"I wrote the code but went silent in meetings. Today I talk to my London team in English every morning."

Grammar was not the problem

I did my first overseas interview in 2021. I knew the technical questions and the answers. They asked me to share code, and I did. Then the talking part came and within two minutes I had said "sorry, can you repeat?" for the third time.

It was not that I did not know; I could not explain. The gap between those two turned out to be the most expensive lesson of that day. When the call ended I stared at the screen for a while and made a decision: within a year I would speak comfortably in an English meeting.

First I turned to apps. Every one of them taught either grammar or vocabulary. I did not need grammar. I needed people to talk to.

It was not that I did not know; I could not explain. I learned the difference in an interview.

B1+ on paper, A2 out loud

On my first visit to Power Akademi the placement test put me at B1+. Grammar and reading were close to B2. Then the teacher chatted with me in English for five minutes and laid out the picture plainly: "The structure is here; speaking is stuck at A2."

Hearing that was a strange relief. For years I had said "my English is bad". It was not bad; it was unbalanced. The right diagnosis brought the right programme: the General English B2 group, and Speaking Club from the very first week.

What convinced me most was that the programme was written down. I knew what I would study each week and when I would be measured. For an engineer, that is far more persuasive than a promise.

"I'm not a developer, explain it to me"

I will not forget my first Speaking Club. The theme was "how do you explain something". I launched into microservice architecture. The native moderator smiled and said: "Lovely, but I'm not a developer. Explain it to me."

That day I realised the problem was not missing words. I had never tried to speak according to the person in front of me. Hiding behind technical vocabulary was easy; building a plain sentence was hard.

There was one rule: no Turkish at the table. In the first weeks I got stuck after three sentences. Towards the end of the third month something changed; I had stopped translating in my head. I do not know when it happened. One day I just noticed.

Hiding behind technical vocabulary was easy; building a plain sentence was hard.

Nobody stopped me when I made a mistake

I was in the B2 group three days a week. In the first months the Turkish teacher built the structure and the native teacher made us talk. That is where I understood what a small class means: at a table of eight you cannot hide at the back; you have to speak in every lesson.

What put me at ease was that they never cut me off mid-sentence. The sentence ended, and the correction came afterwards. That small detail keeps the flow going and keeps you talking. In a meeting nobody stops to correct you either; you have to keep going.

The evening group was critical for me. I worked during the day. After class I went home and wrote code, and came back the next day. For nine months I never broke that rhythm.

Mock interviews, real questions

After the sixth month I started using the one-to-one online sessions for my own work. The native teacher and I ran mock interviews. He would ask "what was the hardest decision in this project?", I would explain, and he would say "now say it in three sentences".

That is exactly what interview English is: not talking at length, but talking at the right length. The most common mistake an engineer makes is answering every question by drawing the architecture. The three-sentence discipline taught me that.

In the speaking exam at the end of the course, I answered the very question I had frozen on the first day, "why did you choose this approach", for four uninterrupted minutes. The teacher looked at his watch and said: "Okay, you're ready."

"Where did you learn your English?" — "In Erzurum."

At the end of 2022 I received an offer from a London-based company. Two interview rounds, both in English, both on camera. In the second one I noticed something: I had not said "sorry, can you repeat?" even once.

When the interview ended the team lead asked: "Where did you learn your English?" I said: "In Erzurum." He laughed and asked if I was serious. I was.

Today I join an English stand-up every morning. I write my code reviews in English. I authored the company's infrastructure documentation in two languages. English is no longer an exam; it is simply the language I work in.

In the second interview I did not say "sorry, can you repeat?" even once.

Knowing grammar is not speaking

If you can read and understand but cannot speak, you do not need more grammar; you need more speaking. Go to Speaking Club, talk nonsense, make mistakes. Nobody is keeping score. One day you will notice you are no longer translating in your head.

London is a coincidence. With the same English you can join a team in Berlin, Amsterdam or Toronto; for a remote developer the job is no longer in your city but anywhere in the world. The only condition is not going silent in the meeting.

If you are a developer wondering about the English interview process for jobs abroad, you can message me on LinkedIn. I answer questions as best I can, because I know a lot of people standing exactly where I started.