Let's go straight to the heart of the matter: you work as a freelancer, is it difficult to find your first clients?
It was quite a process for me and it happened quite naturally.
After Le Wagon, I was looking for an internship for 6 months to practice my new tech skills. I had a hard time convincing a company to take me on for just 6 months with no commitment afterwards. So I found an agreement with the Berlin start-up I was working for before Le Wagon to work on freelance tech projects.
In parallel, I was working on some personal projects with former colleagues where I was automating workflows with Airtable, Zapier, etc... Thanks to them and to word of mouth, I was able to get other clients. I also found a project on the Wagon's Slack by answering an offer from the freelance channel.
Finally it came from everywhere. Today I'm lucky enough to have more and more people contacting me to work with me. So I made the decision to stop looking for work in one particular company and start freelancing. At the moment, I work with 3 to 4 regular clients who mandate me for medium term projects that can go from one to several months. I can also work remotely and I was for example in Portugal recently.
We'd like to know a bit more about your background, what did you do before Le Wagon?
I started higher education with a Bachelor's degree in Economics in Amsterdam. Then I was supposed to do a Master's degree, but I had the opportunity to find an internship in a start-up in Berlin. My internship was originally supposed to last 6 months. It finally turned into a 2-year work contract.
The job consisted of showing apartments and convincing interested people. But I was much more interested in the Tech part. And I managed to convince the founders to let me work on the tools little by little. I started by optimizing forms, and one thing led to another and I was able to work with the tech tools on a daily basis.
I wanted to learn more, so I left that job to come to Le Wagon Lausanne before finally starting my master.
What motivated you to attend the Web Dev Bootcamp at Le Wagon?
I was already intrigued by programming when I was young. I had done visual basic in high school which I really enjoyed. Then, I got interested in No-Code. A way for me to develop projects without necessarily having too much technical skills. But the more my projects progressed, the more I wanted to customize them. I realized that I needed to learn more.
Motivated by the idea of developing my technical skills, I looked into the different offers to learn web development. A friend of mine who had done the wagon in Melbourne highly recommended it, so I didn't hesitate. I was living in Berlin at that time and my parents in Switzerland. I preferred to do the Wagon in Lausanne to be in a smaller group than in Berlin, where there are around 50 people per batch vs. a dozen in Lausanne.
What was your experience at the Wagon like?
I really loved these 2 months at the Wagon. It was an incredible life experience, we were 9 to participate in the training, 7 women and 2 men with whom the current went immediately very well. The teachers were great, each with their own specific skills. I think what impressed me the most was that in the end anyone can do it, no matter what your level is, you can succeed in the course.
Any last words?
I really learned a lot of things that I can apply in my daily life thanks to the Wagon Lausanne.
