"It's important to be proactive and not afraid to reach out to people directly," says Kilychbek Kurbanov about starting his career in IT

Kilichbek Kurbanov, city — Tashkent, co-founder, CEO of Paylov, Instagram

About myself

I graduated from the Business and Financial Management faculty at MDIS in Tashkent. This education gave me a solid foundation in understanding business, finance, and management processes.

My interest in IT began back in school when I created my first website. However, programming was never my main passion. For me, it has always been more important to use technology to create new value for people. Today, I work on my project Paylov, which combines payment services, ML-based scoring models, and BNPL tools, helping people and businesses solve financial tasks more easily and conveniently.

About my first job in IT

I started my career at one of the largest outsourcing companies in Tashkent — United IT Company. This was an excellent start for me, as I had the opportunity to work on real projects and study the industry from the inside.

I was 19 years old when I began my career. I worked as a QA Engineer. My responsibilities included testing various projects, checking their functionality, finding and documenting bugs, and interacting with developers to resolve them. This job helped me understand the importance of quality and attention to detail in IT.

I found the company through X, where I followed one of the best mentors and investors from Uzbekistan. One day, I simply wrote to him asking to join his team. By the next week, I had started working at his company. This was a unique experience that showed me how important it is to be proactive and not be afraid to reach out to people directly.

The interview consisted of two key stages: an in-depth discussion of my future plans and a technical part. In the first part, I was asked about my vision for development in IT, my goals, and motivation. The technical part included questions related to testing, QA methodologies, and the tools I had used.

Undoubtedly, my education in business and finance greatly helped in understanding company structures. Also, my sociability and desire to learn proved important for successful employment.

Challenges

The main difficulty was the lack of experience. However, the internship became an excellent opportunity to overcome this barrier.

Yes, I had experience with rejections. But I believe that working or getting employed in an IT company is often overrated. If you have a great idea and a team of like-minded people, you can always start your own business. This approach helped me stay motivated: instead of dwelling on rejections, I focused on developing my ideas and finding opportunities to implement them.

The main challenge was balancing work and studies. I learned to plan my time to handle both tasks.

The main difficulty is the lack of experience and knowledge valued in the market. Therefore, it is important to be ready to learn and gain experience even through internships.

3 tips to help you find a job in IT

1. Start with small projects: work on pet projects or create simple but valuable features. This will help you gain experience, build a portfolio, and better understand how to apply your skills in practice.
   
2. Constantly improve your skills: learn new things, develop in your field, and always strive to become better. Attend courses, study current technologies, and apply them in your projects.
   
3. Networking: meet professionals in your field, participate in conferences and hackathons, find like-minded people. Sometimes good opportunities come through connections rather than standard employment methods.