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"I am the first blind developer in my company." Part 1

What I do not see became clear in the first months after birth. No matter how many parents tried, their vision could not be restored. From the age of four, I learned to read and write in Braille.

I was incredibly lucky with the people around. I had good teachers, there was a music school where I normally talked with ordinary guys. Thanks to this, I realized that cooking only in a blind environment is not the best way for development. He began to go the other way, and eventually realized his dream.



For six months now I have been working as a real software engineer. In the most ordinary team. Still can not believe it)

How I started programming


He met a computer, like everyone else, in childhood. My cousin had a machine of not very clear origin - programs for her were downloaded and unloaded using ordinary audio cassettes. I learned to “program” melodies on it, using the functions of outputting sound to the system speaker.

The talking computer impressed me: it was a small but a step towards a fantastic future that I read about in books.


And the real acquaintance with the amazing world of IT began with IBM-286 and MS-DOS. As a speech output, I used a separate large super speaker with an additional mechanical keyboard.

Studying programming in childhood was unsystematic:

  • Like many in the 90s, he started in basic. They tried to teach me, like everyone else, to program simple graphic tasks on it - but I did not see the result, and it quickly got bored.
  • Then there was an attempt to attend the optional programming in C, but the matter somehow did not go: either the time was inconvenient, or the motivation was not enough. But the fact remains - from there I did not get out anything but the concept of the printf function and line formatting.

I returned to experimenting with sounds and numbers ... It took quite a few years, Windows replaced DOS, and then I heard about the web.

HTML fell into my hands - for the blind, this is one of the most convenient formats.


With great zeal, I began to teach him. But then childhood ended ...

It's time to decide where to go. And I deliberately did not choose the development


I had three hobbies: programming, foreign languages ​​(I studied French from 10 years old) and music. I was far from a virtuoso, and considered a musical career futile. You could go to an IT specialty either in a special group for the blind (which I categorically did not want), or in a regular group on the same mechmat. But in order to "drag" the mechmath, one had to go there with someone sighted, who would constantly help at lectures and after. It was not very real.

Therefore, I thought: I’ll go into natural languages, and having learned to study, I will quietly shift towards IT. And he entered the linguist. By the way, the diploma was written on a mixed subject — a small Russian-English-French dictionary on the topic of information technology.

How to learn to program systemically


It all started when I met my wife: she has a mehmat behind her. We sat on one forum, and the forum had a chat. It was on frames: each frame was updated every few seconds, while the page completely reloaded ... I stood in this chat for a maximum of 15 seconds, then the focus of attention was lost, and patience was bursting.

The future spouse describes the situation as follows: “I thought: such an interesting guy, only here he writes on the forum, but does not enter the chat.” I decided to figure out why.

And when she found out, she undertook to write a normal text chat for the blind. I became her “experimental”.


Well, then we got married. My wife, who worked as a desktop software architect, decided to go into web development. Together we began to study the issue. More precisely, it was my wife who studied the web, and with her help I studied normal programming in general: algorithms, architectural thinking, relational databases ...

We wrote pet projects, where I mainly did the backend. We started with PHP 4.4, then moved on to the top five. Then I also learned Go and Python. But at work I write mainly in PHP - of course, already the seventh.

How I found a job in IT


We started making money on the web with freelance: we made all sorts of sites. Then the wife found a stable job.

I was looking for work in IT. Hopelessly, desperately looking.


I liked one company that developed software and hardware for the blind and visually impaired. And the blind party, excuse me for comparison, is a niche one, like an IT one. More precisely, everyone knows everyone here. I understood what the guys from that company were doing, I knew their boss a little. And now, nine years ago, on December 31, after a couple of glasses of champagne, I just took it and wrote him a letter ... After a couple of months I already had my first project.

I was a localization manager, tested and conducted site accessibility audits for the blind and visually impaired, wrote technical tasks and translated documentation. At the same time, he continued to write code: over time, he even began to contribute to open source.

And after 8 years, I decided to completely go into programming. And move to Europe.


We sketched resumes and motivation letters. I sent them more than 100 pieces - honestly, I didn’t count further. He wrote in German, French, Italian and even Cypriot companies. There was everything: tests and three or four levels of interviews. And a lot of failures.

To be continued ...


This story began on April 25th when we held a virtual mitap. During the online broadcast, Andrei wrote to usmenelion_elensulePolycanin - this is his story you just read. Here is what he wrote then:

Hello everybody! There is such a category of people (we are few, but we are) who are glad that now mitaps are held online. This category is people with disabilities. Personally, I have no vision. I work as a software engineer, I’m interested in attending such events, and driving is not always possible.

It turned out that Andrei was not only a man-who-not-dropped-his-hands. For example, he is the author of a Twitter client for the blind. He also won the competition with ordinary guys and today works in one of the InterNations social network development teams in Munich. We asked him to tell and show how his day and processes as a developer work - and how a person with a disability can join the usual product development.

Connect May 30 to listen to the sequel. Andrey's report will begin at 12 Moscow / Kiev / Minsk. And in the summer, we hope, we will publish the second part of the story: about interviews, refusals, tests and relocation with the family to a new country.

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