Collin S. - From Sabio Grad to Software Engineer at Aviron Software

Collin:

This program is not just teaching you languages. It's showing you the mentality and the person that you need to be in the software engineering world to be successful.

I initially began researching the VET TEC preferred programs and Sabio was at the top of the list as one of the preferred program providers for VET TEC. Sabio's languages are definitely the languages that are just in-demand today. I mean, the company that I'm with now, they were like, “You're a unicorn. The fact that you have .NET training, that you work with SQL databases and React,” he said, "We don't find anybody else like you. I'm just thinking to myself – has nobody else from our bootcamp applied to you yet? 

Q: What was the job search process like for you?

Collin:

I applied well over a thousand jobs before this whole process was done. What Sabio will do is they'll give you a spreadsheet, a blank template type of spreadsheet, and I listed every single job that I applied to. But for the ones I got back and said, Hey, we want to schedule interviews, I would write notes next to it and say, Hey, you know, scheduling for such and such time. This is the name of the point of contact that scheduled me, this is the day. You have to put in just a certain percentage of job applications in order to get a certain percentage of callbacks from the recruiters. 

Q: What kept you motivated?

Collin:

It's really important that if you're going to change your life by going through a bootcamp that you have that, you know, that mental fortitude that says, I'm all in on this, I'm going to do this process knowing that it works until it's done. And I just have to make it my full time job to find a job because I'm dedicated to this process.

Q: What was the salary negotiation process like?

Collin:

The first job tried to offer me 100,000 pesos a month, which in the Philippines is great money, but in the United States it's garbage. That's like $1,700 a month. So I went to the next employer. I said, Hey, actually I have an offer in hand right now, but I'm not going to take it because I don't really like it. I was like, But if you can offer me over 80, I'll be interested. And remember, my first offer was the equivalent of like $25,000 a year. So when I said, If you're going to offer me over 80, I wasn't telling them that my first employee offer was 80k, I was just telling them that was my interest. And they took it as, Hey, the first offer was 80k.

Q: Where do you work and how is it working remotely?

Collin:

I'm working from a small town in the Philippines called Alicia Bohol. And you know, I find I'm just so thankful I live right next to the cell tower because like all it takes is driving down the road about 5 minutes and you got like no cell service, which is how I even connect to the Internet and how I even run my service. The entire time I was in Sabio, I ran my entire Internet off of this little mobile router right here. 

Q: What’s your job now and what’s a day-in-the-life like?

Collin:

I am working at a wonderful company called Aviron Software and I am a full stack engineer. My stand ups are twice a week. I stand up on Mondays and Thursdays. Sabio is doing the exact same things as my employer is doing. The work that you're doing right now is real world practice for exactly what high tech software companies are doing out in the real world. 

Q: How do you keep your skills up-to-date?

Collin:

Software engineering in general is definitely a learning sport. It's a contact sport. I can't thank Gregorio for the advice that he's given over the last few months enough. I can't thank him enough. You know, he said that coding is a contact sport and if you're going to learn coding, you've just gotta put your hands on the keyboard and you've just got to work through the issues that you come up with. Don't give up on the work that you're doing. You know, learn something from it and make it work. And if you're willing to follow the spirit of this program and those directions, as well as the language directions they give you, you'll be successful.