From astronautical engineering to starting a career in tech

After every graduation, we always say to our graduates:

Your story as a Re:Coded student may be over, but your story continues and we are very excited to follow your next steps.

A next step goal is most often getting a job and it is definitely one of the most exciting news for our community and our team to hear from alumni landing a job and starting doing what they are passionate about.

We sat down with Majd, one of our graduates from our Frontend Bootcamp in Türkiye to talk about his journey of finding a job as a Software Engineer. He joins our interview from his apartment in Ankara right after a busy day at work.

In all, it took 5 months of searching after graduation before Majd started working as a Software Engineer at Mavinci Informatics - an R&D company working in information and communication technologies, security and defense areas with the capability of software development, technical support, and consultancy.

"Currently, I work on one main project with a very experienced team. In this project, we organize our tasks in the form of sprints; where each member has their own tasks. My work day revolves around web development, fixing bugs and providing support to my colleagues."

Bootcamp experience

As a Syrian - Tunisian, Majd moved from Tunisia to Türkiye in 2013. He studied Astronautical Engineering at University of Turkish Aeronautical Association for his BA and he completed his MS, Masters of Science Degree in Computer Engineering in February following his passion for coding.

Majd got interested in coding during an academic internship where he had opportunities to learn more about new technologies such as Python. That’s when he realized he had an interest in coding and decided to do his master studies on computer engineering.

When the Covid-19 pandemic hit, Majd was continuing his master’s degree and looking for opportunities to improve himself and he heard about Re:Coded’s coding bootcamp from one of his friends. After a long application process, he was one of the 25 students who made it to the bootcamp among hundreds of applications.

When asked about his bootcamp experience, he says that the bootcamp exceeded his expectations.

"To be honest, the bootcamp definitely did exceed my expectations. My expectations from the program were that I would learn some basics about front-end development and work even harder to find a job or to learn new things after the bootcamp."

He says the bootcamp brought him closer to his goal of joining the digital economy compared to his theoretical education at his master’s degree.

"The bootcamp was very beneficial to the point that I put more weight on it for around a month than my master’s thesis. My main goal from the bootcamp was to enter the software industry and I realized I was learning and gaining more skills in the bootcamp."

During the bootcamp, students gain hands-on experience in coding with a lot of class activities, labs and homework. He says the bootcamp training set him up for success and realized that he has the technical skills to succeed at his career.

"By the end of the bootcamp, I was able to build a website very easily. And when I entered the job, I realized that not a lot of people know React - even Front-End Developers and very skilled software engineers. It is a new technology, and there is a big demand for front end developers in Türkiye with React skills. I was very lucky that we learned React in the bootcamp."

Alumni from our Frontend Bootcamp not only graduate with a technical skill set of HTML/CSS, JavaScript and React, but also with the skills, resources and networks to launch new in-demand careers in tech.

And, according to the StackOverflow 2021 Developer Survey where 80,000 developers participated, 40% of respondents voted React as the most commonly used Web Development Frameworks and 25% voted that it was the framework most wanted to learn.

We can see a similar pattern here in Türkiye as well. According to “2020 Turkey Software Technologies Report” conducted by TalentGrid with 196 companies, companies established in the last 5 years prefer React for Frontend to develop products. And, according to TalentGrid, in a survey from 2021, 426 students in Turkey reported that the top Front-End framework/library they would like to learn is React.

Job hunt

Re:Coded graduates usually find employment within 6 months after their graduation with a success rate of 92%. However, accessing the labor market legally in Türkiye as a foreigner may not always be easy, as Majd experienced himself after graduating the bootcamp

"After I graduated, I continued working as a part-time Arabic-English translator at IOM (International Organization for Migration), because it was challenging for me to find a job as a foreigner in the IT sector. I was applying for many jobs, I had a lot of interviews and I was accepted for the positions many times, but then I encountered a work permit problem which was very difficult. Because of that, finding a job lasted longer for me.'

Majd says the support he received from Re:Coded Career Services helped him get ready for the job search, create new contacts and to have a solid interview experience. In the end, he was able to start doing what he loves to do 5 months after graduation, when he found an employer that was willing to make a work permit application for him. And good news is that he was granted a work permit not long after.

Majd says he is now very happy in his position at Mavinci Informatics, reflecting on the past five months and making new friends at the company!

"When I first started working, it was the first time for me to enter the IT industry and everything was new for me. However, I got used to using different libraries and started helping my colleagues with React. And in this way, I even made new friends!"

This Program operates within the framework of the ‘PEP-Promotion of Economic Prospects’ program which is financed by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and implemented by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) in cooperation with Re:Coded & Impact Hub