Casey's Sabio Success Story

From chemistry major to UI Designer, Casey shares his success story after graduating Sabio Coding Bootcamp

From chemistry major to UI Designer, Casey shares his success story after graduating Sabio Coding Bootcamp

Being able to code is just an amazing feeling once you really can do whatever you want to do. I mean you can build something out of nothing, it's just a really incredible skill to have. My name is Casey Spinner, I studied chemistry at UC Santa Barbara. Around my Junior/Senior year I realized that it was not for me. After I graduated, after a lot of research, I found Sabio. I did a bunch of research, I was looking at results and reading testimonies of people, but Sabio just really seemed like the best option. And it really just seemed like it was the place to be and I went to an info session and then I went all in and signed up. Once the full program started, it was a full time job. The curriculum is excellent, not just that but they really just teach you how to learn because that's going to be extremely important moving forward. You may have other engineers in your job that you work with afterwards that you can ask questions, but you may not. You may be the principal engineer at a startup and may not have anyone to ask questions. They really give you tool that you need there.

They put you with a team, your cohort. We all learned to work together really well and that's really important too. The main program, we had our instructor, mine his name was John Lee. Great guy, super super knowledgeable, really just set me up for success. One of the really unique things about Sabio is that you get pretty much actual startup experience working on a real project. Also sets up your resume to be definitely the best it could possibly be. They help with that process as well, they help with the resume, they really get you set up to have a professional person who goes through everyone's resume and sets it up really nicely and gives you feedback, and you give one another and your cohort feedback. Someone had an interview and sometimes they would let some of us listen in on it, just to see what was going on. That was just an amazing resource and just so much support.

Gregorio and Liliana are amazing and they really care and you can always come to them, I've come to them after Sabio with questions and just for advice, sometimes just to find them to vent about something. You are part of a community forever, there are a lot of alumni there that you can ask questions and people share job opportunities, things at their company, that is just an unbelievably good resource. A good thing that they tell you is by the end you can meet with your instructor and they can give you a number, usually how much they think that you can reasonably ask for as far as salary goes. I even push mine a little bit higher, I was just persistent, it wasn't easy, I applied to so many jobs, all it takes is one good response.

From there it was great. It was actually my first in person interview that I had. My best buddy in the cohort, his name is Matt, his story is actually pretty amazing, he was a bit older than me, I think he started, he was like thirty or thirty one, I don't think he finished his college degree, was working a job he really didn't like, started Sabio he had zero coding experience, he now works at Tesla. Started as a general engineer position, he moved up to a senior engineer and now he is the lead engineer of his team. After Sabio, I worked on Call of Duty Modern Warfare and Warzone, I worked a little bit on Cold War, now I'm working on the new Call of Duty game coming out. But that's just part of it, learning to adapt and to continue to learn, I'm really happy with my position that I'm doing now. At Activision my current title is Technical UI Designer, at my last job it was full stack engineer. I really do a lot of the same stuff, it's kind of a different title. I'm sure that you know I'll move up. They give you opportunities to move around if you want to. For now I definitely, I really enjoy what I'm doing.

Sabio really gave me a lot of confidence that you can do what you want to do if you put your mind to it, put in the effort and be persistent. I don't think that I would have been able to do any of this without Sabio. there are a lot of online resources and stuff but nothing really gives you all the structure and the resources that Sabio gives you. It's really daunting, looking at everything as a whole, there's so many different parts but having that structure and being able to have instructors and other people in your cohorts talk to just really invaluable. I'm definitely making more than most of my friends if I had done chemistry, it would have been for years hunched over a lab bench and making nothing considerable. Quality of life, I feel like I really lucked out, I'm so happy now. I have more freedom to do what I want to do, financial freedom. Being able to code is just an amazing feeling, once you really can do whatever you want to do. I mean you can build something out of nothing, it's just a really incredible skill to have. Can be a big leap especially if you're someone who has a job, you have to quit your job to essentially start a new full time job. The prospect of that is terrifying, it's worth it and you have to take risks in life if you want to succeed, that's a fact. Best decision I ever made, hands down.