Climbing Park near Berlin
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About me 👩🏻💻
👋 Hey! Welcome to my page I am Irena Popova. A web developer and ambassador at Digital Career Institute. You can view my resume. I have managed to build some projects and while learning I was having fun as well. I went through a successful career change in 2016.
I am passionate about creating and building every day. Every line of code is a building block, and watching a product evolve as I add new features is incredibly rewarding. I see myself as a builder first — constantly learning, experimenting, and improving both my skills and the projects I work on.
Due to my strong desire to learn to code I used all the opportunities that I met down the road. Apart from my daily coding classes I attended JavaScript evening classes at ReDI School and Open Tech School Berlin.
Background & motivation
My academic background is rooted in Applied Linguistics (English/German) and Computational Linguistics, which trained me to think analytically about complex systems, formal structures, and abstraction. This foundation strongly influences how I approach software architecture, documentation, and technical communication.
My intensive transition into computer science began in 2016, when I taught Informatik at a German vocational school. Parallel to my teaching activities, I continuously expanded my technical skills through structured online programs and self-directed learning. Driven by intellectual curiosity, I moved steadily from frontend development toward full-stack engineering and DevOps practices.
What keeps me motivated? 🤔
There are a few reasons that keep me driven to code and does not allow me to give up. On the first place is creating something, constructing new things every day. Each line of code is a different building block. Watching the product evolve with each feature is exciting. In a way I feel like a builder not engineer. Learning new stuff and evolving, in a team learning from each other is inspiring. Coding actually involves endless learning. The process of self-improvement is very gratifying. Every day I feel a bit smarter than the day before. In comparison with a video game, I am gaining experience points every day, and levels with each new thing I learn. Making a work of Art also motivates me. Creating something new every day. Each line of code is a building block. Watching a product evolve is exciting.
Challenges I face also boost my motivation and I feel inspired from exploring a new territory. I feel like constantly thrown into the water, having to learn how to swim all over again. It can be difficult to face challenges so often, but it is also interesting. The bigger the challenge, the more interesting it is. And it is also very rewarding when I get over it. The continuous process of getting things done is also very motivating because as a developer I constantly build or fix stuff and make daily progress. The bigger the challenge, the more rewarding it is when I overcome it.
The idea to improve and further develop this blog came while organizing workshops as an Ambassador for the new students at Digital Career Institute - Berlin, Germany.
Aside from coding, I enjoy biking, hiking, camping, listening to music, beer and coffee of course are in the list. I also like strategy games and chess.
Philosophy
My coding philosophy & teaching
I have been fortunate to have been taught by many great teachers as a student, and to have co-taught with several outstanding teachers which helped me to further develop my skills in both fields - Applied Linguistics & Computer Science. Based on those experiences, there are certain characteristics I feel are essential of being successful and these include - Respectful, Empathetic, Knowledgeable, Humorous, Passionate, Motivational, Organized, Creative, Challenging, Curious. Since I believe strongly in the notion of pursuing your passion, I feel that one of my roles as a coach is to help students discover and pursue their passions.
Coding is the key to social mobility. There is no skill more important in the 21st century than coding. It’s the way the world operates, and those who know how to do it, will have the competitive edge.
Real coding education is a marathon, not a sprint. I have developed a curriculum to ensure students aren’t just introduced to the world of computer science but that they have the support and guidance to develop their coding skills with mentorship and personalized lessons.
Referrals
Tim Rohde
Senior Frontend Engineer - Deutsche Bank
Irena has great passion and endless energy to try new things. I admire Irena’s confidence in the coding world and I can only say that she is doing great and will become a even greater developer. She is independent and has a strong interest in learning and trying out new things.
Bastian Albers
Software Engineer - Civey & OpenTechSchool coach Berlin
Irena is passionate about writing code and solving problems through the development of creative and innovative software. She is friendly, easy to get along with, well-liked by our students. Irena’s energy is limitless and her enthusiasm serves to motivate everyone in our study group. She is able to thoroughly focus on every project and is not easily distracted. She comprehends instructions quickly and is flexible when changes have to be made in the original plan. She wishes to move to a company with more challenging assignments and room for career growth, and I support her in her quest to move up the career ladder.
Nora Schiming
SEO CodeDoor - Frankfurt, Germany
Irena is a CodeDoor alumna who finished three courses. She takes her work very seriously, is a fast learner and as careful as she is cautious about her work. She repeatedly runs checks on her projects before making them public to ensure there aren’t any hiccups. Irena has a creative mind to use to come up with alternatives while building a project and facing issues. Her quick thinking and cautious personality can help a company to avoid some costly and embarrassing mistakes. With the right guidance and further training, I have no doubt, Irena could excel fast at an upper level in a web development position. She is a valuable asset.
Russel Snyder
Software Engineer - Method Park
It was refreshing to meet Irena at a Hacktober event in Berlin! She was an inspiration and reminder that learning is an endless journey and that it is never too late to become a programmer. While working on some features for her open source portfolio projects, Irena showed great enthusiasm to learn software industry standards and frontend development in depth. I found Irena to be a natural communicator, quick learner and I believe she has potential to be a great developer. I recommend Irena to any group looking for a developer who can learn fast and grow with a team.
Eric Bolikowski
Senior Full-Stack Developer, React Trainer & CTO - Binary Lights Berlin, Germany
Irena was my student at ReDi School enrolled in the REACT course. She showed great interest, motivation & passion throughout the training. During the React course she showed creativity, motivation, sense of humour and eagerness to learn. She is very goal oriented as well as a team player and was always easygoing. Irena was keenly devoted to the project, but being a down-to-earth person, was also enjoyable to be around.
Krassimir Popov
DevOPS, Cloud Architect - FlixBus, Munich
Irena enjoys coding and she is regularly enrolled in classes to stay abreast of the newest developments in areas of programming where her interest lies. She is talented, creative, dependable and hard-working with solid problem-solving and tech skills. I strongly recommend her for any mid-level development position. With the right guidance and training, I have no doubt she will excel in upper-level dev positions.
Tim Rohde
Senior Frontend Engineer - Deutsche Bank
Irena has great passion and endless energy to try new things. I admire Irena’s confidence in the coding world and I can only say that she is doing great and will become a even greater developer. She is independent and has a strong interest in learning and trying out new things.
Bastian Albers
Software Engineer - Civey & OpenTechSchool coach Berlin
Irena is passionate about writing code and solving problems through the development of creative and innovative software. She is friendly, easy to get along with, well-liked by our students. Irena’s energy is limitless and her enthusiasm serves to motivate everyone in our study group. She is able to thoroughly focus on every project and is not easily distracted. She comprehends instructions quickly and is flexible when changes have to be made in the original plan. She wishes to move to a company with more challenging assignments and room for career growth, and I support her in her quest to move up the career ladder.
DevOps focus
I am passionate about building reliable, observable, and automated systems. Over the years, I have focused on containerized infrastructure, CI/CD pipelines, GitOps workflows with Flux and Helm, and monitoring with Prometheus, Grafana, and OpenSearch. I particularly enjoy designing scalable, reproducible platforms where every deployment is traceable, every metric is visible, and complex processes are simplified through automation. My most recent work centers on local GitOps-driven Kubernetes environments, combining infrastructure-as-code, observability, and reproducibility, enabling me to experiment with deployment strategies and DevOps best practices in a flexible, cloud-agnostic way.
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