From Fashion Designer to Software Engineer: Advice for Landing Your First Tech Role

Resilience and steadfastness can be the keys to success in pursuing your first tech role. Fullstack Academy alums are an incredible resource for helping new bootcamp graduates land a role in the tech industry.

As part of the Career Success Program at Fullstack Academy, students have the opportunity to attend workshops with guest speakers, including hearing from alums about their experiences in the field. One Fullstack Academy alum, Carmine Yijin Ro, shared her compelling advice for landing a coding job.

Ro transitioned from fashion design to software engineering after realizing the limitations of physical materials during the COVID-19 lockdown, when she couldn’t easily meet with clients. She and her team used Google Analytics to double sales in a virtual showroom. Seeing the power of data and technology, Ro then enrolled in the Fullstack Academy Software Engineering Bootcamp.

After bootcamp, Ro dove into her job search and began making headway with two key tactics. She continued to work on and improve her capstone coding project. She also regularly posted about her learning journey on LinkedIn. These strategies eventually resulted in a successful outcome, with Ro landing a front-end software engineer position at New York Life Insurance.

Ro’s advice to recent grads navigating the job search or interviewing process is to keep leveraging your Fullstack Academy classmates. She recommends completing mock interviews with peers and continuing to practice coding problems together even after bootcamp. Ro’s story is an inspiring example of how people from diverse professional backgrounds can create a new career in software engineering.

Watch her career advice in the video below.