Andrew S. Alumni Spotlight

ANDREW:

Sabio was one of the only places that I could attend from here in Florida using the VA benefits. And here in Florida, there aren’t any genuine coding bootcamps. I feel like the education I got from Sabio was far better than what I could expect to get from one of these places. 

Before I joined Sabio, I was working as a pizza delivery guy. I was in college here in town. I wasn't happy with the education I was getting to learn to write software. Everything that I was learning there, it was either like handwriting or I was thinking of the theories behind things. The only time I would write code is when I would bring my laptop to class and then I would get on Code Academy and type away.

Q: Did you do the 14- or 17-week program?

ANDREW:

I ended up starting in January with Cohort 114 and before that I had done a lot of the pre work. It was a lot harder to do it on my own and I was very grateful to have the instructors help guide us through that once we actually did start the course. But yeah, definitely glad I went there route of the 17-week. I had a lot of imposter syndrome coming through Sabio, but that kind of faded on the other end. 

Q: What was your biggest challenge at Sabio?

ANDREW:

I would say honestly, the biggest struggle I had was at the end, while we were working on the project. I had some personal issues come up and during that time I was freaking out. I had no idea what to do. I genuinely thought I was going to have to leave the cohort there at the end. I know that Sabio and the instructors, they preach, if anything happens, come to us. We're here to take care of you, blah, blah, blah. And I always just heard that and was like, Oh, yeah, they're supposed to say, Yeah, whatever. But then when it actually happened to me and I had to reach out to Liliana it was such a breath of fresh air, how quick they were to be accepting of the issues. And she told me to take a day, breathe, we'll get back to it tomorrow. And that's what we did. 

Q: What was the job search process like?

ANDREW:

I got beat up, tossed around, and thrown to trash during the recruiting process. It was rough. I definitely put out over a thousand, well over a thousand applications, and I had only a little bit more than a handful of interviews.

I remember the week that I had the interview from my job. I actually gave up searching. I quit, so I gave up. And then the next day I woke up and I told myself, I'm going to put in a couple more interviews later today. If I don't get anything by the end of the week I'll start applying to regular pizza jobs again or something. That next day I had gotten the call from them. They did that second interview and then 30 minutes after that call, they called me back and was like, Hey, can you speak to the owner? We want to get you in on the third interview. And I was like, okay, cool. So I went to the third interview that day, and then 30 minutes after that, the IT director called me and offered me my job. So, yes, right after things got as bad as they could, it got better. I will say I did get lucky, though, in my position. If you quit, you don't continue. Right? I had to wake up that next morning and be like, okay, I got to try a little bit more. And that's when I got the call. 

Q: How do you feel at your current job?

ANDREW:

So being in the position has been also the imposter syndrome. One of the parts that I'm most thankful for Sabio about is just the fact that my position I'm not I'm not a junior dev, I'm not a SQL developer or something like that. I'm the senior developer and the app owner for this company. I actually got a really good position, they’re not paying me enough, but my resume is going to look great this time next year.

Q: What’s your advice for those going through Sabio?

ANDREW:

My advice would just be -- you had a reason for starting. There was a reason why you wanted to be here. There was a reason why you wanted to do something better. Focus on that. Don't lose sight of that. And don't let all of these other things that are going to come in the way make you lose sight of that. Grass is greener over here. I'm enjoying it. It’s way better than being a pizza man.