S26:E5 - Exploring the Path from Medicine to a Tech Career (Shona Chan)

Meet Chris Immel, AI Engineer and Digital Artist at Luminifera Projects. Chris shares how he works to create a symbiosis between software development and art and why he remains optimistic when it comes to the AI revolution. Show Links Partner with Dev & CodeNewbie! (sponsor) Chris' Instagram Chris' Website Chris' GitHub Chris' LinkedIn

Meet Daniel Bourke, Founder of mrdbourke Studios and Founder of Nutrify. Daniel shares his experiences trying to learn to code four different times before it finally stuck, how he’s combining his passions for health, technology and art and the time he built his own machine learning roadmap. Show Links Partner with Dev & CodeNewbie! (sponsor) Daniel's LinkedIn Daniel's Website ML Courses Nutrify Daniel's Twitter Daniel's LinkedIn

Meet Chelsea Kaufman, Founder and CEO of LEARN Academy Chelsea shares why her background in theater set her up perfectly to found LEARN Academy, an AI native coding bootcamp, how she’s seen the bootcamp landscape evolve over the years and what role she believes AI will play in the future of software development. Show Links Partner with Dev & CodeNewbie! (sponsor) AI-Native Developers program LEARN Academy Website LEARN Academy Twitter

Meet Rob Frelow, Co-founder & Chief AI Officer at The Storygraph. Rob shares how a trip in his friend’s Tesla led him to enroll in his first AI course, how he broke into AI later in his career and his experience truly living the dream waking up each morning excited to dive into AI and his work at Storygraph. Show Links Partner with Dev & CodeNewbie! (sponsor) Fast.ai Course Reddit ChatGPT Large Language Models The StoryGraph Rob's Twitter

Meet Pau Bajo, Machine Learning Engineer and Educator at Real-World Machine Learning. Pau talks to Saron about transitioning from working daily in Excel to Python, why data is everything, and what skills early developers need to foster if they want a career in machine learning. Show Links Partner with Dev & CodeNewbie! (sponsor) Machine Learning Python Pau's GitHub Pau's Instagram Pau's Twitter

In this week’s episode, we explore the journey of Alejandro Aspinwall, a Frontend Engineer at Amazon. You’ll hear how Alejandro began his career deeply immersed in the world of music and what led him to transition to the world of tech. He emphasizes the importance of adaptability in his career shift and provides insights into how coding bootcamps played a pivotal role in his development. Additionally, Alejandro explores the impact of artificial intelligence in his work, particularly discussing how AI tools have become an integral part of his coding toolkit. His experiences offer valuable perspectives on the practical use of AI in software engineering, and his story sheds light on the evolving nature of tech careers and the increasing role of AI in the industry. Show Links Partner with Dev & CodeNewbie! (sponsor) VS Code NPM Prisma GraphQL Cody Sourcegraph Stable Diffusion Claude Poe AWS Whisper FreeCodeCamp Coursera Udemy JavaScript C# Unity Unity DevOps Sound Engineering API Frontend Engineer Stack Overflow ChatGPT Open AI

Meet Shawn Charles, Developer Advocate & Community Manager at The Hunt. Shawn shares with Saron how he got into tech solely by building and maintaining websites for local businesses, what inspired him to level up by enrolling in a bootcamp, and his advice on those who might feel overwhelmed in identifying their career path in this new world revolving around AI. Show Links Partner with Dev & CodeNewbie! (sponsor) Resilient Coders AWS Services Udemy Shawn's GitHub Shawn's Twitter

Meet Katherine Evans, Lead Engineering Instructor at Actualize Coding Bootcamp and Senior Software Engineer at Neon One. Katherine walks us through her journey from bootcamp student to bootcamp teacher, sharing tips for recent grads looking to land their first role. Saron and Katherine also talk about whether Katherine thinks it’s still worth learning to code given the economic climate and what she would tell others who might be interested in learning to code. Show Links Partner with Dev & CodeNewbie! (sponsor) Actualize Coding Bootcamp Podium Education CAD PHP Katherine's GitHub Katherine's Website Katherine's Instagram

Saron speaks with Johnny Proano, Associate Software Engineer at Hilton Grand Vacations. Initially drawn to code while building his personal DJ website, Johnny took the full leap with the support of his family. Johnny discusses his initial belief that a degree was necessary to become a software engineer and his decision to attend a coding bootcamp instead. He reflects on the differences between the bootcamp and college experience and shares his job search process after graduation. Show Links Partner with Dev & CodeNewbie! (sponsor) SQL Ruby Johnny's GitHub Johnny's Instagram Jonny's Website

Saron chats with Ronesha Dennis, Founder and Lead Engineer at Bergeron-Woodley. Ronesha talks about growing up and how tech played a role in her childhood (her first website was a fan site for Lil Bow Wow). She talks about how she ended up in another career for 5 years until she sat down and thought about things she liked doing as a child without being paid for doing those things. This led her to want to get into tech. She decided to leave her job, move back with her parents, and do an 8-week program on Ruby on Rails. She then did a fellowship with Code for Progress. After graduating, she landed a job as a consultant then advanced to an Engineer, a Senior Engineer, and finally to managing other Engineers. She has authored coding books and she has her company building applications for nonprofits and other small businesses. Ronesha speaks on the mental health break she took after making the switch to tech and how important it is to give yourself space and time to take breaks after a career transition. Show Links Partner with Dev & CodeNewbie! (sponsor) Python, the Relatable Way Coding with Cornell Ruby on Rails Ronesha's GitHub Ronesha's Instagram Ronesha's Twitter