Now a developer at Matera, Thibaud, a graduate of our fall 2017 batch in Montreal, was recently interviewed by Welovedevs. In the video, he talks about his career change and how he transitioned into his current role.
Summary
Career change
Thibaud started his career in e-commerce, working for Decathlon on their decathlon.fr website. A sense of curiosity and desire to grow professionally motivated him to learn more about the technical side of building websites.
The idea took root while working with product managers on a daily basis. More and more interested in the work they did, Thibaud decided he wanted to steer his career towards product management. The first step? Gaining more tech skills.
“I realized that in order to change careers, I would have to learn to code. I’d need to be able to speak the same language as developers in order to be a good product manager.”
From marketing to web development
As a hands-on and product-oriented bootcamp, Le Wagon seemed like the right place for Thibaud to kick start his new career. He joined Le Wagon Montreal in fall 2017 with every intention of becoming a product manager.
However, after 9 weeks of intensive study — working on daily coding challenges and developing web apps from scratch — Thibaud ended up falling in love with coding so much that he re-evaluated his career goals. He changed his mind about product management and decided to become a web developer instead.
“I was blown away by how much it was possible to learn in just 9 weeks. I had the feeling I was gaining superpowers. I loved coding and got such a deep sense of satisfaction and personal fulfillment out of it that I decided I wanted to do this as a career. Right there and then, I knew I wanted to be a developer, not a product manager.”
Thibaud has been a developer for two and a half years now and currently works for Matera, a French company that develops a platform for managing co-ownership properties. At Matera, Thibaud works for a team in charge of internal tools, giving him the opportunity to be in direct contact with the employees who use the solutions he develops.
“In a sense, I do have a product role, which is what interested me initially, but I also have constant technical challenges to solve because our teams are growing very quickly. We really have to think about how to scale every solution we offer.”
His advice for people wanting to change careers?
“If you’re looking to change careers, my advice is to just go for it. Never trying is the best way to fail, but by taking a chance, you could end up being really happy with the work you do.” <figure class="attachment attachment--content" data-trix-attachment="{"content":""}" data-trix-content-type="undefined">
Thinking about a career change in tech? Make an appointment to discuss your plans with a member of our team. We’re looking forward to answering all your questions about the web development bootcamp.