How I Built My Career Using Java (Case Study)

My name is Tanner Moses. Seven years ago, I was a junior developer at a small outsourcing company in England. My first project was supporting a legacy system in Java 8. At the time, I thought Java was an “old” language and dreamed of switching to something more fashionable. But it was working with Java that opened the door to the career I’m talking about now.
The first year was a struggle with “it works on my machine.” The code would run in the IDE but crash on the server. That’s when I started learning Gradle, Maven, Docker, and how to properly configure environments. It made me realize that a good developer is not just someone who writes clean code, but also someone who can deliver it.

Two years later, I moved to a product company, where I worked on a high-volume payment service. There, I first encountered multithreading, reactive programming, and the need to optimize every millisecond. We reduced the API response time from 800 ms to 120 ms thanks to the correct use of virtual threads and caching.
Three years later, I became a lead engineer in a team of 12 developers. My main role was to build CI/CD pipelines that allowed us to release updates several times a day without risks. It was then that I realized: Java is not an “old” language — it is stable, scalable, and constantly evolving.

Today, I am a DevOps & CI/CD specialist, working on large enterprise projects and simultaneously creating educational materials for Bytecodejic. The courses we create are exactly the path I took myself: from the first Hello World to understanding how to deliver code to production without stress.
In short: Java gave me stability, the opportunity to work on serious systems, and confidence in the future. If you are at the beginning of the path now — do not rush to give up. Go step by step — and you will see how many doors will open.