coding bootcamp success story

Joel Barnard: From tour operator to junior software developer

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Joel was working as a tour operator for three years when he realised that he wasn’t really happy working in the industry; tourism was frustrating, stressful and overall unfulfilling. In his search to find a career more rewarding, he turned to programming and fell in love with it straight away.

“I found that I really enjoyed it and started obsessively studying as much programming as I could in my free time, sometimes spending up to 8 hours on Saturdays and Sundays and about 3 – 4 hours on weeknights learning programming.”

His passion for programming led him to HyperionDev, where he felt that the curriculum of the Certified Software Developer MicroDegree would take his programming to the next level. What solidified his decision to go with HyperionDev?

“I liked the concept of a mentor helping me learn to program. Being completely self-taught at the time I thought I would benefit from having someone look at my code daily and correct any bad habits I had picked up while teaching myself.”

HyperionDev’s personal mentorship is structured to guide students so they never feel stuck on a piece of code. The on-demand code review also ensures students’ code is professional, accurate and efficient, while aligned to industry standards.

Two months after completing his course with HyperionDev, Joel had found a job as a Junior Software Developer at MIP Holdings, where he has various responsibilities, ranging from debugging new code to developing new functionalities for systems.

“The three months I spent studying with HyperionDev took me from being a beginner to someone who actually felt like they could be a software developer.”

Joel has some advice for budding developers:

“Don’t be scared to throw yourself in the deep end. Find a project that interests you and just do it. You will learn more about real world programming while working on your own projects then you will any other way.”

What’s next for Joel? HyperionDev may have inspired him to pursue a future career in AI (Artificial Intelligence):

“My favorite part of the course was definitely the Python section and the K-means algorithm that we had to come up with ourselves. It has gotten me interested in pursuing machine learning and Artificial Intelligence as a future career path.”

If you’re interested in switching to a career in tech like Joel, register for your free trial and check out if the Software Engineering Bootcamp is right for you.

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