Life Abroad: How Sabio Helped Thomas Land a Remote Tech Job
“Sabio does a great job of preparing you for the workforce. I kind of feel over prepared to be honest.”
S: Thomas, we are so thrilled with your story and success. We know that being able to work remotely was always of huge importance for you, can you tell us a bit more of what lead you to choose Sabio to help you find that?
T: Sure thing, I actually had been thinking about doing a coding bootcamp for a little bit, but my personality is inherently skeptical of everything. I went to an info session for another coding bootcamp in 2019 and really didn’t like it, so instead I chose to work with this Washington State hiring initiative called, ‘Yes Vets.’ Then, of course, covid came. After being laid-off, I decided to go abroad to Turkey and teach there, but then that ended up fizzling out. So I was still in Turkey, the pandemic was still going on, and I thought, now is the time to do this. I ended up choosing Sabio and Gregorio Rojas (Sabio’s co-founder & CTO,) was instrumental in helping me adjust everything so my life would be as ideal as possible to start.
S: Wow, doing the bootcamp with that time difference must have been interesting. What would you say were your biggest challenges?
T: Well, you hit the nail on the head there. The biggest challenge was doing Sabio from 7PM to 7AM, but I actually was able to adjust to it. I ended up doing it from 7PM to 4AM, get some sleep, then start three hours earlier. It actually turned out to be beneficial because my brain was so fried and limited in what it could process, I couldn’t really think about anything else except coding. It’s funny how it ended up being a bonus.
S: Love that! So now that you’re in the tech workforce, can you tell us a bit about your job search process?
T: Absolutely, one thing that was really helpful was Sabio’s Motivational Monday’s. I’m such a pessimist, but I have to say, they are actually motivational, so I highly recommend those.
At first when I was looking for work, I was trying to find a Turkish job that I could be globally remote in, but there weren’t enough jobs over there that paid well. Funny enough, I ended up getting my job through a Sabio alumnus, shoutout to Axel! I was telling him about how my search overseas wasn’t going well and he just went, ‘I referred you to my company, go apply.’Thirty minutes later a recruiter called me, two days later I had an interview. Two days after that I got a call from an internal recruiter saying, “Hey, I’m sorry the system is down so you can’t access your job offer.” And I was like, “This is the first time I’m hearing about this.” He said “Welcome aboard!” and now, here I am. I’m really glad I took this job. It’s at United Health Group, globally remote, and I can get some good experience here then do something more. It’s like Brijesh Patel (Sabio instructor) said, you want to get started on having experience as a developer, not something that you’re already doing.
S: Congrats! Could you elaborate a bit more about what lead you to take this specific position?
T: Yeah, I mean I won’t pretend it was easy to get here. When I was first interviewing, I was asking for $80-$90k, and I wasn’t having great results, so I convinced myself I was asking for too much. Turns out, it was a totally fine amount. These companies aren’t hiring a bargain bin developer, they’re hiring a real developer. I ended up getting $80k, fully remote, performance bonuses, lots of PTO, raises, great health insurance.
S: How would you say that Sabio helped prepare you for the role you're in currently?
T: I can’t stress this enough, Sabio does a great job of preparing you for the workforce. I kind of feel over prepared to be honest. Sabio goes at this breakneck speed and you can’t help but think that it’ll always be like this. I kind of miss Sabio and those all-nighters. You’re just coding and getting stuff done and learning. Now at work it’s more of a refined focus. There’s always going to be imposter syndrome, but that's okay, because everyone has it. One weird obstacle is a lot of companies assume that if you went to a bootcamp you just worked on one isolated application. But at Sabio, you get that experience of working with a team, remotely, on a real-world project. That experience is fantastic for your resume, and the more you talk about that, the more likely you’re going to get hired.
S: That’s so nice to hear. Any last pieces of advice for our readers?
T: If I had to go back and tell myself one thing, I’d probably say, don’t worry and don’t over do it. Push yourself, yes, but you should also go as slow as you need to. Take an hour, take two hours, it’ll all eventually come together if you keep working at it. Also, during the job search I would recommend being okay with being yourself during interviews. You don’t want to say things you think they want to hear and you definitely don’t want to restate what’s on your resume. It’s okay to show who you are, what your interests are because you want to stand out. There’s only one of you.
Thomas was hired by:
naviHealth 