Gaining deeper knowledge of my field

I manage marketing and e-commerce at les Editions En Cavale, a company that designs and manufactures offline and screen-free children’s toys. We’re a team of three including the two founders, Margaux and Astrid, and myself. Our first product, called La Boite En Cavale, is an innovative concept for an interactive, mail-in adventure game geared to 7-11 year-olds. Each month, children receive a box containing the next steps of an investigation and they themselves are the heroes of the story. They solve creative puzzles and fun challenges before submitting their detective work to the En Cavale Office by mail. 

It’s been interesting joining a game company that produces entirely screen-free games because of my background working at Google, a digital agency, and studying at Le Wagon. Our product offers two different experiences — a totally immersive spy game devoid of screens for the kids, and a complete shopping experience with features to track a child’s progress for the grown-ups. Because we’re offering a subscription service, it was important for us to optimize both experiences, especially allowing customers to follow along their child’s adventure.

The Astronight team (Batch 242)

As the head of marketing and e-commerce, I need to leverage strategies that will convince parents and potential customers to subscribe and stay with us. It’s crucial to have as little friction as possible throughout the checkout process and one of the things I did was to rebuild the website to achieve this goal. I have to admit I didn’t code the website entirely myself, but I did use the skills I acquired at Le Wagon in my process, such as defining my value proposition, writing user stories, and defining the main features. I’m able to go above and beyond the templates offered by Wordpress and customize my site as I see fit, using just a few lines of code. 

We’re also lucky enough to be working out of Le Wagon’s coworking space in Lyon. Getting to see my former Le Wagon teachers and other alumni often means there’s always someone available to lend a hand whenever I’m feeling stuck with my code. We help each other out a lot in this community! In fact, it was a Le Wagon alumni who first put me in touch with the founders of Editions En Cavale — and now I’m part of the team!

I spent 7 years working at Google in Paris on non-tech teams with advertisers, media agencies, and site publishers. I often worked with engineers on various projects and felt a disconnect in our communications and workflow. I couldn’t really grasp what they were doing. It was frustrating, but it also stirred my curiosity to learn more. 

When you work at Google, people tend to take it for granted that you understand the ins and outs of the web. My grandmother even once asked me to “fix the internet”! Even though I had an in-depth understanding of tech and Google products especially, I felt the need to dive deeper and get a better understanding of my field. That’s why I decided to study web development at Le Wagon Lyon.

I wasn’t just looking for a coding bootcamp; I already had the chance to study a few coding languages online. I really wanted to experience for myself what being a web developer or a product manager is like. I wanted a hands-on approach to get a better idea. 

I was hooked on web development immediately: racking my brain to understand the logic behind back-end languages, proudly finishing my first snake game, and coding a complete web app as a team in only 2 weeks all helped me understand how the web works from the inside out. 

That’s what I appreciate now as I continue pursuing my career. Every day, I feel like I’m much better equipped to do my work. In spite of joining Le Wagon with the idea of pivoting careers, I ended up leaving more confident and bolstered in my current profession!