Downloading a life-changing career to become a developer and coding instructor

How a professional in the industry is showing his coding bootcamp students they can successfully shift careers too

"One of the things that really pulled me into this industry was the fact you can download life changing tools to your computer for free and you're good to go.” -Cesar Gomez, Nucamp Instructor

When Cesar Gomez was younger, his aunt had told him about how important computers were going to be some day and she thought he would excel at it.

The boom of the tech industry was mentioned in school as well, but he didn’t consider it a path for himself as he didn’t see himself strong enough in math or other technical skills.

Fast forward to Cesar at about 25 years old, he was living in a 1 bedroom apartment he didn’t like with his wife and child.

He didn’t enjoy his work as a manufacturing quality assurance inspector and felt there had to be more out there for him.

In an effort to better things for his family, he bought himself a book on C++ and started teaching himself how to code.

He got to the point of building his first project, a comedic insult generator, but he still didn’t know how to translate his skills into something tangible on screen.

This prompted Cesar to look into Javascript, but he was worried about how expensive it was going to be, but with continued grit and research, he kept teaching himself new things.

Cesar then transitioned into working in database administration at a music store.

There his coworker showed him a few shortcuts that made his job go from taking a few hours to a few minutes.

This made him realize he was set on making coding his career, to change his and family’s life, and went all in.

He considered going back to college, but he already had thousands of dollars in student debt so Cesar utilized FreeCodeCamp.org and YouTube to continue to teach himself.

He also put 110% into connecting with people in the industry and started his own local meetup.

Cesar studied with Free Code Camp for some time but didn't feel like his resume was getting looked at, so he started to consider coding bootcamps.

He joined a coding bootcamp and also started a coding teaching assistant role at another bootcamp after a meetup group connection recommended him.

Teaching others strengthened his coding skills; before he even graduated from his bootcamp he landed his first job.

Now he is working as a Web Developer at Fleetwood Windows and is an instructor at Nucamp.

“Teaching has really helped me learn and continues to help me improve as a developer."

How do you manage your full-time job, family, and continuous learning now?

“You may not want to hear this, but I stay up late a lot. Right now I wait until my kids fall asleep to learn Haskell. Coding is something I genuinely enjoy, so I make the time for it. It also helps that I dedicated certain times for certain things each day. I carve out certain times to go to the gym, spend time with my children, and create boundaries on when work starts and ends. I could easily spend 8 hours on one thing, but I make the decision to spend a dedicated hour to learn one thing and call that a win. You have to like to learn to code to become a developer. You are always learning coding.”

What was your interview experience like? How did you find the job?

“I applied on Indeed. My resume highlighted my projects and during the interview process I showed off a project I created for my last employer. You need to have a completed project or two and be able to thoroughly explain it.”

What is it like to be a Nucamp instructor?

“It is an amazing experience as soon as you see your students graduate. As an instructor, to lead adults with full-time jobs and busy lives full of other obligations, take time out of their day, into a completely new path in life is a huge responsibility. I take pride I am part of that journey for them. It’s the reason I’ve stuck around this long. It's not easy for them and it's amazing I get to be a part of their 180º career change.”

Lastly, what is one piece of advice you would give bootcamp students (future or current)?

“Keep working hard and build things—keep building things. It makes you a more experienced developer and you will learn new things. As long as you keep that attitude you will find the job.”