Grace, one of our avid biking and outdoor enthusiasts, is leaving Alchemy’s AppLab this week to put her newly acquired software developer skills to use at Marketo, a Portland-based company leading the way in marketing automation. She entered our program late last year after testing into our Bootcamp II and is leaving our campus as a Software Engineer in a major tech company, Marketo, just 13 weeks after graduating from our Career Track. She worked incredibly hard through our difficult curriculum, and spent much of her free time networking and meeting industry professionals for informational interviews. After graduation she kept her coding skills sharp in our consultancy, AppLab, where we develop MVP apps for local entrepreneurs. It seems her coding skills set her apart from the competition once she was given the technical portion of the interview, and while we’ll miss her dearly, we couldn’t be more proud.
Read below to learn a little more about Grace’s experience at Alchemy:
1.What were you doing for work before attending Alchemy?
University of Washington graduate with physiology and chemistry degree. I was a medical scribe applying to medical school to become a physician. I got into medical school and then decided it wasn't what I wanted out of life.
2. What made you decide to take classes at Alchemy?
The depth of the instruction (deep dive into javascript), the full stack approach, the friendliness of the instructors, and the atmosphere / location of the school.
3. Had you considered other coding schools? What made you choose Alchemy over the others if so?
I interviewed two other schools. The others did not deep dive but instead had short dives into a wide breadth of topics. I also did not appreciate the instruction styles or student to instructor ratios of the other schools.
4. What is your new position?
Software Engineer at Marketo.
5. Why are you excited about it, and how is it going to impact your life?
The job shares a large amount of the tech stack that I learned (react, redux, SCSS) and utilizes agile SCRUM methodology. The job will pay more than I have ever made in my life so I will be able to finally invest in my future!
6. What did you love about working in App Lab, and did you learn a lot by doing so? Did it help you secure your new position.
I really enjoyed my team and being able to pair program / easily talk to each other about problems / bugs. Bouncing ideas off of one another was fun. I learned quite a bit about working on a team and about our tech stack (firebase, react, SCSS, webpack, babel). It most certainly came up in all of my interviews and I was able to refer to it as a real-world, client-interacting job experience.
7. What will you miss most about being at Alchemy every day?
The studious environment with all of the plants and bright windows. The people who I adore talking to. Being able to walk around downtown on my lunch break.
8. If there’s anything you would tell someone considering an education to be a software developer, what would it be?
Be prepared to dedicate the time needed to learn. I spent around 4 months self studying through Team Treehouse at around 10 hours a week while working prior to coming to bootcamp. I completed the web developer certificate through Treehouse which gave me the experience necessary to skip the entry bootcamp at Alchemy code lab. While in bootcamp I was at the school from at least 8:30AM - 5PM. Usually later most days. Homework and reading would take up to an additional 4 hours a night. Weekend homework in the career track would take up to 12 hours. I took notes constantly. Not necessarily to refer back to, but because that was how I solidified what was taught. My learning style required me to spend a lot of time reading, researching, and taking notes.
Take an interest in the development world and news. Have a desire to explore and try new things. Find a topic you are excited about and build something around that. I made a pokemon personality game in between classes to help keep my skills up. I read /learnprogramming, /programming, /web design, and /javascript at reddit, and many articles at Medium. Stay active in problem solving through codewars. Reach out to people you know in the industry and have coffee with them, learn how they got where they did and create an ally in your process.
About Alchemy:
If you are interested in learning more about our program or applying, we start a new session every quarter. Read about our course descriptions here, or email us at info@alchemycodelab.com with questions. You can also apply today if you fill out our online application (will not commit you to attend, but it starts the process to do so!) We also have an open house every Thursday at 12:30PM & a social hour on the last Friday of each month. Join us! Everyone is welcome!