EP59 – From Stone Mason to Software Developer in 8 Months

Coders Campus Podcast

In this episode we'll talk to Ethan, who is a recent graduate from the Coders Campus Bootcamp and managed to land a job within two months of starting the search.

Ethan and I talk about how, from a young age, he was guided away from learning technology because his teachers didn't feel he was cut out for the field.

In this interview we'll learn how wrong his teachers were and how Ethan was able to complete the coding bootcamp while also raising a small child with a pregnant wife and working a full-time job.

If you'd like to get in touch with Ethan, feel free to add him via LinkedIn here

Interested in starting your coding career?

I'm now accepting students into an immersive programming Bootcamp where I guarantee you a job offer upon graduation.

It is a 6 month, part-time, online Bootcamp that teaches you everything you need to know to get a job as a Java developer in the real-world.

You can learn more via www.coderscampus.com/bootcamp

Episode Transcript

Intro / Outro 0:09
Welcome to the coders campus podcast, where you'll learn how to code from one of the best teachers in the industry. Whether you're an absolute beginner or a seasoned pro, the coders campus podcasts will teach you what you need to know to master the art of programming. And now, your host, Trevor page.

Trevor Page 0:27
Okay, ladies and gentlemen, fellow coders Welcome back to this what is episode 59 of the pod cast. So thanks so much for joining. In this one, we have another one just like the previous one where we are interviewing, we are checking in with a graduate of the coders campus boot camp. So we're going to speak with Ethan Bradley, He is a fellow Canadian resident of Ottawa, Canada. And his story is a good one. I'm specifically highlighting stories here of people who didn't have, you know, degrees or you know, big, huge software backgrounds or anything like that these are people who came into this whole process with the assumption or the the prerequisite or not the prerequisites what I'm trying to say here, with the prior mindset of thinking that maybe they can't do it, right, they come into this, you know, being told that they are bad at math or being told that they are not have the correct mindset or something to be successful in the world of technology. And I just want to highlight what you know what, I don't want to use expletives on this podcast. But if I were the Malarkey, there we go. That's That's my go to which I never say in real life, the the absolute Malarkey, that that that that statement is for for the vast majority of people who would categorize themselves as someone who is not tech savvy, it frustrates me because most people can achieve this, but not without significant effort. Right, not without significant amount of sacrifice. But maybe it is like sacrifice. It's it's a lot of work to learn this stuff. Which, you know, if you're this deep in the podcast, if you listen to every episode that you know, this is a lot of work that goes into learning how to code. And it's constantly a moving target and whatnot. But it doesn't mean that you can't do it, right? If you have more than just motivation. If you have motivation, plus this insatiable desire to figure this out this, this unstoppable attitude of Yes, I will achieve this goal of learning this stuff, so that I can get a job. And I'm not going to quit until I make it happen. So if you are of that mindset, I just don't see how you can fail. I haven't seen it yet, in my experience. So anyway, having said that, Ethan came into this with exactly the correct mindset. And we are going to learn all about that mindset. Shortly. When we flip over to the interview, we're going to learn how he was able to finish the coders campus boot camp and actually get a job as an entry level programmer before his pregnant wife birth to their second child. So as I am now saying shout out to Matteo, hopefully I pronounced that correctly. He was born just a couple days before I recorded this episode. So it seems like everyone's Healthy Mothers healthy babies healthy, everyone's happy. But Ethan managed to win in that race towards getting a job before the baby was born. So congrats on that all around to Ethan and his family. We're also gonna learn about Ethan sort of accidental secret that he landed upon to his success on his journey in the bootcamp, it isn't just that he was dedicated and and put in the time and the effort. And you know, got, you know, while he was knocked down, he would get back up. No, there was there was something that happened, a constraint if you will, on him that I think was an advantage. And we'll dive into that. And finally, obviously, probably what you guys want to hear about is, Hey, how did Ethan actually get a job as an entry level coder? After graduation? What magic did he do? What? What craziness if you have to, you know, did you have to pay off a bunch of you know, officials or something to get a job? No, we're gonna dive into exactly what he was able to what tactics he did in order to eventually land that coveted first beautiful entry level position. And now he's working the job and loving it. So anyway, we're gonna talk about that in this interview. So without further ado, I'm gonna stop talking. It's been almost five minutes of me talking. Let's get into the interview with Ethan Bradley. Today we're joined by Ethan Bradley, as I've already introduced him excited to get into his story because I think you guys are going to like just like Dustin before him, he's another rock Star students in our coders campus boot camp that I've spoken about many many times. So I want to learn for you Ethan what what was life like before the boot camp paint the picture of Ethan's working life and I don't know however whatever many details you want to pay to in terms of what life look like before the boot camps,

Ethan Bradley 5:18
so I before that, I've been a breaking stonemason. So junk between bricklayer and restoration masonry back and forth for like eight years. Because in high school, they told me I was a little bit. But he told me I shouldn't go into technology, because I was a little too. Not correctly. binded I guess if it's bad man, and all those things. Anyways, so yeah, just I use the years leading up to boot camp. I just hated managers. It's just bad breathing work. Like I'm tired all the time, dusty, because I'm getting rasterization. Like, right now. I got one week before I start my new job. A good description of my job is I'm in a target in scaffold. The sun is beating down. It's like 30 degrees outside. So it's like 35 inside cells yesterday, we had like a plastic sweat suit with the respirators, like chipping dusts, jaw joints, is vast.

Trevor Page 6:23
It sounds awful. You say to get to 3035 degrees Celsius, I assume that's yeah, so So yeah. So that's like,

Ethan Bradley 6:29
I don't really measurement. Yeah,

Trevor Page 6:32
that's a very, it's very hot. That's, well, very hot for me in I'm Canadian. So I don't know what that would be in Fahrenheit that that's probably I don't know, in the 90s or something. That's my guess I could ask Google but who cares? It's hot. And to be in a in a plastic suit in a tarpit environment with dust everywhere and physical labor. Yeah, it sounds. Yeah. Sounds like science

Ethan Bradley 6:52
to me. The alternate is in winters, right? either. It's freezing work. It's really weird. Either you're freezing. You're outside doing stuff. Or you're in a darkened scaffold with Peters blasting on you. So it's even just as hot as so hungry. Totally moved super dry. Or you have no work for you to work. It's treated as a seasonal rate.

Trevor Page 7:16
Rats. Right. Okay. So not great. i That's a not not a great job, I think for Yes.

Ethan Bradley 7:23
People love it. I don't. Fair enough.

Trevor Page 7:26
And I think you you said something that is, is a very common thing that you hear is that oh, if you're not good at math, you know, why would you get into something like computer science or programming or like, Oh, you're gonna you're gonna do awful, you know, even don't dare do that going into grade 11.

Ethan Bradley 7:44
I really wanted to get into technology like I wanted to do here on Earth, because electronics engineering was the course I was looking at. And so I took like, physics, chemistry, math. A just passed, and they told me, you should switch. Yeah, I did. Well, and I guess treat all that. This is why I wanted to historic masonry was like, history. Gotcha. It was cool to me. But it wore off quit. Yeah. That wasn't my job. Yeah. Which is okay. And it's paid my girls that got one daughter, who's almost two, she was born 2020. Not meant to be a pandemic, baby. But she ended up being one. Same with my youngest son. Yep. Yeah. And now I've got another one who's supposed to be born in any any day now? To do on the 30th.

Trevor Page 8:37
Okay, so if all of a sudden you need to run out the door, we won't. We won't hold you to this, this interview. Okay,

Ethan Bradley 8:42
I did it. I did a couple of years in the military, the Army Reserves as well, just before the boot camp, I actually like left just as I was about to start the boot camp because I was like, This is too much stuff. I want to go in this year, I need to draw up some things to do this. Otherwise, I wasn't gonna be able to do it.

Trevor Page 8:59
So then what? So it's a lot of different stuff. That's obviously none of it's related to tech. What? I'm what yeah, what got you into tech? What, what sort of Oh, yeah.

Ethan Bradley 9:09
Because I always wanted to do that. I like, around when the pandemic started, I was thinking, hey, I'm just gonna try coding. See, see, see if I can do it at all. So I started. I think it was about 2020 ish. I started like just messing around a little bit of pipe on nubile Free Code Camp. See how it is? I was like, Hey, this is fun. building some web pages. I did a couple of Udemy courses. My issue though, was I Google a lot. And I'm always like, I want to do the best thing. I want to pick the one thing that's going to be the best. So I'd like people kept a Python. So I did a bit of Python. People were like, oh, no, JavaScript is everywhere. JavaScript is king. So I was like, oh, it's got to JavaScript. And then I'd be like, oh, people are saying go it was great. Right now I tried go and be like, well, so I'm going to go from there. I would jump around so much I think about like 14 different books and different languages C sharp but book on that. It was cut using podcasts or listening ton of politics. That's how I found your boot camp was while listening to your podcast because at one point I went on a Java stint, as soon as I learned Java was like, Okay. And I did the beginning part of like a code with Melosh. In the core course, which meant I knew what types were and I started the blockchain. Forgotten almost everything else. But yeah, I was not really getting where I wanted to go. Doesn't make sense. It's ADHD, it will add, but now it's technically classified ADHD inattentive type. So I jumped to the new shiny thing. All the time, and, you know, wasn't getting as much progress as I wanted, I had sort of settled on to the Free Code Camp, but wasn't super happy. Because like, everyone's like, Oh, you're not really gonna make a lot of progress. You have like a mentor, and you need someone to ask questions that I couldn't look like, for the life of me find anyone. I joined a bunch of online communities. But still, it's asked a question here, and people are like, Oh, well, you should know that. Or,

Trevor Page 11:25
hey, yeah, it's okay. And how long are you doing that for how much time you spend sort of poking around at like,

Ethan Bradley 11:33
a year and a bit? It was like, Yeah, until well, from like, 2020. Somewhere in the middle there until September, he started boot camp, right. And I did a couple of your little online seminar things that you put out. I think they were pre recorded, but one of them was a lot of

Trevor Page 11:52
Oh, really, I didn't know you tend to one of my live ones. Like I did do a

Ethan Bradley 11:55
live one where you were doing a promotion. You like at a discounted price. Next Tuesday, get a bed. But life goes on life goes on. But yeah, then I just started thinking like, should think he would go to school. But that was looking at prices. Really. There's a college here, and there's also universities, but it's expensive. Yeah. So that's good. Because we're like a baby and family. And we just our plans to buy a house gotten up real fast, because they started selling our apartment. So we're like, oh, well, we can either buy this apartment or we just move and buy a house. So we got a little stuck there.

Trevor Page 12:35
Yep. And that was it. Was that in 2020 that that happened? Yeah, we bought the beginning

Ethan Bradley 12:39
of 2021. We ended up buying it because it's holding us just before the end looks.

Trevor Page 12:45
Gotcha. Okay. Yeah. I mean, it's it's probably already gone up in value, right. It's the market the way it is. Yeah. Yeah. Well, we

Ethan Bradley 12:51
bought at 245 It's probably way higher now. Yes. It's crazy around as they're selling 300 something. Yeah, yeah, I'm gonna I should mention I'm not in the city city. I'm like in a small town outside Coast city. So yeah, a little jumper,

Trevor Page 13:04
the Canadian that while the most the Canadian real estate market is ridiculously overvalued at the moment. And when you say 200 or 300. To me that sounds like chump change. Because, yeah, in the cities, which is where one of the places where I am is near the city. Yeah, that you can find a place for that. So for

Ethan Bradley 13:21
example, the condoms, like colornews, like a bachelor apartment, where we just lived, where our apartment was that we were renting is now 700 Oh my gosh, yeah. Who do apartment? I'm like,

Trevor Page 13:33
nope. Yeah. So. So that's just to give you a landscape of like, yeah, so hey, why why do you want to get into tech? Well, the salaries aren't good, right? These days, you need a good salary. So okay, so you did a you did over 12 months of sort of prep work. It's a Free Code Camp. Yes. And Udemy courses you bounced around, which is very good base,

Ethan Bradley 13:51
it gives you a big a loop was I know how to do a loop and variables and some basic stuff in about five different languages. But I didn't know how to do it anything real writing any of them except HTML, CSS, I could put a page up.

Trevor Page 14:07
And that's, that's great for, again, fundamentals. I talked about fundamentals in the podcast and getting getting a really solid grasp on the fundamentals of programming variables, loops, data, structures, methods and understanding how they work the inputs, the outputs, it's very, very The only issue there is, and I'm not saying this to single you out, because everybody does this is that spending a year on that is a gigantic waste of time, you can get that solid understanding much faster than then in a year. And that's what you'll get from universities. Well, the first year of university is going to be that stuff, right? And it's if you already know it, it's like, oh, but you can get it. You can learn it pretty quick. But anyway, I don't want to toot the horn of the bootcamp, you know, but that's sort of what that's what you get. As part of any bootcamp I get. I talk about mine, obviously, but it can be any bootcamp, you're gonna get that fast paced learning and you're gonna have a mentor to help facilitate the fast Feet, right? You're gonna want to, you can ask questions and get immediate help. That's useful help not oh, you should already know that or just go Google it. Right? Although will sometimes say go Google it if it's something that you should be able to Google Crosta

Ethan Bradley 15:13
question on. Stack Overflow faculty understand?

Trevor Page 15:17
Yeah, exactly. So that's where something like a boot camp can really help speed things up. Right. So So you, you found the podcast, you started listening and you say, oh, you know, this, this coders campus boot camp? Sounds interesting. And you sort of you dove in? What was that experience? Like? What was was that? Were you panicking? Were you second guessing? Are you confident? Yeah. How did you feel?

Ethan Bradley 15:38
So I was super hesitant, and then I contacted you. I don't know if you remember emailing me back and forth. Maybe an email a lot of people I was I was concerned about pricing, because like, I don't know if I could afford this every year like, Well, I was like, maybe November, I can afford it. So I was planning my plan was to start November, actually. And then you're like, Well, I have this free beginner's course, try not to get like, ready. That's how I'd like did it. And I did it in a week and a half. And it was supposed to be four weeks of stuff. And you're like, Are you sure she should be waiting? You get to this, like, you're already ahead of the bootcamp. And you were really good about helping me. I did like the income share opinion. You probably needed. If so basically, there was like a down payment, which was paid you were helpful and setting that up. So it was easy for me to do. And then I didn't have to pay until after the bootcamp when I'm making over a certain amount money, which I'm about to start. And we work to start paying next month, I

Trevor Page 16:50
believe, yep. Spoiler alert.

Ethan Bradley 16:54
It's nine point something percent of your income until it's paid off for two years is what I believe.

Trevor Page 17:01
Yeah, it's it's, is that I can't I can't recall the specific I should know this. I think I think it's a three year maximum. It's either you pay for three years, or you hit the pay back balance, which most people will hit that in two years. I

Ethan Bradley 17:14
think that's yeah, we will. I'm going to show that pretty quick. Yeah,

Trevor Page 17:19
for sure. Even at the salary you're at right now. And we'll talk about that a little bit later. If you want to share that those numbers, you'll, you'll for sure. Hit that. So you're probably in about two years. So that's that's the average payback period that we see. So the beauty of the ISA is it, it allows you to get started for a lot less money, and you defer the rest of the payments until you know after graduation, so to speak. Yeah. Now I wanted was the only way I could afford to do a bootcamp, which is the way that those battery jority Yeah, that's you're not alone there, right? Most, I would say maybe 10% of the people pay the full amount upfront, maybe? Maybe 5%. So it's a lot of money, man. It's people who are looking to change their careers like yourself. There's sort of three groups that people fall into the career changers, which is where you are Ethan and where most of the people about half the people are coming from careers have nothing to do with tech. And they want to get into programming because this is the you know, the restaurant managers, the electricians, the Yeah, stonemasons, the landscapers, the, you know, these are all you know, what a janitorial staff. I don't know what the PC term for janitorial status, you know, this isn't on tech related issue. Sandy Yeah, something like that. So that's the majority, and you just in those types of jobs, you don't, you don't tend to have a lot of cash lying around. So you can't afford to pay for it upfront. So that's where something like the ISA helps. Now,

Ethan Bradley 18:33
I was talking to paycheck to paycheck. Exactly. My wife works to like, it's not like we don't, we're working, we're getting less expensive.

Trevor Page 18:42
Life is expensive, especially these days. So that's where the ISA helps. Now the downside to the ISA is you, you still have to pay it back eventually. Right? It's it's a, you know, if you choose to, to join, and then you don't graduate, because you don't put in the effort, eventually you start to pay it back. So that's this, this particular approach is only good for people who are willing to and ready to put in the amount of work that's needed to cross the finish line. And that's what I want to sort of transition the conversation into is what was the work like? So you talked about how, you know, you were hesitant, but the ISA allowed you to join the boot camp, and then you eventually chose to join the boot camp. What was the word like there? Even when you join late, you still You did great. You did a boot camp very, very quickly. But what was the work like how, what was the How hard was it? So

Ethan Bradley 19:32
it was difficult. A lot of issues. There's a lot of like, I knew the basic concepts, and I did the prep course that you have. So I was able to jump a little bit ahead, but then you hit like new stuff and you're like your brain stops for a minute. The way the bootcamp was set up for me was like perfect. Because of the way my learning style and the way my brain works. So we have like the video content every week. I actually need you to Ah look at where students change how the beat can run slow, we can get more content fast. Oh, that's right. I forgot that that was an interest to you. But he released more more weeks of videos. Yes, yes, yes, it's the video content. And where I can watch it like I could be doing something. Because we only got like a, an hour or two per night where I could sit on my computer. And that wasn't even every night, I could do that. But I could put it on my phone. I know, in your videos, you say don't watch Oh, and it worked pretty good. But I could put it on. Like, while I was doing something, I could be like, washing dishes, put the video up there. Watch and repeat. Listen to the concepts. The way my brain works is I remember where you would say something. And like, then reference back to it. So the key for me I found was I could watch those videos, even on my break your launch. And I had eight hours doing a mindless job where I could just think about it. I just like go through the examples in my head. What is this? So that I could sit down and do the work later? That was really important for me. That's a really

Trevor Page 21:11
thing. Yeah, that the the way? Like, first of all, I can't even I didn't know that. You would what you were watching on your phone, and then even then you were maybe doing one or two hours every other day or every third like that's and the speed. The reason why I say that that's surprising is Ethan was able to get through it in I don't know, four and a half months, the whole day, which normally it's six months. And right now, we've already introduced a nine month version of it, because people just can't go that fast, especially if they're brand new now you would fall into the six month because you already had 12 months of experience already. But yeah, that's still very impressive to do it in like four and a half months that

Ethan Bradley 21:50
time away from keyboard was was key. And I think that's right, yes. So I would watch through the videos, the first half of the week, I'd take a couple days when I would like be watching videos. And then I would read through the assignment. And I would think about the assignment in my head, eight hours a day, while I was chipping joints or putting money into cracks in the wall. So late by the time I sat down, I had a plan in my brain. So it was just a matter of good stuff fit on the page. And then debugging was finished. So I knew sort of what was abhorrent, like if I'd he'll bug usually, and I'd be frustrated for the last half hour of my coding session. And then the next day, I might have eight hours where I was like, what could I try? What can I try this and to like enjoy this thing. That it really was really important.

Trevor Page 22:45
Because here's, here's what happens. And I think you you accidentally were given this blessing of this of this constraint. The constraint was you had a job that you had to go to for eight hours. But the benefit of that job is it's pretty mindless. So the the the what you actually fell into is what some people do the opposite of which is they immediately just start coding, they read through the assignment and then okay, let's crack the fingers. Let's open the IDE, let's start coding, right? That is the almost guaranteed way when you're a beginner to fail. Right? When you're a beginner, that is not from experience, I'm saying this, this is not a gut feeling this is I've seen it happen over and over again, people will jump into it immediately start coding, and you just start creating this absolute pile of garbage. And you and you start with this pile of garbage and then you try to tweak it. I'll do this and tweak this and tweak that tweet and add this and remove that and it's like you're just it's it's garbage in garbage out. Dizzy is the expression whereas you took the meticulous approach, which is a lot more frustrating because it feels like

Ethan Bradley 23:47
it's slow. I I felt like I was like, Oh, just want to be in alignment computer coding, right? Yeah, exactly. But I'm sitting here on the stupid world during the stupid

Trevor Page 23:55
but that's, I think that that's faster, right? And there's an expression which are saying or something that can it sort of applies here if you want to go fast, go alone, if you want to go far go together. And that's it sort of applies here. The implication here of if you want to go far, then you gotta you got to take your time with it right? You gotta you gotta leverage the group and you have to spend time thinking and not actually typing keys on the keyboard.

Ethan Bradley 24:21
Really good part is Well, I started the September group, there was about two or three people that I but reached out constantly and we were always communicating. And we finished first. Like, it's so important to reach out to the group because like they're working on the same things are working on the daily calls. There's a daily call every day, I was on almost every single one nipping from the scarf. Let's put my headphones in. People had to stop it through mine. scaffold noises but it wasn't bad. I could sit and listen, even if I couldn't talk because there's too much noise. I had the earphones and I could listen watch pee Pull, struggle through problems and getting advice that the next thing like Pete was to use Well, like I couldn't share my screen on the daily calls, like everyone else could to get help debugging. So I would just harass Pete all the time. And who is Pete for the people who don't know who Peter, Peter is one of the instructors. So he runs the daily calls like, daily call, when you show up, you Salish, everybody gets a chance to say like, Hey, this is what I worked on. This is what I'm gonna work on. This issue I'm having Can anyone help me. And then at the end, everyone can jump in and help you give advice. And usually it's Pete giving the advice. But if there's a student there that now they're all together, there's a duck that has already done that they jump in and help out as one. Sometimes it helps the, it explained a different from different points of view. Yep.

Trevor Page 25:55
And that concept of, here's what I worked on last year. So I plan on working on today. And here's sort of what we call blockers that comes from the business world. It's called an agile what's called Scrum. But it's part of a methodology that's used with developing software specifically. So we use that on purpose, because that's eventually probably when you start your job, which maybe we'll talk about soon, when you start your new job, that might be what you're gonna do on a day to day basis, every day, you're gonna say the same thing. Here's what I worked on yesterday, here's what I'm working on today. And you're just gonna naturally be good at it, right? We try to force you to be succinct, which means quick, you have 60 seconds to get all that information, which is needed. When you have a team of like eight people, you don't want eight people talking for five minutes each or more, because then you're sitting in this meeting, not getting anything done. So yeah, it's good. I mean, having the community there little bit of accountability, and specifically reaching out and asking for help. It's so important. Yeah.

Ethan Bradley 26:45
And especially like, I worked along, Dustin, who did the podcast with before, me and Mr. Kind of like a little bit opposites. And it really helped like he would Dustin is he needs to understand what is happening all the time, he dives really deep into things. Whereas I'm like, I gotta do this. I got to learn as I go. Makeup work admin, then refactor the code that's written. So she was always asking you questions. I'll get back to your book and figure that out. Yeah, like, I would have done something and passed an assignment and I would have done it in a not as good way. And he like, asking him asking questions is, can you key? It like, I was like, Oh, I could make that a lot better later. Or the next time that it's gonna be better. And I would just get something working, like write that. And then he'd be like, No, I need to understand it. Now.

Trevor Page 27:42
I was going to hopefully say is, if you don't have like a Dustin or someone who's like that, we try to capture that as part of the code review process. So once you submit your assignment, we have experts who I say experts, we have two two people who have been coding for more than 10 years, each who look at your code and who will give you their feedback. So if you do do something that's really not, you know, good, they're gonna say it well, not, they're gonna kick it back to you and say, You got to fix this. So and even even animatedly,

Ethan Bradley 28:10
they were really good at like, Hey, you did everything great. I had one really like you did everything. almost ideal. So here's some cool things you can add like to make it more performant or things. You can add validation or something, but you just have that info, which was just teaching me new things, which was great.

Trevor Page 28:29
Good. I didn't didn't didn't know that. They did that. So that's, that's wonderful. Yeah. The whole point to it is to try to make you as well rounded as job ready as possible. Right. That's the point of any bootcamp and should be anyways, ultimately, to get you ready for the real world, which I was going to start talking about job. But I do want to touch base on on the topic of knowledge, like, well, job, my brain is going all over. So you, you so you graduated really quickly. And let's talk about the job search first, because I think there's there's some, some knowledge to gain a whole cycle of that. Yeah. So let's talk about the job search. You graduate, you start the job search, how does it go? What what happens?

Ethan Bradley 29:06
Talk? Well, I start by making a resume, which I will deal with the help you help me and then I was in a couple of online communities. There's the resume making course that we got after graduating. So when all right, I sent it everywhere, absolutely everywhere. I think my the most I had out at one point was 400. And that was excluding the ones that had already emailed back and said no. And I think I had about four interviews from that. And the first one, I believe was one where they eventually told me like, yeah, you're nice, but we're actually just looking for seniors. We'll keep your stuff on file, let you know. Thanks. They were fine, but I was like, so bit of a waste. I don't know why you would talk to me in that case, a lot of calls being like, hey, can we set up a call and then I think they actually looked at my profile, it just goes to do it was just a bit of a disaster. And nothing happened. I got to one where they were, I liked their approach. But it was not good for my situation. They were like, We're bit I actually basing our thing more on interviews than the resumes. And like I had react on there because I did a little bit of React view. To learn something spirit ended up being a React interview. And what that taught me was, I really don't want to do react, okay? Only like, I don't want to get front. So at least I learned something from that. And I was like, I need to really narrow this down.

Trevor Page 30:42
So that what did you do? How did you so you'd sent out? You did the spray and pray method, which I always say you get about 1% conversion rate, which is every 100 applications you send out, you get one interview back. So that's pretty much it. The

Ethan Bradley 30:52
interviews were not what I wanted. Okay, it was so then what did you

Trevor Page 30:55
do? How did you fix that?

Ethan Bradley 30:57
So I did, I eventually, you had set up a deal with career sprout, to do some of their needs, which is that a company that helps you do the job search and negotiating, and all those things. And so it started doing that. And he got to the networking side, and realized that I've been doing everything all around, I started networking, and people started talking to me, like, I just messaged a few recruiters, they were like, Hey, let's set up a call, we'll see what we can get to do even the ones that didn't like end up in a job that they at least got me contacts. So I knew people in the area, I was the one and a couple online communities as in the discord community as well, nice. And a local guy EDB a lot of advice. Just by doing this, I was like, Hey, is everyone around here? And then we ended up having a private conversation. He's like, Yeah, you're doing exactly the right. Like you learned exactly the right course, I should mention that. He's like, Yeah, you learn Java and spring and exactly what he taught you for your local area, too, is, it's really important to find out what's your research where you are. That makes sense,

Trevor Page 32:07
which is just go to indeed, and type in different languages and see how many jobs are available. And they aren't really I can almost guarantee if you're in North America, the answers to that, to the to the most popular languages are going to be Python or Java. That's just where all the jobs are right now. So

Ethan Bradley 32:24
we're in JavaScript, everyone learns JavaScript. So it's like, yeah, it's flooded with JavaScript developers.

Trevor Page 32:29
Yes, exactly.

Ethan Bradley 32:31
Not that it's bad. Just thanks. A lot.

Trevor Page 32:33
There's a lot of competition. We could talk about that a lot. But yeah, there's a lot of competition. Yeah,

Ethan Bradley 32:37
the net working, got the conversations flowing, and then ended up working for me to actually get a job was actually through you. I think your dad was able to talk to to meet a contact here in Ottawa for the jobs and I'm about to start. Exactly. Um, so you have anything now? Freaking like leverage, like, and I know you're in my network. So that's what got me my job.

Trevor Page 33:07
It's such that's helpful. Yeah. When you have someone who has a network, it's very helpful for getting a job.

Ethan Bradley 33:13
Yeah. But yeah, once that started actually working, like, because I was I actually applied to that job once before, and no, but as soon as I like, got in, and someone was like, Hey, can you talk to him? They talked to me, and they're like, Oh, this is great.

Trevor Page 33:31
Yep. And the reason is, is because the everyone just does the spray and pray method, it's, it is a very easy thing to do. Right? So everyone does it. The problem with that is when you're on the other side of that, when you have 500 applicants, you don't have time to go through 500 Different people to pick the right one, right? Something has to stand out. Right. And oftentimes people will say, you know, make your resume shine, make your written and have a great portfolio. And yes, those things are important. That'll make you stand out from maybe 50% of the 500. But how are you going to actually stand out? So you're the top three, right? And that's where you need to have some sort of networking connection, a human to human interaction, to be able to say, Hey, listen to me, my name is Ethan, I am a good coder, I think I can genuinely help you. And when they listen to this, okay, I'll give this guy a shot. Right? And then you're

Ethan Bradley 34:23
getting in front of that person, they can actually judge you for who you are, instead of just what you look like on paper because I look horrible on paper for a coding job. I just do. I'm like a great player for eight years. And then a coding bootcamp and right. Like, I'd helped out a little bit in the bootcamp afterwards so that was that was it

Trevor Page 34:44
but you still got a job? Like yeah, I did can be done. So let's leave us alone. It was great. Let's talk about it. So you got the job offer. You've accepted that you signed the paperwork, you start soon. Do you want to talk more about the job itself? I don't know your title if you want to say salary or salary range. To you talk about

Ethan Bradley 35:00
it. I don't know, I don't have a lot of details on what the actual work is gonna be like, but well, you can glean that from Daniel, I'm going to be working with CGI, which is like a consultancy, where I'm basically I'll be on a team, and we'll get contracts. And our team does the contracts in Ottawa heads a lot of government contracts. So I'll be on a government contract where we writing a program for this department. It's written in COBOL right now. And so they're like, Oh, it's a little outdated. We're going to write a new one. Cool. I'm going to be a junior Java slash full stack developers by title, which feels nice to see next. Yeah, a year or two. I could take the junior year off. That's right. Yes. But I am taking a bit of a pay dip because unlike at the top rung of where I am coming from, right, and I'm going into an entry level position, but even then it's I'm gonna be making 55k a year plus benefits Plus, there's vacation a bunch of other things three weeks vacation. Yeah, we're adding paid vacation in my life. Yeah, so you have health insurance and all that stuff. And just paint really pleased. Excited for is the vacation. Yeah, exactly.

Trevor Page 36:17
So that stuff all adds up. And so now you've you've got this job and and and we're on time. Oh, and remote. Very nice. Yes, I'm

Ethan Bradley 36:26
gonna have a brand new baby, so I can work remotely be told to help me. That's also a valuable,

Trevor Page 36:32
yeah, although you'll regret that later. But anyway, it's nicely I'll be like, okay, honey, I gotta go to my job now and then leave. But the depends on the person. So I see that I've been working remote for 10 years. So I've been in the thick of it for both of my babies. And it's a lot of work. So So yeah, you have this job. And oftentimes people will focus on that starting salary, right? They're gonna say, you know, I'm not gonna take a pay cut. Like that's, that's ridiculous. And that ended up and what they don't see. And it's frustrating is that the first job and the first pay that you get, lasts for maybe 12 months, right. And then after 12 months, your your world opens up, you can now you don't have to stay with CGI, if you don't want to, hopefully you will. Because they're a good company. I've worked with them before. They're good people, they take chances on juniors, I think they should be rewarded for that with loyalty. But that's up to you. You can always play the field and go and get another job after 12 months, right? And so many more doors open up and now you'll have multiple companies reaching out to you saying hey, I want to hire you. And now you can say, I don't want to work for you unless you hit this number. And then you can jump right back up to where you weren't where you would topped out. After eight years as a stonemason. I forget the the brick and stone use brick and stone mason, I want to be accurate. So you can now take the top of what took you eight years to achieve as a brick and stonemason. And then do that at year two of your of your coding job right now, probably somewhere around there.

Ethan Bradley 38:00
Well, like the way I see it. I've got the starting salary. Okay. This is not a horrible salary in as far as salaries go. Right? For an entry level position in Canada, Canada's a little bit lower. So yeah, yeah. I mean, should I've negotiated the higher maybe, but I also negotiate my way up to five, detach it. Okay, good. So I'm happy with it. But now, I can prove, prove what I can do. And I think I get to discuss with them every year. Like, if I want, you have a ball, absolutely, I just spend a year and I need to get

Trevor Page 38:41
so the piece the piece of advice for you. Just Ethan although this helps for anyone else listening if they're in a similar position, when you have an accomplishment in your job now for next fall months, write it down, that's something I did not do. Write it down when you when you get any praise from your boss write it down date. And and you know, accomplishment, it may be even if you want to go overboard get like the email or something so that you can build a case for yourself a year from now. Because if you just walk up to your boss a year from now and say I deserve a 10% raise or a 20% raise or a 100% Raise, they're gonna say okay, why? Because they probably couldn't give it to you, you probably will be worth that. But you need to prove that you're worth that right. So that's the one little piece of advice that I did not do that you should is just keep track of it and say, you know, I I actually tend to work 50 hours a week or whatever the case may be and I'm only I never charged you for it or something. So I don't know, whatever it is that you feel allows you to provide value to them write it down. And anyway so super exciting. You've got the job you start soon you're gonna get all this experience your career trajectory is gonna go up and up and up. Once you get senior level like where I'm at and I have 15 years experience or maybe yeah, maybe 15 Maybe more I forget. Now once you get to like five or eight years experience, you didn't get to start swatting away deals for like 150k 160k Hundreds Then, like the the numbers, it seems like it seems like play money. It seems like something that's just not real, like how can ever you know, but that's just the reality of coding. It's, it's, it's ridiculous

Ethan Bradley 40:11
like 100k for me in my glass career just seemed like unachievable, unachievable exactly right. Like, unless I work a ton of overtime, which they don't always pay overtime, like, ton of hours never see your family going, like, I can see it now. And let's say I have a plane, I'm gonna get there. Yep. So it's, it feels like freedom. To me.

Trevor Page 40:36
It's good. I'm glad. And that's and that's what. So this is the end result. Right. So if I'm talking now about from the terms of marketing, from, you know, talking about the bootcamp or any bootcamp, there's a before state and an after state for the student, right. In this case, Ethan. Ethan's before state was job he hates you know it, okay salary, but, you know, lots of uncertainty around, you know what sick time if I'm sick, I don't get paid. If there's a strike or something, I take a pay cut in the winter, sometimes I can't work, you know, whatever. The before state is like a frustration, and I just am not happy. And I and I could do so much more, right, there's so much more in me that I have that I can do. And then you go through this transition, which is the boot camp. Now this can be done without a boot camp, this can be done on your own with self paced learning, it just takes a whole lot longer. And the chance of failure is a lot higher. I've said this many times, I don't need to go into the details. But that's just a fact. And then the after state is where we are now, which is this oh my god, this like, feeling of more light like this and like less pressure on the shoulders. And it's like, okay, like, I can see now this path and this amazing. And that is the key that you need to hold on to in your brain when you're starting out. Because that middle part in the bootcamp sucks. It is hard, right? And I've tried to express that. And I tried to say like to hit the brick wall of like, your something doesn't make sense. And you feel like you're never going to understand it. And like, it's, it's hard. And you need to remember the after state, you need to remember the ossicles.

Ethan Bradley 42:07
Specifically, I was trying to learn SQL and databases. And I was like, I think I did three different one on one calls with Pete in a day just like ranting, why this to stupid, it doesn't make sense. Horrible. potentially be like, Okay, take it hour, we'll come back later. If you notice, like I clicked on his new dishes. It's, it's frustrating. But like, I spent so many time just ready to get Pete about things. But like, I had to keep this in my brain, I set my goal. If I can do the end of this, by the time I'm 50 I could spend my winters in Brazil. At the end of the day. I close my laptop, walk outside, the wife hands me a coconut and we're sitting on the beach.

Trevor Page 42:53
Beautiful that is that and you have you have said that it really Yeah, you've you've you've kept that same, you've been saying that for months. So you have a very specific image of your, you know, after state your even your after after state, you know, somewhere down the road and you know, 10 or 20 years from now, the they could work from

Ethan Bradley 43:12
anywhere. So like let's say I'm a senior and people are like begging for me to work with them. I'm like, I can go anywhere you want

Trevor Page 43:18
anywhere. Man. The job I have is yeah, the job I have the company is 100% remote. There's like the the they have like 400 people working from like, 50 different countries don't quote me on that. But it's it's ridiculous, right? It is truly remote. They are never going to ask me to go into an office ever. Because if they did, they would have a nightmare on their hands of people like so those jobs exist. And they pay really well

Ethan Bradley 43:42
you go to the store, buy those 150 Sounds good.

Trevor Page 43:46
So okay, so there's the after state just so if you're in a before state right now, if you're in a position of like, oh my god, I can't do this, and I hate my job, and what are my options, and I'm not good at math. And I'm not I never do well in school, and I don't think I can do you know, it's, you know, the first thing I do is probably dip your toes in the water do kind of like what Ethan did try Free Code Camp, try some Udemy courses, dip your toes in the waters just know, it's still gonna be hard, you're probably still gonna be frustrated, you're probably still gonna feel like you're not getting anywhere and but you do want to just see if you're at all if there's still an interest if you still wake up the next day curious about how to solve that problem. Like, if you're still coming back to it, that's probably a good sign. Whereas if you're like, I never want to see that like you

Ethan Bradley 44:27
want to do like you every time you're doing something else. You're like, I wish I could be doing this. Wishing

Trevor Page 44:33
That's a great feeling. Right? That's that's what you know, you're meant to be doing this. So I think that

Ethan Bradley 44:38
like I could do that from within job like it's

Trevor Page 44:42
it feels like cheating is what I say. Feels like cheating. Because like, yeah, to get paid to do something that you'd like you'd probably be doing anyway. Like it's it's feels like cheating. So So if if I don't know if you have any advice for someone who's who was in your shoes, before you did the bootcamp, is there any thoughts or advice or anything that you could get? Give it's okay if you don't have any. But is there anything that you would say to someone who would be like, yeah, just starting this journey right now, and listening this podcast

Ethan Bradley 45:09
we play, we're not in a bootcamp, I would say, maybe see if you have option to join one, not that it's necessary. But if you're not going to meet up, try to do that kind of stuff, meet actual people, you're going to need people to help you. There were no meetups here, but when I joined the bootcamp, you need to take it in, get them really paid for it. So like, the takeaway is a Trevor, if you're in his boot camp, eat all the other people like I was on Slack all the time trying to get every meeting and good. So it's like, it's just like, in my boring work. It was like this little highlight outward spin thinking about coding with people. And just take advantage of every condition.

Trevor Page 45:56
Absolutely, because some people don't, some people will join the boot camp, if that's their journey, and great, there's some people who I've barely heard from, they graduated in the boot camp and got jobs on their own, I may be put, I maybe had three hours of conversations with them through the entire process, hey, some people can pull that off. That's rare, it's much more likely that you're going to have people who are banging down your door asking for help. Those are people who do great, right? The people who I know really well are the people who succeed, the people who I never hear from are very likely to not succeed. So don't also just join the gap and not use itself.

Ethan Bradley 46:31
It's about it's not so much about just the coating, it's like meet the people, these people are going to, you're going to know that. So later on you might need you might need an introduction and that person knows someone like it. And you've made that relationship. So it's not weird for you to just be like, Hey, man, how's it going? I'm doing this guy trying to look for a job. Do you know what he would absolutely be doing? Like, that's how I got a job.

Trevor Page 46:58
Absolutely. And that's how I've gotten a job in the past before I needed a job. And I've told this story many times, so I won't go in detail. But I went from sitting down with my wife one night saying, oh, I should probably pick up another job to 24 hours later, I had a job offer 24 hours. And that was because of my network. I reached out to a few people. And one of them said, Yeah, I could probably get you hired. Let me check with my boss. And they had a conversation with the boss, the boss called me and said, Yeah, I mean, we were looking for some help. Would you be willing to start on Monday? And I said, Okay, sure. Done. 24 hours, I had a job. And it was, yeah, I think it was, uh, that one was 140k with a potential up to 10% Bonus annually lay that in 24 hours. So it, it it's insane. Well, that's a living for 50 off, which is much better than 400 Plus applications. Yeah. So the network is very important. So yes, build those relationships in the bootcamp or wherever doing meetups, whatever worked on you. And because it's, it's it pays dividends big time in the end. So cool. I think we're, I think we're good on time. I know this is gone long. I can talk about this stuff for hours. Anything else you want to say? I know some people sometimes who listen to these things want to reach out to the bootcamp students to pick their brain? Would you be interested in having people like, I don't know, email you or message you on LinkedIn or anything like that to pick your brain?

Ethan Bradley 48:14
I mean, yeah, I mean, the slack. If anyone's in the prep course, were like, I'm on LinkedIn, you can grab me see my pace.

Trevor Page 48:23
Okay. So I can share your I'll share your LinkedIn, your LinkedIn profile link on on short, Elektra, something, they can go and click on it and talk to you. Totally cool. Cool. So there you go. So you can connect with that with Ethan. And in your message, just say, Hey, I'm a potential, you know, bootcamp student or something. And then he'll know to accept your, your, your connection request. What's something good, you'll build Ethan's network? You can build your own network. There you go. Wait. So it was an autopilot. There you go. Perfect. So yeah, thanks very much for taking the whatever hour whatever it's been that we've been chatting. We've got overtime. And yeah, I can't wait to get in touch with you, Ethan. And see how your journey goes in year one, and two, and three, and five. And eventually, you'll have to take a picture of you on the beach with the coconut and send it to me, because that'll be a good one. So it'll be fun. It'll be fun, man. So thanks so much for taking the time. And I'm sure we will hear from you again sometime. But you take care. All right. There you have it. Ladies and gentlemen, this is Trevor back from the future present. I don't know how you call it after the interview took place. And yeah, just wanted to say thanks again to Ethan. He really was very generous with sharing his his thoughts and his feelings about his experience. And again, so proud of the guy. I can't say enough how incredible he did in the boot camp just because he put in the work. You know, even though he had a pregnant wife, and even though he he had a job and you know, although it wasn't constrained on his time. I think it was an O overall a good thing that it forced him to think about how he would solve the coding problems that he was, you know, at any given moment working on right. So many students will just just dive right into the code. And I, you know, I was to blame, I did that as well, when I was new to coding, you know, way back, when I first started, I would just jump jump into the code to without really thinking much about it, because I figured that was the most, you know, the quickest way to get across the finish line.

Trevor Page 50:27
But now, seeing all these data points, I can see that's not the quickest way across the finish line, the quickest way across the finish line is to think is to plan ahead of time is to not write code until you understand all of the high level steps that need to be completed in order to solve whatever problem you're working on. So Ethan was forced to do that on his job, his, you know, repetitive and mindless job, he was able to think about all the those steps in the high level and what could work and couldn't work. And as you heard, I think that was a big asset. So definitely a big takeaway there. And also the whole, you know, hey, don't just spray and pray with your applications. You know, 400 plus applications with zero success is frustrating to anyone. So, yeah, there's always a better way. So leverage networks. Obviously, if you're interested in the bootcamp, hey, you know all about it, coderscampus.com/bootcamp, we have, you know, student alumni who are able to, you know, you're able to rub elbows with them, and get access to some of their network, and contacts, as well as some of mine, and hopefully, drastically increase your chances of getting a job. So these people that are getting jobs don't have degrees, these people that are getting jobs, you know, they just did the bootcamp, right. They just put the work in and the effort in and then follow the advice that they were given. And, you know, did what I said, and then hey, lo and behold, they got jobs, imagine that. So, you know, it's, it's, it's not a hard thing to do. And it's a, it's a simple process, I should say, to simple process to follow. But I guess it is hard to stick to it. Because it can be so frustrating. Anyway, I've done all this before, if you want help, if you want guidance, if you're someone who is driven, who doesn't, who won't stop until they get that job and are able to, you know, have this amazing, illustrious career as coders. As I always say, we are so spoiled as coders, you know, my my, I also work in the world of coding still, because I like to keep my skills sharp, while also doing this whole boot camp thing. And my salary now, I mean, it's, you know, it has the potential to be above 200k. Now, so it's like this, it is so unimaginably rewarding, to be paid to do something that's fun, right, and not only just getting paid to do something, that's fun, but essentially get paid what like, three or four times the national average salary, you know, it just feels like cheating. But anyway, you can't just have that as the goal. You can't just say I want money, money, money, money, you know, you have to actually like a little bit of what this is, you know, this, this coding stuff. So if you've dipped your toes in the water of coding, and you still like it, but you're struggling and you don't know, you need guidance, and you don't know what to learn, and you find yourself doing the the hopping that Ethan was doing in the beginning where he was learning a little bit C sharp, but then he was learning a little bit of Ruby on Rails because someone said, hey, you need to learn Ruby. And then he learned about JavaScript because someone else said, Hey, you got to know JavaScript. And then he learned a little bit of Java because someone said, Hey, Java is the best and you got lots of jobs with Java. And then someone else said, Hey, learn, you know, C++ because Bob, and you know, he's just bouncing around. It's like, No, you need to focus, right, you need support, to focus on one path, make it through that path to completion. So that you can open up the next step in your, in your journey, which is ultimately to get a job. And then hey, if you want to switch to another language, knock yourself out. The hardest part and the most important part is to get that first job. So this bootcamp is going to help you with that. It's going to teach you one stack one very popular stack. People always ask why teach Java, I teach you how because it's like the number one most available job you can get. And the skills that you learn as a Java programmer Trent are transferable immensely to other languages. And you know, web developers are our, you know, always in demand and you know, learning Java as a back end language for web development, as well as some JavaScript. I mean, it's just so oh, it just, it's so good and so helpful and it's so

Trevor Page 54:50
widely spread available. It's so there's so much opportunity, it's just you need to put in a lot of work, right that's what this comes down to. If this were easy Not everyone would be a coder already. Okay? It's not easy, but it is simple. And we are here to help. We are here to put you on that path and get you across that finish line. Like Ethan and like Dustin before, before him and like many of our students who graduate and gotten jobs now we're here to help you along that journey. So if you are dedicated if you want to get this done and if you're gonna stop at nothing, then please, please apply. I think we can really help you so coderscampus.com/bootcamp, all one word. And yeah, look forward to seeing you and speaking with you inside of the boot camp, because hopefully you'll apply and get accepted and make it through. And I'll see you on the inside. So we'll see you there guys. Thanks so much for listening. And until next time, take care of yourselves. Happy learning. And bye for now.

Intro / Outro 55:48
Thanks for listening to this episode of the coders campus podcast. But before you go, Trevor has a favor to ask you. In order to keep these episodes free. He'd love for you to leave a rating and review the podcast on iTunes. Just go to coaters campus.com/review to leave your own rating and review of the show. So if you have 30 seconds to spare right now, please help out by leaving a rating and review via coders campus.com/review It will ensure that you continue to get these awesome free podcast episodes each and every week. So if you like free swag, head on over to coaters campus.com/review Happy Learning

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