Answer a few quick questions and I'll help you to get started.
Start your career the right way
The software industry is booming and software developers are in huge demand all over the world. I'll teach you the skills you need to get your career started.
Knowing where to start can be overwhelming for anybody trying to get into software development. With so many available options, it's crucial to have somebody who knows the industry to guide you in the right direction.
By signing up with me you'll get private mentoring from an experienced software developer with more than 15 years of experience.
Personal 1-to-1 mentoring
I will guide and mentor you through the most challenging stage of your software development journey, the stage after you’ve completed a degree, or you’ve done some online courses and you know the basics, but you haven’t started work yet.
The transition from learning in a controlled environment to professional developer can be daunting. There is so much to learn, and technology is moving so fast that you sometimes feel you’re drowning in information. What should you focus on, what languages, what versions, what is relevant, what is more advanced, the list goes on and on.
This is where I will help you. I know what’s relevant, and I know how to teach this. I source the best courses and I make sure you learn what you need to know for where you are today.
About me
I'm an experienced software developer with more than 15 years experience. I started programming in 2004 in the UK, and I’ve worked with a lot of different languages and environments since then, but I specialise in C#, ASP.NET Core and Angular.
In the last couple of years, I’ve started to focus more on training junior developers. I’m running an internship program at Bitcube, a software development company in South Africa, where I work with post-graduates, or any other junior developers looking to improve their skills. My main aim is to get you job-ready and employable.
I’m still actively developing commercial projects in the UK and Australia, so I’m actively involved in the industry and I understand the challenges faced by developers on a day-by-day basis.
Teaching methods that work
I only take a few students at a time to make sure I can give you the personal assistance you’ll need to become a successful, professional developer. I source the best courses from the best teachers, and I make sure we only focus on the material that’s relevant to your current skill level.
The only way to get better at coding is to code, so every language/framework/tool we cover will be followed by practical projects that are actually relevant to what you can expect as a professional coder, not vapourware that gloss over the difficult stuff to give you a false sense of security
I personally review all your code, give advice on how to improve, and make sure you code to a standard that will make you stand out from other developers with your level of experience.
What you'll need to start
A PC or Mac that can run Visual Studio or Visual Studio Code. A good internet connection that can stream video and handle voice calls.
Why use J-Stack and not some other online training platform?
There is a lot of information available out there for people who want to get into software development. If you’ve done any online courses, you’ll know what I’m talking about. It won’t take long before you’re overwhelmed with all the possibilities and different directions you can take. This is where I come in.
As an experienced developer I know that 80% of the time you use 20% of a specific language or framework. And I know what that 20% is, so I make sure you focus on that. I’ll guide you through the staggering amount of information available and make sure you learn the right skills, nothing more, nothing less, so that you can start earning money as a professional developer as soon as possible. And I make sure you do it the right way.
How does it work once I've signed up?
We start as soon as you sign up. I’ll provide the course material that you have to study for the next week or two, depending on what we’re covering at that time. You will work through the material in a way that works for you. I’ll give you recommendations on how to do this. You can use my recommendations or go at your own pace, whatever works for you.
I will provide practical, real-world exercises that you’ll be expected to complete during your training. You’ll submit your code to GitHub, and we’ll go through your code together via private video conferencing. You’ll learn a lot from these sessions, and we’ll make sure you stay on the right track.
All the code you write will be on GitHub, so you can use this in job applications at the end of your program. This will give you a huge advantage over other junior programmers who studied but never completed anything other than simple vapor-ware.
Do you create your own course material?
No. And the reason I don’t is because creating course material doesn’t align with my students’ goals. If you focus on course creation your main goal is to create content that covers as much of the subject as possible. Most of the time that is way too much for a junior developer. A lot of the stuff they cover are just not relevant for where you are in your career at the moment.
What I do is I source the best courses from the best teachers, I make sure the information is up to date, and I make sure you only learn what’s relevant for your specific situation. Doing it this way ensures that my goals are aligned with yours. We’re not here to see how many hours of course material we can cover, we’re here to turn you into a professional software developer as quickly as possible.
Can you teach me a language / framework that I request?
Currently I only teach the languages / frameworks / tools I have commercial experience with. As an example, I teach Angular because I’m actively involved in commercial Angular projects. I don’t teach React (even though I can develop with React) because I haven’t done a commercial project in React yet. As soon as I have, I’ll add React to the list of courses I teach.
Do you guarantee that I will be employed / be able to code after I completed a course with you?
No. And anybody who tells you they can is, quite frankly, lying. Software development is not for everybody. It’s not about whether you’re smart enough, it’s about whether you want to do this type of work. Sitting at a computer for 16 hours straight while trying to find a bug is not for everyone. Software development is challenging, and it requires a lot of time and hard work, more than most people are willing to invest.
This is a scenario that plays out over and over when you deal with students who just started:
The student got told that the money is in software development. He/she starts a university degree or similar in software development. A few months into that degree they realise that this is just not for them. All motivation evaporates, but now they’ve started so they’re stuck. They complete the degree with the minimum effort without ever becoming an actual developer.I’ve worked with a lot of these post-graduate students. They’ve got degrees but they're not developers.
And that’s why I don’t guarantee anything. What I do is I allow you to leave my course anytime you want. You make payment for the month in advance. If, at the end of any of those months, you don’t want to continue, you can cancel without any further payment. I don’t tie you into any contracts for longer than 1 month.
I have no coding experience at all, but I want to start learning, can you help me?
Yes, I can. My beginner course is an ongoing, monthly course. You renew at the end of every month if you want to continue, or you cancel if you either want to move on to a more advanced course, or if software development isn’t for you. I decided to do it this way because it’s very difficult to predict how quickly you’ll learn as an absolute beginner. So we'll take it month by month.
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