Takudzwa was born and raised in Zimbabwe. Once upon a time design was everything in his life but slowly he realised he wanted to do something that had an impact on other people's life. He joined the Part-time bootcamp remotely. And it changed everything. Soon after he started a new job and is currently packing to move to Germany.
What I needed was work that I knew would make a positive impact on users. I needed innovation. I needed problem-solving. I needed to learn how to code.
Batch #603 during their Demo Day
My name is Takudzwa Gwindingwi. I was born and raised in Zimbabwe.
My background is in design. Once upon a time design was my whole life. I was not bad at it either. I have degrees in Graphic Design and Creative Brand Communication. Worked with a few cool brands. Won a few awards too. I could have easily continued down the design path, but I always felt like something was missing, or to put it bluntly – I felt the work I was doing lacked meaning. Not to say design is not meaningful. I still love design. It is just the adverts I was creating to sell people products they do not need were a bit soul-sucking.
What I needed was work that I knew would make a positive impact on users. I needed innovation. I needed problem-solving. I needed to learn how to code.
I knew learning how to code could give me a chance to help build an app for a brand solving a problem, or down the line – when I am more experienced – I could build apps to solve issues in my own life.
Now I am working as a Junior Full Stack Developer at Kurabu. I think what we are building is quite awesome. The founders saw that sports clubs’ memberships in Germany were rapidly declining. Especially among young people because of how inefficient the sign-up process is and how the clubs are managed. I get to be part of a team creating a digital platform to solve this issue. How cool is that? At this point, I still have a lot of learning to do, but at least I log on every day knowing what I am doing could help these clubs stay open.
Tadukzwa presenting his groups project during demo day
I have the Le Wagon alumni network to thank for where I am. This thing is underrated, or maybe I just underestimated how massive and influential the network is. It is literally people from around the world in one slack channel. To quantify this, I got 75% of my interviews through the Le wagon jobs slack channel. And Andrew Erlanger, a Le Wagon teacher/alumni I worked closely with on my project had coincidentally worked with the founders of Kurabu before so he could testify on my abilities.
It does not stop there. Rodrigo Sommacal, another Le Wagon teacher/alumni is now one of my mentors at Kurabu and is teaching me a million cool things daily. I mean if there is one thing I am thankful for, it is that network.
I have the Le Wagon alumni network to thank for where I am. This thing is underrated, or maybe I just underestimated how massive and influential the network is. It is literally people from around the world in one slack channel.
Besides the alumni network. It was comforting going through this journey with other people who were also going through the same journey of switching careers. People that also did not know how to code. I also appreciate how the boot camp makes learning how to code a lot less intimidating.
I am extremely excited about what the future has in store for me.
