HyperionDev graduate Wynand Basson is currently living his dream life in Utrecht in the Netherlands. Coming from a background in electrical engineering, he was motivated to make a career change to tech by four of the industry’s top benefits: earning a better salary, developing skills for an in-demand job, working remotely from wherever he wanted, and being able to travel. This is his inspiring success story.
The spark that ignited the tech flame
Just a few years ago, Wynand was studying Electrical and Electronic Engineering at the North West University in Potchefstroom. It was during this time that he was introduced to different programming languages, including C++ and Java, and he decided he wanted to know more.
However, it was only once he worked as an electrical systems engineer at Eskom, a job and industry that he found stifling, that he decided to switch careers and follow his dream by enrolling in our Software Engineer Bootcamp.
Studying online, part-time, he says the flexible nature of bootcamp – combined with a good dose of hard work – gave him enough time to juggle both commitments. Today he works for Infor, a global leader in business cloud software products for companies in industry-specific markets.
Coding bootcamps are about more than just learning to code
Wynand enjoyed the challenge of his bootcamp and how each step in the programme fortified his confidence that he’d ultimately succeed in a career in tech. He was also excited by the huge variety of technologies he learnt, such as Python, Java, SQL, HTML, and CSS, and how it gave him a deeper understanding of object-oriented programming and machine learning.
For him, the most challenging part of the bootcamp was the supervised and unsupervised machine learning tasks students have to complete towards the end of the course. How did he cope? Wynand says:
“I overcame this with some guidance from my mentor and by reminding myself of what success would look like.”
Working in a high-tech environment right now, Wynand says the best part is that the skills he picked up with HyperionDev are easily transferrable to other technologies and coding languages. This has been put into practice at Infor, where everyone works in 4Gl, the company’s proprietary coding language.
He found the bootcamp code review process extremely useful, not only because it showed him alternative ways of solving programming challenges but also because it took his coding to a new level – something that often only happens once you’re on the job.
When he graduated, HyperionDev helped him create an awesome developers portfolio with Github, where he can showcase his favourite coding projects to potential employers. One of these is a video game he built using Unreal Engine and C++.
The world is Wynand’s oyster
Wynand currently has an enviable position as a software engineer at Infor, where his main responsibilities include app development and maintenance and completing admin tasks related to enterprise resource planning solutions. In just 18 months, he went from associate software engineer to software engineer, opening up dozens of exciting and promising job prospects and career paths.
His dream job is working for Guerrilla Games (the Amsterdam-based studio behind the critically acclaimed Killzone and Horizon franchises), but whether that pans out or not, he’s committed to always working for software companies that use cool technologies to make a positive difference in the world.
How does he think code could change the world for the better? He says:
“I think that, with code, we are only limited by our own creativity. The spectrum of possibilities ranges from financial software to video games to biomedical engineering to dating sites to factory automation, just to name a few. In my opinion, the world is, for the most part, better because of it.’
Follow Wynand’s exciting career in tech at his Github portfolio.
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If you’re inspired by Wynand’s story and feel ready to embark on your own journey toward a fulfilling coding career, sign up for a bootcamp by registering with HyperionDev here. Who knows, your success story may be next!
