Evening Coding Bootcamp Carrie Ryan Alumni Spotlight Update

We Can Code IT graduate, Carrie Ryan, was featured in an Alumni Spotlight interview with Course Report back in July 2017. Since then, she has been promoted from a Junior Developer Intern to a fully-fledged Web Developer at United Consumer Financial Services in Cleveland. We caught up with Carrie to see what her experience has been like working in the tech industry and how she worked towards her promotion.

What were your first few months like as a developer? Was it what you were expecting?

My first few months involved a lot of on-the-job learning. WCCI was a great foundation that taught me both programming concepts and how to keep learning. I’ve been doing a lot of front-end work for the company I work for since starting — HTML, CSS, JavaScript in ASP.NET applications. I was amazed at how similar the work was to my work at WCCI and how much there still was to learn! I was expecting to contribute a lot less as a junior developer, but I am on a web development team with only one other person. I love how much work I get to code every day!

How did you earn your promotion? Were there certain steps you had to take or milestones you had to achieve?

After completing the internship at 3 months, my boss said he wanted to keep me on the team. He appreciated how much I was willing to learn new things, how I always came in with a friendly attitude and gave my best effort with every project.

What advice do you have for someone who may be considering attending a coding bootcamp?

If you are ready for the commitment, do it. It’s called a bootcamp for a reason, but the skills you gain from the process are invaluable. Technology is ever-present in every career. Learning more about the tools you are using every day will only benefit your career.