Jameel: From Marines to SoftwareEngineer
Patience…patience, and more patience. Think…resolve…act. Prepare…confront…perform.
When I listened to Jameel M.’s 20 minute and 14 second journey from the U.S. Marine Corps to Sabio and finally Jump Investors, I kept hearing those three initial phrases over and over in my head. Only a bright young man could display the intense determination he utilized to accomplish the task of learning how to code
Patience. Jameel enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corp in March of 2007. He was honorably discharged five years later in March of 2012. Since he didn’t address me using “Yes sir, no sir,” euphemisms, I determined he had compartmentalized the whole experience and was probably multilingual despite the fact he didn’t convey any particular accents. This is unusual. Speech and cognitive patterns betray everything about you. He was also polite, yet he was extremely responsive, another rare combination. Since we were on the clock, I didn’t want to deviate from the topic at hand just to feed my inquisitiveness, Jameel continued on telling his story.
Jameel used his G.I. Bill benefits to attend and graduate from San Diego State University. That told me had been honorably discharged from the U.S. Marine Corp. He mentioned that his discipline was International Security and Conflict Resolution with an emphasis on Cooperation, Conflict and Conflict Resolution. This told me he had goals of possibly performing specialized service for the U.S. State department, or municipal social work, or possibly even a legal career as a Civil Rights Attorney. When Jameel mentioned he had been accepted into Chapman University law school and began his studies at a 1L, I smiled to myself. Then his story made a hard left turn.
Think. Jameel had read William Ha’s Quit Law and Code. Without getting into a strong discussion critiquing the convoluted American Legal System and wage abuses, Jameel instead focused on the book’s premise of time and return of investment.
Resolve. Jameel visited with a friend working in a startup tech company in Los Angeles. The overly casual work environment startled him at first, but the technical tête-à-tête instantly won him over and produced additional interest in career jumping to the software engineering field. Jameel was working at the time as a manager at Hertz Rent-a-Car to make ends meet.
Act. Jameel found Operation Code online and began communicating with David Molina. David Molina recommended Sabio as an accelerated coding school that would accept tuition funding from the G.I. Bill to learn coding. Jameel quit his position at Hertz-Rent-a-Car and signed paperwork to attend Sabio classes.
Prepare. Jameel moved to Los Angeles to be near Sabio’s Culver City facility where his instructional boot camp would resume. In preparation, Jameel downloaded technical audio podcasts, seeking permission from his Uber customers to continue on with the instruction while he drove them to their destinations. The technical podcasts provided additional information about the current tech industry. This supported his interest to continue on. In his work off-hours, Jameel began building websites to stay focused.
Jimmy Muga was Jamel’s instructor at Sabio. Jamel mentioned, “Jimmy Muga solved a lot of the C# and Node.js mysteries for me. And since he was a former Marine, we really bonded.”
Jameel’s preparation for Sabio nearly eliminated all the surprises a career change and instructional course can bring. The whole Sabio experience was so pleasant that it rejuvenated his spirit. This was money and time that was well spent.
Confront. Upon graduation from Sabio’s Culver City boot camp, Operation Code assisted Jameel with job interview preparation and provided several leads. While Sabio’s boot camp experience prepared Jameel for his initial technical phone interviews, Jameel decided to leave nothing to chance. So he researched face-to-face interview techniques, current market salary rates and negotiation practices. JUMP Investors, a Los Angles based investment firm specializing in venture capital, private equity, real estate, and hedge funds made an offer to Jameel in June of 2017, one month after completing his Sabio equity commitment. And the FTE offer exceeded the $100,000 annual salary plateau including benefits. Now Jameel, the software engineer, sees the world from a binary set of eyes.
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