From Cultural Manager to Software Engineer

 My name is Francesca Fenu, I was born in Milan, now living in Frankfurt, but really I feel European. My life has always been about adapting to new challenges, learning new languages and getting to know different cultures. Which led to my studies in Cultural Management and to different jobs in the Cultural & Creative Industries .

The cultural and creative sectors were among the most severely impacted by the pandemic. I quickly understood that I needed to actively shape my "new normal", almost by chance got into coding and was completely fascinated by its possibilities. I reached out to people I knew were working in the tech sector and a friend of mine recommended Le Wagon. So after taking part in one of their free coding workshops for women and loving it, I decided to do their full-stack web development BootCamp.

I recently joined the Swedish fintech company Klarna as part of their Engineering Graduate Program, which is designed to give entry-level developers the tools, experience and knowledge needed to shine at Klarna and in the industry. Le Wagon organized a very useful career week at the end of the bootcamp giving career support and hosting events with recruiting partners. At one of these events, Klarna presented the graduate program. It convinced me right away as the perfect combination of working experience and opportunity to learn from some of the brightest and most innovative leaders and developers in a fast-paced international environment, so I applied!

I loved everything, so this question is quite difficult to answer, but if I have to pick three things... 

First and foremost, the community. As someone who was in the process of changing careers, it was amazing to get to know so many other people who either had already made the change or that we're embarking on the same journey. All of different ages and backgrounds.

Another thing I loved was how the teachers and TAs help you build confidence in your abilities. The bootcamp sure was a rollercoaster of emotions, but having to learn by doing, knowing that we would always have someone to ask for support during challenges (thus providing us with a safety net), made the intense learning experience less scary. “Trust the process”, they always say - and it’s true.

Last but not least, the feeling when we finally presented the web app we built as a team during project weeks. It was just mind-blowing to see what we had learned and were able to put into practice in such a short time!

You can check out their Demo Day here. Francesca's project Cultural Connections Club can be found at time stamp 10:48