Developer's Life Three Year after the Boot Camp

Jihyeon is from South Korea. She moved to Europe to pursue her Master's but ended up discouraged as she couldn't find a job. She saw a bootcamp ad and talked to her friend already working in the tech industry and that's how she ended up becoming a Technigo student in 2020. This is an interview with Jihyeon in 2023 when has been working as a developer for almost three years now.

Tell us a bit about yourself. What makes you you?

I grew up in Incheon, South Korea. I was a kid who was always good at school but I didn’t really know what I wanted to do when I grew up. My mom, however, was determined that I should become a high school teacher because it was considered a safe and stable career for women. Being a good student, I chose my major in university according to my mom’s plan. As I neared the end of my university education, however, I realised I didn’t want to become a high school teacher. I still didn’t know what I wanted to do, so I chose to study something else, away from home and the life path that had already been drawn out for me. I filled out some applications to master’s programs in Europe, instead of continuing down the path as a school teacher in South Korea. That decision to deviate from the prescribed ‘safe’ path for me has been a defining moment for me as a person.

What did you do before you learnt coding?

I did my master’s in Sustainable Urban Planning and Design at KTH. Studying a subject that I chose for myself was exciting and empowering. However, it didn’t lead to a job opportunity. I sent out so many job applications and letters, and yet, it seemed impossible to get an interview, and I started to feel discouraged.

I was out of school and needed to support myself and get on my own feet. I took a job - jobs, really - that was available. I washed hair and towels at a hair salon, waited tables and washed dishes at restaurants, prepared sandwiches, and served coffee at a cafe. Then I got laid off from the cafe where I was working because I wasn’t a good fit. It didn’t feel like I was doing what I want to do with my life and my self-esteem was hitting low. Around that time I saw an ad on the subway, something about learning how to code in a few months and getting hired as a developer.

Why did you choose to study the Technigo Web Development Boot Camp?

When I saw the ad about a coding Boot Camp on the subway, I got intrigued. It made me slightly hopeful about the possibility of changing careers. But I was also feeling doubtful, after some years of not getting a job interview with a master’s degree. While I did some research about available coding Boot Camps, I also asked around if anyone knew someone who worked with ‘computers’. I wanted to talk to an actual person who worked as a software developer and verify my hopes and doubts. Luckily, a friend knew someone who worked with ‘computers’. We met for a chat, and she shared her experience as a software developer. It confirmed some of my hopes and doubts, but most importantly, I was convinced that I needed to try it out for myself to see if it could be something that I wanted to do. A few days later, I applied to Technigo, and that was that.

How did you find motivation for intensive learning?

I loved that the Boot Camp was intensive. After seven years of university education, I wanted to learn something that I could apply directly, and learning how to code was perfect in that sense. I loved that we were bombarded with new concepts each week that we could apply directly to projects. However, that didn't mean it came easily to me. I was confused most of the time and often felt behind the others. The familiar sense of doubt and desperation told me that I wouldn't make it and that this would be just another waste of time. But I watched the course videos repeatedly until they made sense to me, and I repeated the recorded code-along sessions and wrote the code snippets that I didn't fully understand. I also started to ask questions in code-along sessions. They weren't very advanced questions, but the act of asking them in the company of other people kept me engaged and helped me not to give up. It was definitely a high to be in that state of intensive learning.

How did you get a job after the Boot Camp?

I continued to keep in touch with the person who initially introduced me to the world of work as a developer, and we developed a mentorship-like relationship. I kept her updated on my progress, and she was curious to hear how things were going, encouraging me every step of the way. When I told her I had completed the Boot Camp and was seeking job opportunities, she recommended a place that she thought might be a good fit for me, and advised me to contact them, even if they weren't actively recruiting. Despite my self-doubt, I followed her advice, introducing myself to the CEO of the company via email and expressing my interest in working for them. A few weeks later, I was invited for a fika, which was the first interview in the recruitment process. After the interview, I was given a tech test assignment and invited for a tech interview. After several mental breakdowns and rehearsals with my mentor, I completed the tech interview and received a job offer a few days later.

What is your current role?

I work as a developer at a software consulting agency with around 40 employees across various offices. The majority of us are developers, and we don’t have a clear division of frontend and backend roles. Instead, every developer is expected to deep dive into the tech stack in each project. My first assignment was maintaining a legacy web app in Ruby on Rails. Although I wasn't well-versed in Ruby or full-stack after the Boot Camp, the team and project provided me with the support and environment to learn the required skills. After working on my first assignment for about a year, I took on a co-tech lead role and served as a scrum master for the project. In my current assignment, I'm working in a team of five developers and one designer, developing the frontend part of a mobile app in Flutter.

Describe a day at work!

We have a company-wide stand-up at 9.30 in the morning. Then, we split into project teams and have a more traditional stand-up, where you usually walk the board with your team and talk about the progress of the story that each teammate is working on. After the team stand-up, you would go about your daily tasks. Maybe you will start with a code review of a pull request that your teammate has opened. Or you will give it another try at hunting down that pesky bug that has been plaguing your dreams for days. You might also have a meeting with the product owner and designer to groom the product backlog. And if you're lucky, you might go for lunch with your work bestie and discuss whether AI will take over our jobs or not! 😜

Prejudices you had that may no longer be true when changed to developer?

Before working as a developer, I thought one needed to have mastered and perfected the programming language or any tech stack that they would use in advance of the work. And I assumed that you would gain that knowledge and those skills from a computer science degree, that you would have fully learned and be equipped with what’s required to work as a developer. Since I started working as a developer, I understand more and more that what we are essentially doing as developers is being in that constant state of not fully knowing everything and learning new things continuously. Even if you had a degree in computer science, you would be obsolete as a developer if you stop learning new things. In my daily work, I encounter things that I don’t know. A bug that I don’t know how to solve yet, a feature that I don’t know the best way to implement, and a programming language that I’m not fluent in. But that’s okay. I know that I will learn by doing, get more comfortable with it, get the hang of it, have fun with it while I’m at it, and repeat the whole thing again. That’s also the beauty of the work of a software developer.

What would you advise someone considering changing careers?

I would recommend speaking with people who are currently working in the industry you're considering switching to. However, ultimately, you need to try it out for yourself to see if it’s something that you want to do.