Chris remembers how Sabio helped him work through a loss (and a birth) in the family one day apart
Chris was repairing laptops and smartphones. As an entrepreneur, he would occasionally do contract work as well. But he knew there was more out there for him. So after attending an info session at Sabio, he decided it would be a good idea to add coding to his repertoire and enrolled in the program.
A coding bootcamp can be tough, but when personal tragedy and family life events occur, they can bring your studies to a grinding halt without a good support system. Luckily, Sabio was exactly the kind of family-forward and understanding company that Chris needed for such a crisis. “My sister passed away while I was going to Sabio, but the next day I had a baby. It was the craziest thing in the world. And just like switching from JavaScript to C#, that was like, that period of time, sometimes I feel like that was probably the most difficult part of Sabio for me…You’re lucky to be in a position where you're at somewhere like Sabio where they care about you because I've completed other bootcamps, not coding, but I've done cybersecurity bootcamps where they wouldn't have helped like that.”
Gregorio and Liliana, the family-conscious motor of Sabio, were key figures in helping Chris stay in the program during these life events. But Chris stresses that the instructors were life lines as well. “If I had to start over again, what would I tell myself? I'll probably just tell myself to, you know, just push yourself just a little bit harder and just take advantage of the instructors while they're there. Because you won't always have that.”
After completing the program, Chris got on the job market. The job he ultimately landed actually reached out to him after he put his resume on hire.com. The job, which requires learning new languages, was nothing Chris couldn’t handle. Having a firm grasp of the fundamentals is essential as technology and coding languages evolve. Chris says, “With the skills that I got at Sabio, I'm super confident in being able to pick up the programming language and go.”
Chris is a confident guy in general so getting past the “experience question” was no issue for him. “I just explained to them like, hey, I picked up these languages like this. I know I could pick up that language and I just said it with no doubt in my mind, look ‘em straight in their face even if we're on Zoom and I just leave no doubt in their mind.” It might seem like a bold move to sell yourself the way Chris did but it’s actually well within reason given the foundation you get at Sabio.
The negotiation process was a little hairy. After initially offering a salary of $85,000, the hiring team circled back to Chris and said they could actually only offer $80,000. “So, you know, of course, the first thing I did was I hit up Liliana on Slack and I was like, you know, what should I do? And we kind of came to a solution. And it was basically to wait until the 90 day review. And if the 90 day review was good to add the extra $5,000 back on.” The suggestion worked and helped seal the deal. It’s proof of Sabio’s commitment to their alumni throughout the job hunt.
Enjoying the peace of mind of steady employment, Chris keeps tabs on his fellow Sabio alumni. And most of them are on the other side like him: “I don't think it's too many people that don't have jobs because like I remember last month, it was over half. It'll work, it'll work. Just have confidence and, you know, don't be scared of them people, man. You can do it. I got confidence in you.”
Chris was hired by:
Epsilon 