Here’s a short interview with Jesse Schneider, who was a full time iOS bootcamp student at TurnToTech and now works at a great iOS dev company  Dog on a Horse.

Hey Jesse – Thanks for taking the time for this. We thought it’ll be great if you could share some of your TurnToTech experience with us.  First, Congratulations! Looks like you’ve got a really fun job – a great way to start off the new year. We understand that you’ll be building iOS apps for companies like Tops and Disney!

Tell us how you got there? And did you study Computer Science in college?

Jesse: Thanks! Yeah, it’s pretty exciting. I actually didn’t major in CS in college. I was a psychology and bio student doing mostly lab research throughout my undergrad career. No coding whatsoever. When I graduated I bounced around a bit, starting off as a stock broker – before quickly realizing that it wasn’t for me, and then as the head of marketing at a startup in SoHo.

Q. How long did it take you to get this job? And how did you go about looking for the job?

Jesse: I actually got the job just about a week before I finished the bootcamp. Looking for a job – there’s a standard procedure which almost everyone follows. You post your details on AngelList and other job sites, go through the interview prep material at TurnToTech and speak with companies that TurnToTech partners with.

Q. Great! And when did you realize that a software engineering career might be appropriate for you?

Jesse: After about a year at the startup I was working at, a friend and me had some app ideas we wanted to build. He said he’d build the app and I can do the marketing, but I didn’t feel that was fair to him, so I took the leap to learn to code so we could build our app together.

Q. Why did you choose an iOS bootcamp?

Jesse: As I mentioned earlier, I didn’t have any coding experience before TurnToTech. I didn’t feel it would be efficient to try and learn my first programming language on my own, especially an objected-oriented language like Objective-C. Before the bootcamp I didn’t really know what an object-oriented language meant, I just knew Objective-C was the language I needed to learn to build iOS apps. So after looking into different online courses, textbooks, bootcamps, etc., I decided that a bootcamp was going to be the best way for me to learn.

Q. What made you choose TurnToTech? Did you research other places?

Jesse: Yeah, of course. I looked into all of the major bootcamps in NYC. A lot of them were much more expensive and had a lecture-based classroom model. What drew me to TurnToTech was the immersive, project-based style of learning where you learn from building real apps opposed to sitting in a long lecture.

Q. How much of a role did TurnToTech play in you in preparing you for your role in your current job?

Jesse: I can confidently say, that without TurnToTech, I would not have a job right now. TurnToTech’s project-based learning style forces you to be independent and figure things out on your own. Of course the instructor is always within 20 feet of you so when you get stuck, someone is there to guide you. In my role at my current job, it works the same way. I’m expected to be able to complete tasks independently, but when I need to bounce an idea off of someone, my boss and coworkers are always nearby. TurnToTech mimicked the real world work environment better than I could have ever imagined.

Q. How was a typical day at the bootcamp?

Jesse: I would get in everyday around 10am or so. I’d set up at my desk, grab some coffee and pick up where I left off the day before. When I would get stuck on a problem or wanted to get an idea on how to go about it, I’d do some research, usually on StackOverflow – the go to website for programmers – to see how other programmers have tackled similar problems. I’d also usually spend a small part of my day helping others who were newer to the program on projects that I had already done. This was great for me because it helped to reinforce what I had already learned, and it helped the newer students work through their problems. Of course when I first started, I was the newer student and there was always someone to guide me. A few of the other students and me (and sometimes the instructor) would grab lunch around 1-3pm for a half hour to an hour. When I’d get back, I would jump right back into the problem I was working on. Depending on the day, I’d usually head home anywhere between 6pm and 9pm. This was more or less a typical day for me.

Q. Were you burned out at any point? Or were you always energetic, ready to move on to the next challenge?

Jesse: Of course I was burned out sometimes! Anyone who tells you that they don’t get burned out every now and then after staring at a computer screen for sometimes over 12 hours a day is lying. I found that I was pretty useless most of the time after 8pm, so if I was still at my desk come 8pm, I’d pack my things up and head home for the night.

Q. How about your confidence level as a software engineer? How would you compare where you were before starting the program to where you are now?

Jesse: I’m pretty confident. When I started the program I was pretty nervous and wasn’t sure if I could do it. But like anything else, as time went on and I had more and more practice, my confidence in my ability as a programmer went up. I remember about halfway through the program, there was one project in particular that I completed that made me feel like “Ok, I can do this.”

Q. What would you say about your cohort? Did you guys interact a lot or did most people mostly keep to themselves?

Jesse: Everyone was really friendly and always willing to help each other. We’d all try to get lunch together at least a few times a week and every now and then a few of us would go to meet-ups or the occasional bar together after class.

Q. How was your internship experience and the experience with the curriculum?  What did you work on? Did that help during the interviews?

Jesse: The internship was great and the curriculum prepared me really well for it. During the internship, I worked on a really tough parking app that allows the user to see available street parking in large urban cities like Manhattan. All of the major skills I gained throughout the curriculum were put to work in the making of this app.

It turned out to be super valuable to have a real world app that I was working on and could talk about while interviewing. The main job of an interviewer is to assess the candidate’s skill level. There’s no better way to do that than to be able to show them a project your working on that is bound for the app store.

Q. What are your future plans?

Jesse:  I love my current job and plan on working here for the foreseeable future. On the side, my friend and I are going to continue to work on our own apps. The goal is for one of our side projects to eventually gain enough traction to be able to work on it fulltime.

Q. Anything else you’d like to add for someone considering TurnToTech, especially to those why don’t come from a science or engineering background?

Jesse: Just do it. It’s unbelievable when I look at where I was 3 months ago and where I am now. Don’t be intimidated if you’ve never coded before. I had never even seen code before TurnToTech and was able to become a full-fledged programmer with a job in just 3 months. If this is something that you’ve been thinking about trying, just do it.

Thanks a lot Jesse. Wish you luck at your new gig!