Just under a year ago, I graduated from Tech Elevator’s coding bootcamp. Three weeks ago I released my first enterprise mobile application.
For 3 years after college, I worked in sales. First I sold software to lawyers over the phone, then I moved to Columbus, Ohio to sell supplies and equipment to dentists. I didn’t hate my sales jobs, but I never felt like I truly cared enough about what I did.
After college, I was always interested in technology. I heard about the rise of “Coding Bootcamps” but didn’t think they were a feasible option for me; at the time bootcamps were prohibitively expensive and only located in major cities like New York or Chicago. Years later I heard about a couple of bootcamps being established in Columbus, and I couldn’t pass up the opportunity. So in winter of 2016, I decided to make the leap and pursue a career as a software developer.
In doing research on coding bootcamps, I didn’t have many people to reach out to. I only had one friend, Dan, who coded for a living. I met Dan in college, and he worked for Scotts Miracle-Gro. He’d tell me about all the exciting things he worked on at Scotts, and the passion he had for his work shined through every conversation. I always admired how passionate he was about his trade, and to be honest, was pretty jealous of his job.
So before committing to a coding bootcamp I sat down with Dan to review the program. Maybe I wouldn’t find an awesome job programming for Scotts Miracle-Gro, but at least I could do something I was interested in. After a lot of research, I decided on Tech Elevator’s 14-week .NET bootcamp.
My experience with Tech Elevator was incredible. It’s amazing how much it changed me in such a short period of time. The 14 weeks I spent there flew by, but will remain one of the most influential times in my life and career.
After the bootcamp, I spent several months looking for a job. I had a solid resume but was very picky about which company and technologies I wanted to kick off my programming career with. After many fellow bootcamp graduates found work I started to get discouraged about my search — and living off of savings was getting stressful.
Eventually, I got a call from my friend Dan, who told me a developer on his team at Scotts Miracle-Gro was leaving and they needed to hire a new one in coming weeks. I went through the interview process and was able to secure a position on the Cloud Application Development team. I couldn’t believe my luck! I was ecstatic about the workplace, invigorated by the technology, and excited to learn from a trusted friend.
My job at Scotts is web and mobile application development. Most of my time is spent writing Javascript and Typescript to develop mobile apps using the Ionic Framework.
After about 6 months of learning, the opportunity to build a new mobile app came to our team. Scotts’ Quality department had requested we rebuild an app which allows employees to report product quality issues. Users would be able to take pictures of defects and scan product barcodes to alert the quality team of a manufacturing issue.
After meeting about the app I asked my manager to let me lead the project with guidance from some experienced co-workers. He granted me the opportunity, and after a lot of hard work, we released the application on time without any major issues.
I’m baffled to say that less than a year after graduating from a coding bootcamp, without any other official training, I’ve written a mobile app that’s used every day, and is downloaded to thousands of devices.
This year’s been unbelievable and I’ve never thought twice about leaving my previous career. Beginning 2017, I quit my sales job to learn how to code. Beginning 2018, I finished my first mobile app. None of this would have been possible without the incredible, hardworking and passionate people at Tech Elevator and Scotts Miracle-Gro. Passion is contagious, and I now feel like I can spread it because I love my job.
— Thanks for reading this! If you’re considering a coding bootcamp, or have any questions, please reach me at joeosterfeld@gmail.com.