Oscar gets tech job BEFORE even graduating Sabio Coding Bootcamp

Sabio Coding Bootcamp
Sabio Coding Bootcamp
6 min readSep 21, 2020

Originally from Oregon, learning how to code wasn’t an inherent path for Oscar, “I come from a community where computer science and software wasn’t something that you learned about during your regular school day. It just wasn’t taught at my high school, so I wasn’t even aware what computer programming was; however, I knew I wanted to do something computer related in college, so I started a computer science degree at UCSB, but I quickly realized that wasn’t for me. I ended up switching to math and landed on a bachelors of sciences and statistics. While I was in college though, I joined a fraternity and one of my fraternity brothers happened to work with ADDI, and through them, I learned about Sabio.”

Sabio Coding Bootcamp

As soon as he learned about coding bootcamps, Oscar dove in head first, “Peter Rojas (Founder of ADDI,) told me ‘If you’re interested in software development, you should check out Sabio. The moment I left school, I signed up for Sabio Free Online Prep Class. Sabio was very intense and the first week I doubted myself, but after you get into the routine, it becomes second nature. It’s still my routine now. I work my 8 hours a day, but that doesn’t mean I’m not coding 10–12 hours a day. I’ll take a break here and there, and it’s not as intensive as Sabio, but I love to learn software development. Even now I’ll spend my free time building my own projects or looking at my own personal stuff that I want to learn.”

While at Sabio, Oscar took in a wealth of knowledge, “Our days stated with daily stand ups, which is awesome because that directly translates into the professional field, we do the exact same thing at work. At Sabio you’re in an environment where you’re always learning, so if you’re competitive like myself and you look at the person next to you and see they maybe got a little further ahead, it pushes you. At first the cohorts weren’t interacting as much, but as soon as you finish your initial project, you’re talking to all the other people left and right. Hoping on zoom calls, working together, it’s crazy because the people I talk to most after graduating went to different campuses. There’s definitely an opportunity of connection at Sabio and training for work will be like in the real world.”

Sabio Coding Bootcamp

Oscar also thrived under his teacher’s guidance, “I feel like I was intimidated at first, but that’s maybe how I am as a person. My lead engineer was Brijesh Patel and he was great, helpful and incredibly smart. It was great to be under him, I learned so much. He was great not just as an instructor, but a mentor. I know that other cohort members reach out to him still and he’s always available. I also had a great time with my outside instructor Hector. He always pushed me and made me struggle, but that is what helped me the most.”

Now a web developer at Chipper, Oscar found the structure at Sabio to be strikingly similar to his work life, “Sabio teaches you the fundamentals and gives you the tools of how to continue to build from that. You have to be driven and self-motivated and it’s the same as Chipper. I was able to take what I learned at Sabio and grow with it, that ability to continue to grow has expanded my role. Now I do a lot of front-end web development and I’ve really taken ownership of the companies iOS and android apps.”

Sabio Coding Bootcamp

“The best part of this job” Oscar continued, “Is I got it two weeks before I graduated from Sabio. One of my cohort mates, Alberto, knew our boss Tony and reached out to him. He told me that there might be an opportunity for me, but we’d both be pulling similar hours to Sabio. In my head I was like, ‘Dude, I don’t care, let’s do this!’ Next day we signed the paperwork and here I am. The transition was so seamless too. We’re a startup and everybody has to wear different hats. Sabio is very similar, you can’t really wait for people to tell you to ‘go,’ you have to be self-motivated if you want to learn. It’s the same thing at Chipper and I got the best training for it.”

Even though his career is just getting started, Oscar has plenty of goals for the future, “I always say that the ultimate final goal is to become a product manager. I love to code, but I’m so young and I know I don’t want to code forever. I know I have to move up the scale though in order to get there and I’m love that I’m beginning at Chipper. This company aligns so much with my personal values. We’re helping people save money and I love that I can apply my technical skills to not only make money for myself but also help people. I feel so blessed with the way this has all unfolded. It’s because of Sabio that I was able to make this seamless transition from college to a job. When I was coming out of college I never dreamed I’d be making the amount of money that I am right now. I’m really thankful for the program.”

Sabio Coding Bootcamp

For those interested in learning to code Oscar says, “You just have to be self-motivated. I have people within my family tell me that they want to learn to code and ask for resources. I send them the Sabio pre-work course, but I know none of them have done it. You can be in a great position to learn, but if you don’t have the willingness and drive to do it yourself, you’re not going to. My number one piece of advice is to be self-motivated and patient. Sabio offers you the opportunity to really tweak those skills and increase connections. It’s important to meet as many people as you can. For example, my cohort mate that got me this job, knew our boss because they went to the same event and connected on Linkedin. Next thing you know, we both have jobs and it never would have happened if not for Sabio bringing us together.”

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Written by Sassy Mohen

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Written by Sabio Coding Bootcamp

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