First DTLA Cohort Grad Abby Scores Software Engineering Job
Hailing from the east coast, Abby moved to Southern California for the sunshine, greener pastures and technology. After getting her bachelor’s at GW, Abby attended UC Irvine where she got her masters degree in Science and Technology. It was there that her true love of programming really began from doing parallel support work.
“It was after school,” Abby remembered, “I was working in a startup to get more experience, but I just realized I wanted to do programming. I looked at a bunch of different schools, but I really loved the way Sabio structured their program. I thought working hands on with a project was the smartest way to do it. Also, looking in LA was hard to tell which schools were real or not. I thought that Sabio’s reporting outcomes made them a lot more trustworthy and Gregorio Rojas (Sabio’s Co-Founder & CTO) was just really nice, he told me ‘what you put in is what you get out,’ he just seemed really honest about it.
Abby thrived in Sabio’s work environment, where she and her fellow cohort-mates got to work on a real life project for startup Poor Dawg. “They structure it kind of like a mentorship program, you’re learning to program but also treating it like a job. Sabio is really helping the community by giving startup founders the ability to make their products while also giving us the opportunity to really hone our skills and get actual work experience while learning to develop.”
Even today Abby recalls tasks she did at Sabio and applies them to her new job, “In a lot of meetings and conversations about something we have to do for our project, I’ll know immediately what we should do because it’s so similar to what I was doing at Sabio.”
Before getting her current position, Abby followed Sabio’s lead to get there, “I got my job not even a month after graduation and the salary increase is amazing. Sabio prepares you really well to deal with a range of recruiters. Everyone who I interviewed with, they read my resume and talked about things like, ‘Oh yeah, we do that here,’ or, ‘Oh, that thing that you did actually reminds me of this thing we’re doing.” It was really easy to talk to other developers about the kind of work that I had done, how I could see myself working in a team because I did all that at Sabio.”
“It wasn’t just that we were in a classroom,” Abby recalled, “It was like working for a day, and structuring it like that, you can’t get that experience at any other school. We all worked on one project that turned out to be so much bigger than anything we could have done on our own, and that really allowed us to actually experiment and grow.”
Abby credits this whole experience largely to the instructors, “They really wanted to help you succeed, and took the time with every student to make sure that they were getting out of it the most that they could. I really felt like I was challenged and pushed to become a better software developer, expand my skill base and pick up things that would be useful to have.”
Another aspect that makes Abby’s experience unique was being part of the first cohort to try out the Sabio’s new DTLA location, “The Row is so up and coming. It was great for everyone having all those resources there. It was especially awesome for job hunting because I could step right onto our private balconies and take calls from there which was a huge advantage.”
For those interested in joining Sabio, Abby has one piece of advice, “Prepare for it. If you’re going to commit to a bootcamp, really take the time prior to it to get down your foundations and basics, and just trust that you’re ready for it. And more so, don’t not do it because you think that you’re unprepared. Remember you’re there to learn.”
“There’s so many free resources,” Abby added, “I think that’s one of the great things about computers and programming. You don’t necessarily need a four year degree to do it. If you are a professional and learn the skill, you will get hired. And better still, at Sabio they will go out of their way to get you a job. When it comes down to it, I think that other schools should be looking at the as a model.”
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Written by Sassy Mohen
