Changing Career Goals and Shooting for the Stars

Changing your career goals is not easy, especially when your new target industry is the competitive world of tech. Kirsaly Heredia graduated from NYU in 2018 with a degree in digital media and spent a year working in the marketing department of a financial technology company, creating videos, slick sales documents, and graphics for social media.

Then, she decided to focus on breaking into tech. The good news was that she had built up an excellent portfolio of work; the bad news was that it was all focused on graphic design. If she were to make it in tech, Kirsaly knew she would need to create the same showcase for her code.

Finding the Perfect Fit with Revature

Revature, with its focus on real-world coding from day one, seemed like the perfect opportunity to do just that; it even offered a job at the end. Kirsaly soon discovered that the Revature training program was “jam packed.” In fact, she says, “The training was 10 weeks long and I always tell people that I think I learned more in those 10 weeks than I did in my four years at college.”

From a Learner to a Leader

At the end of the training, she was placed on a software project with a large bank. Again, the learning curve proved steep. Getting to grips with the company’s preferred coding pattern took her a while. But after about three months, it clicked. Just over a year later, Kirsaly was hired full-time. Shortly after that, she was promoted to technical lead.

In the couple of years since then, she has honed her coding abilities and developed skills in project and people management, cross-functional teamwork, and communication. “Without Revature,” she says, “I don’t think I would have been able to find a job as a Developer.” 

However, the career she has built on that foundation is all down to her persistence and hard work.