Professional musician and teacher, Charles Knighton-Pullin’s life was flipped upside down when Covid-19 hit and the events industry took a massive knock. He had been a high school music teacher and played gigs at night. He was searching for a more stable income and wanted to change his career.
This is what led him to enrol for HyperionDev’s Immersive Full-Stack Bootcamp. Charles had previous coding experience and wanted to upskill so that he could find a job as a developer. Speaking about his experience of the bootcamp, and how it prepared him for his new career, Charles says:
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“I think it gave me a great grounding… and overarching education, if you will. There are loads of online resources, but it’s extremely difficult to know where to begin when you have little knowledge. It also gave me a good overview on what to expect.”
Charles’s new career path
Since graduating from HyperionDev’s Immersive Full-Stack Bootcamp, Charles has started working at Gotbot, a company that specialises in Chatbots. He first worked there for six months as an unpaid intern while completing the bootcamp and has since been promoted to Junior Developer.
Gotbot develops chatbots for social networking platforms that provide customer service based on analytics from client information. In his role as a Junior Developer, Charles uses various stacks to develop chatbots.
While his first role at the company did not meet Charles’s salary expectations, he has since started to reap the rewards of his investment and he feels the role is both rewarding and enjoyable.
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“It’s difficult to quantify and look back at a single “thing”, but I would say that the entire shift has been rewarding. The people I work with have been amazing and have had faith in my abilities to create products for the company.”
Reflections on the bootcamp
Charles enjoyed the module on Java the most and found the full stack REACT/NODE section to be the most challenging. He resolved to try his best and did well in the module.
He did so well, in fact, that the HyperionDev Team awarded him student of the month. Charles says that he is amazed by the skills he has now and the web applications he is able to build, as he previously did not think he would ever be able to create stable applications.
Charles’s five-year plan includes becoming a backend developer in a senior position:
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“For now, I’m just taking it one day at a time. I think if you aim to make progress each day, you will find yourself in that position in time. That’s just my personal experience in life.”
The power of coding
Charles credits HyperionDev’s Immersive Full-Stack Bootcamp and his job at Gotbot with helping him to overcome his self-doubt and gain confidence as a developer.
In his opinion, coding skills provide limitless opportunities, as code offers numerous improvements to different facets of life, such as making connections between people and advancing medicine and science.
Charles’s advice to people who want to learn to code is:
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“You need to go on to youtube or speak to a friend and see what someone in this industry actually does. I’ve tried to motivate a friend or two to take the plunge, but in the end, It’s your decision. You should know what you’re getting into. I think it can be an awesome career shift for the right person or potentially even just an amazing hobby.”
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If you feel inspired by Charles’s story and would like to journey into the fulfilling tech industry yourself, start your journey with HyperionDev here. Who knows, your success story may be next.
