and in the subsequent work already in the real project. It was a very intense time in my career, but in retrospect the effort put into completing the training paid off.