I got my first ever job as a Software Engineer!!!
Tags: career, womenintech
Published: 2019-07-08 06:20:46

I GOT A JOB AS A SOFTWARE ENGINEER! 🥳🎊🥂🎈

Today, I am so excited to announce my first ever role as an Associate Software Engineer at M&G Prudential! The career change has been an adventurous ride; dreams really do come true!

I thought I would never be able to do this without a Computer Science degree, but I was proven wrong by the amazing tech community who supported me!

If you're interested on hearing more about my career change, check out a Q&A on my Coding Journey [here][1].

## Special Thanks!

Thank you to all those who have been part of my tech journey so far! 

I also want to do a big shout out to EVORA Global, Makers, Codebar, Code First: Girls, Women Who Code, Girls in Tech, Inc., Tech for Good and Rails Girls for supporting my journey into tech!

### EVORA Global

My friends at the sustainability consultancy are a bunch of fantastic people, who inspired me to come into work everyday to do my best. After a year as a Junior Sustainability Consultant on the consulting team, I was given the opportunity to put forward some ideas to grow the company’s proprietary technology solution, which was focused on the sustainable real estate industry. The solution had a data-driven approach to support on environmental data management and reporting for commercial real estate sector clients.

I’m so grateful that the company put its trust in me and offered me the chance to be part of their new technology team. It was pretty much a blank slate at the time and something felt ‘right’ about it. **Though I hesitated to leave my sustainability consulting days behind, I was elated at the prospect of being part of something special.**

For over 2 years, I grasped with the concept of Agile and engaged with the team on the software development of the sustainability software through the implementation of agile product/project management strategies, business requirements gathering and specification. I learned about scrum iterative software development and how to use Atlassian’s JIRA tool.

*Thank you EVORA for being part of my tech journey!*

*If you haven’t heard of EVORA, definitely check out their website [here][2]!*

###Code First: Girls

In September 2017, I joined the Code First: Girls Web Development Beginner’s Course and never looked back again. I remembered dashing off after work an evening a week to the Twitter UK HQ, being utter exhausted, but felt so excited and energised to code. I had sessions once a week which covered so many things such as HTML, CSS, JavaScript, jQuery, GIT, GitHub collaboration, development concepts, Twitter Bootstrap and responsive web development and even had the chance to work on a group project.

As soon as that ended, I enrolled onto the Code First: Girls Advanced Ruby Course, where I was introduced to Ruby programming, Sinatra framework, GET/POST requests, development concepts, automated emails using Mailgun, external APIs and deployments. I got to understand application deployment on Heroku cloud hosting services and explored the Twitter API.

*Thank you Code First: Girls! You really helped me to find my passion. As a Code First: Girls alumna, I feel like I could change the world!*

*If you haven’t heard of [Code First: Girls][3], definitely check out their courses. They have free community courses and professional courses aimed at getting women into tech.*

###Rails Girls London

The 2-Day [Rails Girls][4] London Installation Party and event in December 2017 was cool beans! Held at Deliveroo, there were some inspiring lightning talks and coaching. 

*There’s plenty of materials online too! Watch out for their next event!*

###Codebar London

[Codebar][5] is growing so fast across the UK and the world. I have been a student as part of the Codebar London chapter for a while now. It’s been cool to meet everyone over good food and code! Yummy! 

*Thank you to all the coaches who have coached me so far, your workshops have been so insightful!*

###Technology for Good & Women Who Code London
Going to talks through https://www.meetup.com/ run by [Tech for Good][6] and [Women Who Code London][7] really got me thinking about the application of coding for specific social causes. I’d recommend checking out their upcoming events!

###Makers

By the time I encountered [Makers][8] in late 2018, I was sure that Software Engineering was for me. I attended the **Demo Day** events and was blown away by the projects created by the students there. The **Intro Cohort** was a useful time for me to meet up with like-minded people and code together.

**Entering Makers felt like home to me and I imagined myself there one day.** I actually looked at several coding bootcamps across the UK, but was deterred by the costs. Luckily, I came across the Fellowship Programme at Makers and applied! It was the best decision I had made. My interview was challenging; though it was one of the most enjoyable interviews I have ever had!

### Girls in Tech London

I went to a conference organised by [Girls in Tech London][9] during London Tech Week 2019 on the intersections of tech and benevolence. It was a thought-provoking [evening][10] and I left feeling inspired to hack my tech career!

*Thank you Girls in Tech London!*


## Final Thoughts

Onwards and upwards! 👩💻😍
I'm so happpyyyyyy!!!

Byeeeeeeee,

Kim

[1]: https://dev.to/thekimmykola/my-coding-journey-q-a-geography-graduate-to-software-engineer-fellowship-programme-makers-3c19
[2]: https://evoraglobal.com/
[3]: https://www.codefirstgirls.org.uk/
[4]: http://railsgirls.com/
[5]: https://codebar.io/
[6]: http://www.techforgood.global/
[7]: https://www.womenwhocode.com/london
[8]: https://makers.tech/
[9]: https://london.girlsintech.org/
[10]: https://twitter.com/thekimmykola/status/1138907030956204040