Web Developer

What started out as a passion project quickly grew - like a beanstalk - into something bigger.

Montreal’s Linh Le Kim is a self-proclaimed foodie and coffee lover, who turned her passion for cuisine and coffee into her own blog. For several years, she blogged about coffee shops in the Montreal area while working various jobs in the banking and insurance sector. Her blog features hundreds of reviews of coffee shops and cafes in Montreal and other Canadian cities.

A political science graduate from Concordia University, Linh decided to introduce herself to the world of programming, enrolling in night classes at Concordia. “I took a few coding night courses to see if I liked coding before joining the bootcamp,” she says.

As she started learning web development, expanding upon her technical skills proved beneficial helpful as a blogger. It was advantageous to understanding the PHP (general-purpose programming language) themes and use various WordPress plugins used on the site. “Programming is always useful whether or not you want to work as a developer or just dabble in other creative projects.”

Around the same time, our campus in Montreal was growing. Thanks to a combination of timing, budget, and location, Linh enrolled in the web development bootcamp at Lighthouse Labs. She attended our July 2018 cohort and graduated 10 weeks later. (Our Bootcamp now consists of a 12-week curriculum.)

“I loved it,” she says. “I learned a lot more than the grueling night coding courses I took previously and in such a short period of time. I didn't think I would be able to do those 12-hour days but I was so immersed in the learning and had so much fun that the bootcamp went by super fast. I also met wonderful classmates who became my close friends after bootcamp.”

“Programming is always useful whether or not you want to work as a developer or just dabble in other creative projects.”

With the help of our career services team, Linh wasn’t on the job market for long.

“I was surprised at how easy it was to find a full stack job after graduation although I went through two jobs before landing the one I'm at currently, Tempo, as a software developer. As a new grad, you're eager to take the first job you get, but it might not always be the best fit. However, I don't regret working at the other two jobs since it gave me the experience and knowledge to get the job I have now, which I love.”

Tempo is a cloud-first software company that helps teams collaborate, plan and schedule resources, manage budgets, and track time directly from their daily workflow.

“Occasionally, I still feel like I'm not as good as the other 'real devs' (computer science grad-hires) but it's gotten a lot better. I perform well and my team loves me. I also saw that it's totally in my head and that what employers really value is just how open you are to learn, how much hard work you put into your work and how well you work within a team.”

Join The Online Classroom
Which skills will you learn next?