How an investment banker became a web developer thru programming boot camp
Motivation
Some people might struggle to find a career path in this rapid changing world. And some might want to change themselves.
I made this post to share my experience about how I became a web developer.
To put it simply, I went to a programming boot camp.
From an investment banker to a web developer
I was an investment banker in Japan. Now I work for startup in Japan (It’s named “for Startups, Inc.” ). The company did IPO the other day, by the way.
https://startup-db.com/en/companies/4680/forstartups
When I was a banker, I felt it interesting. But as time goes on, I came to think that getting into a startup would be a better choice for me to make the world better. And I wanted to be a man to contribute for that.
So I went to programming boot camp, hoping that it would change my life.
And that did change my life entirely.
What was that like? How good was that?
Here’s some detail.
How an ordinary day goes
8:45 Good morning to everyone 😁
They rent a co-working space (Impact HUB Tokyo) for the boot camp. Say morning to people there, take whichever seat you want, plug your charger, open Slack, drip a cup of coffee or grab one on your way.
And make yourself ready for the day.
9:00 Lecture for today 😎
Everyday we had 90min-long great lectures. Teachers were from all over the world.
10:30 Start solving challenges 🔥
After the lecture finishes, we start coding to solve our challenges given to us for the day.
- When I think it’s done, I run the given test command. If it passes, go on to the next one. If not, figure out what’s wrong.
- We make pair everyday (and it changes everyday) and we are encouraged to teach each other as if it were pair-programming
12:00 Lunch 🥘
- There is no rule when to have lunch, so everyone had lunch or grabbed bento when they want.
- Thankfully, the area boot camp is located have many good food stands, I really enjoyed lunch time. But most of the time I bought bentos.
13:00 Coding ☕️
Back to coding.
- We solved challenges having conversations and check solutions with each other.
- Several mentors helped us a lot (but we have to make an asking ticket for that).
16:00 Yoga (every Wednesday) 🏃
It’s often that we focus too much on programming and remain seated more than several hours without taking breaks. So it’s really great to have exercises to refresh our brain.
- We walked to park and put yoga mats
- Then have exercise for an hour.
I loved it.
17:00 Mob programming 👨👩👦👦
Every day, we had something like mob-programming. At 5pm we stopped coding and paid attention to the front.
- Then we are given a challenge or some assumptions and asked to solve it.
- Screen showed the problem and code editor. Guess what next?
- For each solving step, one of us have to move to front and solve them in front of everybody!
- The boot camp has nice roulette where our Github avatars spin.
“Does anyone volunteer? No?, Then let’s spin the wheel!”
18:30 Finish 🏁
We finish when we finish mob-programming. This strengthen the pressure for coders of mob-programming.
20:00 Leave working space 🚀
Because I felt the co-working space was so comfortable, I usually stay a little longer and tackled optional challenges.
21:30 Homework and watch lecture video for tomorrow 🍺
I got back to home, open my laptop and did my homework. Then after I watched lecture video for tomorrow, with beers.
24:00 Sleep 😴
What’s great
After I graduated from the boot camp, I met some guys from other schools. I also make interviews recently as an interviewer, seeing candidates having went through school.
With respect to the boot camp I went, I realized that they really focus on entrepreneurship. They taught us not just coding but how to create a product. I really appreciate it.
- They taught us how to brush up your business idea
- There was a product design sprint in the carriculam
- They encouraged team building, pair programming, mob programming
- Fully ajile way of coding
- So many practice of product demo pitch
- Communications with people across the globe 🌎 (15 nationalities)
- over 6,000 alumni
Of course for technical perspective, it was enough good because:
- Everyday we have to do Test Driven Development in mob programming
- Learn Rails MVC design pattern with just Ruby
- Pair/Mob programming
- and so on…
Change your Life, Learn to Code
To say the least, if I hadn’t taken programing boot camp — Le Wagon — , I would not be what I am today. It wholly changed my life.
This does not mean just that I got a job afterwards as a web developer.
They taught me how to design a product, think users, build a team, communicate in international group, and — this is the most important thing — how fun they are.
Hoping this would give you a big picture about that.
Thank you.
cf.) My pitch there 🚀
