Q: Tell us about your background

Hi, my name is Deb! I live in Switzerland and previously worked for venture capital funds and financial technology firms. After leaving a corporate career in Hong Kong a few years ago, I’ve been focusing on more entrepreneurial pursuits.

Q: Why did you choose Altcademy?

Similar to many other students, I did a few online courses that used video tutorials. While I enjoyed studying the subject, I lacked confidence in my independent abilities and felt that I needed a more structured approach to learning programming. My wife completed a coding bootcamp a few years ago, and this gave me the idea to pursue a similar path. She is now a full-time coder.

For those who are willing to put in the effort (and it’s a lot of effort!), I highly recommend a bootcamp such as Altcademy.

Q: How’s your experience in learning to code at Altcademy?

As I know a few graduates from other coding bootcamps, I am reasonably confident that Altcademy is a world-class program. I especially appreciate that the entire course is text-based, as this is how developers learn new skills in the real world. The founders behind the company put a lot of effort into the curriculum.

In terms of my personal journey, I found front-end web development challenging but still doable. The best part about front-end development is being able to bring an idea to life very quickly.

I found back-end web development a lot more challenging, and had to read through a lot of material before it clicked for me. While the course explains everything quite clearly, it took me a few tries to understand how various aspects of a Rails application work together.

There were many points in the course where I felt somewhat frustrated because I didn’t really understand why something was happening. Thankfully, my mentor was both patient and knowledgeable and helped me through the process.

Q: What are your goals?

My goal is to build upon what I have learned at Altcademy. Now that I have completed the full-stack program, I am confident in my abilities as many other developers started their careers with a similar level of knowledge. Of course, I still have a lot left to learn.

In the near term, my goal is to join a company as a junior software developer and hone my skills. Despite ongoing concerns about a financial bubble in technology stocks, my view is that developers will remain high in demand. Unlike most other skills, a single individual can have an enormous impact. I believe coding is thus the ideal skill for both a career and entrepreneurship.