He found the expansion pack for his coding career at Nucamp

From Computer Programmer to Software Developer, Pariveda Solutions

"I liked the Full Stack Bootcamp. I thought the instructors were fantastic. They really cared about the students and were always receptive."

This is John Gilday, a Nucamp Front End Bootcamp graduate and now a Software Developer at Pariveda Solutions.

John fills his free time playing music, video games, and board games.

His first move to help him discover his interest in tech was trying out coding with BASIC in high school.

This drafted John's career trajectory, leading him into earning a Computer Science degree and eventually a Bachelor of Science in Information Technology.

John didn't utilize his degrees right away, but eventually did and learned operating systems and networking.

He enjoyed working with databases and the web, but realized he didn't like the networking or hardware side of his day-to-day.

It was his love for music and games that motivated him to consider linking his career to his creative side.

In the back of his mind, he thought being a game programmer might be the path for him.

After being laid off from his support role, John shuffled the deck and completed a web certification in 2015 that earned him an internship and role lasting 5.5 years.

As it came time for John to look for work again, he was confronted with the reality that open positions were asking for skills he hadn't collected.

This led him to replay his student role to modernize his skillset.

John investigated bootcamps offering React as it was growing and the most popular front-end framework.

He didn't want to roll the dice on an overly expensive program and was happy to land on Nucamp– it was reasonably priced and taught both React and React Native.

"Through my Nucamp experience, I found that applying what I learned helped retention. Sometimes getting something to click was challenging, but it happened through repetition."

Describe your job search process.

Initially John scored 10 interviews, but none of them panned out since he lacked the experience they desired.

To get over the roadblock he leveraged a local networking event where he was able to get connected with the company he was hired at.

What advice do you have for people who are thinking about attending a bootcamp, but haven't yet registered?

"Make sure when you register, you pick a time you know you can dedicate and focus to it and not have anything pull you away. I actually went on vacation, got setup in a lounge for my Saturday workshop. You can work around some extra activities, but you don't want to have fires to put out during the course."

What advice do you have for people who have already started the bootcamp and they are just about to finish Bootstrap?

"Be open to bouncing stuff off your cohort members, not just the instructor. The person I did the group project with helped me. She saw things I didn't see and I saw things she didn't see. You have to be willing to collaborate, it will be very helpful at times."