From Coding Bootcamp to Career: The Power of Being Coachable
“They wanted someone at the junior level”: How being coachable can be a plus.
David toyed around with the idea of a coding bootcamp. He found out about Sabio in 2020, did some pre-work, but didn’t pull the trigger until August of 2022. But when he did, he fully committed and landed a job with full benefits by the start of the new year.
At Sabio, David found the camaraderie he enjoyed in the military. “I mean, you're all going through the same thing. So might as well kind of, you know, go through it together.” He and others in his cohort would work through problems together, staying on video calls for hours at a time. Embracing that social aspect along with good old-fashioned diligence are sure-fire ways to come out on the other end of Sabio with flying colors. “Don't take a break. Don’t basically kind of put it to the side, continue learning, and you'll basically get a good role at a good company.”
But he took that disciplined and meticulous approach with him into the job search process. He would record his phone interviews, listen back to them, and take notes, constantly looking at ways he could improve. “So as I was basically finished with the interview, I would write down notes on questions that I didn't know and kind of look up the answer for that way. If I did come across that particular question in the future, I would know how to react and how to answer that question specifically.”
When it came to choosing a company, he wanted a place where there was growth and stability. With the recent tech layoffs, David reminds students that virtually every job has a software development aspect. Whether its consumer goods, retail, or the financial sector, you have plenty of choices. “You just got to basically find good companies that, you know, have a strong background, strong history, that they're self-sustainable, and that basically will, you know, take care of their employees.”
The employer that eventually hired him, a fully remote job that offers a 401k, full medical and dental, and the possibility of tuition reimbursement (a perk David plans to take advantage of when he pursues his masters degree), didn’t want a season tech worker. They wanted someone at the junior level, someone malleable, and able to grow with the company. “They're like, they want someone that’s going to be compatible with the team, able to learn and can be coachable.”
The work he’s doing now is not much different than what he did at Sabio. “We basically use Visual Studio for everything and we have the Microsoft SQL Server, but Visual Studio, we have all the code in there. It's basically kind of the same we've been working at Sabio.”
So if David could go back and do it again, with the positive career change now under his belt, he might only ask himself: why didn’t I do it sooner?
David was hired by:
U-Haul 