The Ironhack Blog

Have you heard about our podcast yet? Yes, we have one! On the Ironhack Podcast , our amazing hosts, Dan Parry and Tim Stephens, bring you the freshest insights in interviews to some of the most interesting voices in tech: from career changers to bootcamp alumni, our guests share tech industry know-how from their own experiences, giving you an exciting view into what it’s like, and telling you exactly how you, too, can kickstart your career in tech! Ironhack Podcast: Tech Careers Our new season, Tech Careers, takes you from tech wannabe to tech all-star: in six episodes, our guests tell you all about how to start from scratch and build an awesome career. You already know it takes tech skills and hard work (that’s what Ironhack bootcamps are for!), but good planning and advice will make all the difference. And we’re bringing it to you! Check it out: we’re launching for the first time on Product Hunt , a community where tech makers and hunters share the best products and resources! How to Get Your First Tech Job with Ironhack with Marc Peter Dauter So you’re thinking about enrolling in a tech bootcamp to help you land a new job or launch your tech career. But how do tech bootcamps actually help you do that? In this episode Marc Peter Dauter, Partnership Manager for Ironhack Germany, will demystify the process and connect the dots between bootcamps and jobs. He’ll explain his role, which creates relationships with local hiring companies that our alumni can network with during their time on campus, and talk about how Ironhack sets students up for success. Pivoting to a New Career in Your 30s, 40s, and Beyond with Thi Hannah Chau Changing careers can be scary, especially later in life. In this, the 2nd in our Tech Careers series, we want to explore what it's like to pivot into a tech job in your 30's. To do that, Thi Hannah Chau joined us to share her journey from preschool educator to the world of UX. As Thi Hannah takes us through how she took the leap into a new life, you’ll learn that you can too! What To Expect From Your Bootcamp This episode is the 101 on what you can expect from a tech bootcamp. We cover the day to day life of the average student, like how the days are broken up, the structure of the courses and share some tips on how to organize yourself throughout. We’ll also be joined by Curro Jiménez, a Web Development instructor here at Ironhack, and we’ll take a deeper dive into how the courses are structured. Going Freelance After Your Bootcamps with Clémence de Robert Working freelance is a dream for a lot of students embarking on an Ironhack bootcamp, but taking steps into this world can be daunting. This episode features Clémence de Robert, a Product Designer and longtime friend of the show. She’ll tell you everything you need to know in order to launch a freelance tech career: how to find contracts, set your rates, manage your time, and much more. Transitioning Into Tech with Florian Aube In this episode, Florian shares the inspiring story of his journey from bartending to teaching Web Development at Ironhack. After realising he wanted to make a change and move into the world of coding, Florian tells us the steps he took to build his new career, the obstacles he faced along the way, and some advice for anyone following in his footsteps. We also talk about his time at Ironhack and his newly discovered passion for teaching. The Story So Far with Ariel Quinones In the season finale, we invited our CEO & Co-Founder, Ariel Quinones, to share the journey of Ironhack so far. We discuss how the Ironhack bootcamps have been designed to best prepare our students for their new careers, how the curriculum has evolved to keep up with the ever changing world of tech, and how tech education has become more popular than ever in recent years. With the growing demand for developers, designers, and analysts, Ariel also shares his plans for the future. Whether you want to start a career in tech, switch jobs, or develop your skills to leverage them in your career, Tech Careers will give you all the information you need to figure out how to get where you want. Check us out on Product Hunt !

UX/UI Design has a heavy psychological component. Science, data and art all play a role when it comes to designing smooth and pleasant user interfaces and experiences. UX/UI designers seek to find out what makes users excited about a product or service, and how they can help their design convey a sense of trust in order to make the business thrive. Marketers know which word combinations can evoke imagery and emotions; similarly, designers use web design, customer journey analysis, and many other tools and devices to attract and delight users and take their experience on the site or app to the next level. But it’s one thing to try to make it an engaging experience, and another to bamboozle the user into clicking on something or adding something extra to their shopping cart without realising. These questionable tactics are known as dark patterns. What Are Dark Patterns? Dark patterns are user interfaces and experiences, like those found in websites and apps, that are deliberately (a.k.a. very much on purpose!) designed to trick the user into doing certain things, like signing up inadvertently for extra “insurance” when they buy an experience, or camouflaged ads that don’t look like ads so that the user clicks on them. These tactics aren’t exclusive to the digital world. Dark patterns have been used forever: a quick example would be a loan company that promises a reasonable interest rate, but hides additional fees in the small print. In all honesty, any discerning user knows that most websites and apps are designed to make a profit– it’s a business, after all, and there’s nothing wrong with selling goods and services! We don’t fool ourselves about what UX/UI designers strive to achieve: crafting a reassuring, easy to understand, and seamless experience for the user is done not just to do said user a favor. Enjoyable webpages and easily navigable sales funnels help hold the interest of the potential buyer and keep them interested and eager, so they don’t get lost throughout the process (be it because of confusion, or because it was too tiresome to complete the sale). But good, ‘white-hat’ UX/UI doesn’t seek to fool the user into giving them impressions or money without knowing what they just got themselves into. This is why dark patterns are considered a big no-no in the UX/UI world, and a twisted practice that makes companies get a bad reputation for dishonesty and malpractice. We’ve already mentioned some examples, like disguised ads or sneaking items and extra charges in the shopping basket by hiding opt-out options, but these are some of the most pervasive dark patterns used nowadays: Forced Continuity Have you ever signed up for a free trial that, when it ended, automatically signed you up for the full subscription without telling you when or how you could unsubscribe before being billed, or even hiding the options to leave or making it incredibly difficult to do it before the free trial ran out? Not giving you a warning in time for you to decide if you wanted to stay or not is considered extremely unethical, and many well-known companies are guilty of this. Roach Motel This is the name used for the situations when companies will let you sign up to services or subscriptions easily, but hide the option to unsubscribe. Some countries have even had to make it law to provide the option to unsubscribe to newsletters in every email, but that hasn’t always been the case. Not too long ago, some companies would go as far as making you unsubscribe from them by sending a request via postal mail! Bait and Switch This decoy tactic is, like the word ‘bait’ hints, an attempt to make a user do one thing when they think they’re doing another. An example would be to advertise an item and then send the buyer a different, worse quality version; or offering a great deal, and then telling the customer that the item is unavailable and offer a more expensive alternative instead. Hidden Costs A company is using the hidden costs dark pattern when they add unexplained extra costs or fees to your bill. The line isn’t very clear when it comes to adding handling and processing fees to online purchases, but some companies take this too far. When you don’t get to see shipment and extra costs until you’ve gone through the shopping process, signed up, and added your address and contact information, this dark pattern is being used against you. Misdirection Misdirection happens when the user is distracted in order to sneak an action right under their nose. Software installation wizards that sneakily install antiviruses and navigation bars, or switch up the user’s preferred search engine, is an example of a misdirection tactic that was very popular some years ago. Price Comparison Prevention Sometimes, companies attempt to hinder comparison websites by not disclosing the cost of a single item in order to avoid getting compared to more cost-effective alternatives. Instead, they sell the item in a bundle without giving the unit price. Phone companies are notorious for sneaking extra costs and avoiding honest competition like this. Trick Question This is when companies ask you consent questions that are confusing or misleading on purpose in order to get you to agree to something when checking boxes. An example would be a company that, instead of asking you to check a box to receive promotions and updates (as is the extended custom) tells you, in a convoluted sense, that they will contact you if you don’t opt-out by checking the box. Privacy Zuckering Named after Mark Zuckerberg himself, this dark pattern refers to tricking users into agreeing to misleading privacy settings, in order to get them to disclose more information to the company than they think they are. In the era of big data, this tactic is used to milk users for sellable data, and is being stopped by legislation in many countries. Confirm-shaming Confirm-shaming takes place when a process to unsubscribe from a service shames you and makes you feel bad for leaving. It is one thing to notify you that you will lose your account, and another to tell you that it’s very mean of you to make them sad by leaving! Risk vs Reward: Why Companies Use Dark Patterns Dark patterns are used by companies that aren’t customer-centric, and don’t understand that giving your customers a good experience is more important than tricking them into giving you extra revenue. Customers can be fooled, but they aren’t stupid: this is why review websites exist, and it’s a guarantee that companies that use dark patterns will get reviewers that warn others about these tactics– if not worse! The dark pattern in question might be illegal or become it very soon, with internet legislation catching up in recent years, and the company might even have to face a millionaire fine! Customer-centric approaches always lead to long term success, because, even with the most refined product, marketing strategy, and customer support system, your best publicist will always be a happy customer. Using malicious or unethical tactics like dark patterns leads to short-term ‘wins’ but long-term losses, as users realise that you’re harming them for your own profit. How to Defend Your Designs from Dark Patterns A UX/UI Designer is, first and foremost, the voice of the customer, their advocate. If you’re asked to implement unethical practices that fall within the scope of dark patterns, don’t be afraid to speak up! You’re defending users from bad experiences, and much more: you’re saving everyone, within and outside the company, a LOT of trouble. And, as if that wasn’t enough, you’re protecting your reputation as a designer, too, and creating solid, good work that you’ll always carry in your portfolio with pride. Dark patterns seem like the easy way to people who don’t know a lot about the nitty-gritty of UX– they probably don’t realise that, in the long run, these practices actually give worse results. To show them this, you can use A/B testing to your advantage: test the dark pattern against a better option, and use the test data to prove your point in a way they can’t deny! However, even obvious data can be insufficient to convince a company to leave bad practices behind. If you’re working for a company that consistently asks for bad designs that go against your values, it’s time to look for a new job. Bad designs reflect poorly on you as the designer, so don’t let your portfolio be ‘corrupted’ because of someone else’s bad judgment. We guarantee you that your integrity will be very appreciated (and probably better rewarded, too) elsewhere. There’s no shortage of opportunities for UX/UI Designers who know their stuff and put the customer at the center of their focus. Interested in how UX/UI Designers vouch for the best user experience and work to take it to the best it can be? Take a look at our UX/UI bootcamp !

The Difference: Hard Skills vs Soft Skills Are you looking for a job or to change careers? It’s no secret that companies are looking for skilled employees for their workforce. You’ve undoubtedly seen job postings that come with a long list of skills in addition to required years of experience. You may be wondering what it means when job postings mention “hard skills” and “soft skills.” Though you’ll be acquiring and refining both types of skills throughout your career, it’s important to distinguish what makes hard skills different from soft skills. According to Indeed.com, “Hard skills, also known as technical skills, are technical knowledge or training that you have gained through any life experience, including in your career or education.” Hard skills are the ones that most typically show up first in a job posting as technical requirements that an applicant should have. Hard skills generally include software, tools, hands-on experience and certifications. Most jobs in today’s world can’t be done without some basic knowledge and experience, and employers want to know you can hit the ground running without having to provide extensive training. Want to show off the hard skills that make you shine? You can highlight these through a portfolio of projects you’ve completed. When applying for a job, list specific tools and software in your resumé and be sure to display all relevant certifications and education. You may even need to take a skills test as part of the screening process. On the other hand, soft skills are habits and personality traits that determine how well you work with others, voice your opinions, or manage your time. Some of the top soft skills employers look for include organization, empathy, dependability, integrity, effective communication, and adaptability. Soft skills aren’t as easy to quantify or demonstrate as hard skills are. However, you can highlight your soft skills during the interview process by being timely, maintaining eye contact, asking follow-up questions, and answering questions genuinely. Why Do Employers Need Hard Skills? Without skilled employees, companies would spend a significant amount of time training their workforce. While many organizations do offer internships to provide hands-on training to help recent graduates attain hard skills, hiring people with hard skills already developed means they can retain their competitive edge and innovate more quickly. Jobs can be done efficiently and employees with hard skills can be trusted to make key decisions. Additionally, having multi-skilled employees keeps small teams agile. What Are The In-Demand Hard Skills for Tech Jobs? Web Development To land a job as a web developer it’s essential to know how to write clean, modular and efficient code in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript at a minimum. Knowing how to program in other coding languages such as Java, PHP and Python will make you stand out in the candidate pool. A good developer will know which tools will help them work more efficiently and structure code properly. Developers should be able to demonstrate knowledge of the most essential libraries and frameworks including Node.js, Express, React, Angular, jQuery and Bootstrap. Knowing what’s going on in the back end of an application is a must for for web developers. Experience with hosting, servers, databases such as MongoDB and PostgreSQL, building and connecting to APIs, and user authentication are all in-demand hard skills. In addition, you’ll need to understand how to deploy code to Heroku and use version control such as Git and GitHub. Last but not least, experience working with agile methodology is a top hard skill companies look for when hiring new developers. UX/UI Design First and foremost, UX research and user testing are fundamental parts of the job and need to be conducted in a systematic way to understand what users want. Like scientists, designers need to plan, conduct studies, and analyze the results. UX and UI designers also need to be able to create product roadmaps that clearly communicate user research findings to the development team. One of the top sets of hard skills UX and UI designers need is wireframing and prototyping. Wireframing is setting up a rough sketch of a user interface to show the basic elements of an application or page. Though wireframes can be drawn by hand on paper, designers need to know how to use digital wireframing tools like Figma, Balsamiq and Azure. Prototyping is a key point in the development process. This  involves creating realistic-looking designs of the application based on the wireframes you set up and the user feedback received. Prototyping software to learn includes InVision, Proto.io, Sketch, and Webflow. Though it may sound more like a soft skill, visual communication is a hard skill UX and UI designers must develop. Visual communication involves studying and understanding layout, icons, typography, color, images and design theory. Data Analytics Data scientists harness tools and languages to extract and interpret valuable and meaningful insights. Becoming a data scientists requires hard skills like programming as well as mathematical knowledge, especially statistics. The most widely-used programming languages in data analytics are Python and R. These include powerful tools and libraries such as numpy for storage and calculation, pandas for data manipulation, and scikit-learn for machine learning. Data scientists need to perform data querying, extraction, cleaning, mining and modeling. Tools to master include SQL, Microsoft Excel, Apache Hadoop, Apache Spark, and MapReduce. Once the data has been analyzed, findings need to be transformed into digestible business insights through data visualization tools like Tableau, Power BI, and D3.js. Cybersecurity A basic foundation of cybersecurity is having a deep knowledge of how operating systems work. A cybersecurity analyst needs to know the ins and outs of the file systems and processes in Linux, Windows, and MacOS. This includes the operation of computer networks, hardware,  LAN configuration, routing, and protocols. An essential hard skill for cybersecurity analysts is proficiency in different programming languages. C and C++ are the powerful languages most computers run on. JavaScript is one of the most fundamental languages for the web and therefore vulnerable to hacking and cross-site scripting. Python can help cybersecurity analysts automate scripts to build programs that save them time. Structured Query Language (SQL) is the language of databases, which are susceptible to SQL injection. Cybersecurity analysts also need to know their way around network architecture, firewalls, antivirus software, and malware. Detecting and preventing security breaches and brute-force attacks using intrusion detection software are some of the most important things you’d be tasked with! Knowledge of laws and regulations, auditing practices and zero-trust policies, along with experience in artificial intelligence, are all cybersecurity hard skills that can further boost your employability. How to Learn Hard Skills in Tech Don't get discouraged if you lack the hard skills required for the career you want– nowadays, you don't need a three or four year degree to learn things like web development or data analytics. The paths to professional development are much more flexible, and the internet is chock-full of resources, of which some are even free! But if you want intensive training to be job ready in just 9 weeks, you can become an Ironhacker! We offer hands-on training in web development , UX/UI , data analytics and cybersecurity , and our Careers Resources help you get the Tech career you've always wanted. Check out our bootcamps !

Many Ironhackers join our bootcamps because they feel "stuck" in life trying to navigate their career. Often, they feel they’ve reached a dead end; they crave development and growth, and they don’t see a future progressing from where they are right now, professionally speaking. But the alternative can be so much scarier: making a major change in one of the biggest areas of your life, like your country of residence, your social circles, or your career, seems like a very looked-down-on, very risky move. And the truth is that it’s not easy to do it alone. But it is easier than you might think. The great thing about Tech is that it doesn't matter what your background is– it’s an incredibly flexible field where, with a set of essential skills (that we can teach you!), your transferable skills that you bring from your previous background, no matter what it is, will make you stand out and make it easy for you to pivot to a career in Tech ! Unsure? Here are six ways for you to know that it’s time for a new career. You Don’t Feel Challenged In your job, you should feel motivated to resolve the problems that arise every day, happy to help your teammates, and excited about the next big thing. But, more often than not, your day to day might not sound exactly like this description. Maybe you are no longer learning and growing as a person and as an employee. Maybe projects feel stale, and it gets increasingly harder to get out of bed and go to your job. You might feel bored, lethargic, and hate the hours you have to spend at the office. No one expects to be fascinated at work all day everyday: it’s WORK! But it should definitely not feel like torture, or like your braincells are dying of boredom– when you find your job tedious on a regular basis, enough to start hating it, then it’s time for a change. You’re Only There for the Money Having enough income to live (not just getting by, but also being happy) is not just very important: it’s non negotiable! But it’s not everything your should aim for in your professional life. Even if you earn mountains of cash, if the job does not make you happy, eventually you’ll know it’s just not worth it. While financial stability is a must-have, at the end of the day, a job that feeds your stomach will not necessarily feed your soul and fulfil you. If this is the case, you might feel disengaged from your work, and just not care about what happens. Take a second to think about what is keeping you tied to this job: is it the ‘cost’ of what you’ve invested to get there? Or the security of the good pay and the comfortable life you’ve been able to lead? Are there more reasons to stay? If not, you might have a problem. You Don’t Feel Important You might be doing great at your job, but under a definition of ‘great’ that isn’t exactly what you had envisioned when you started aiming for this career. You’ve started lacking the desire to suggest new ideas or innovate at your company, because, in the past, your suggestions have been ignored or straight up dismissed for no reason. You don’t feel supported to openly brainstorm or suggest solutions for problems that are blatantly obvious to you, and you suspect it’s not because your ideas are bad. You may not be the CEO, but you should feel valued in your job. Not every project you work on will be revered and rewarded with a bonus, but take a hard look at the feedback you’re getting: are you receiving constructive criticism or just plain criticism? Are you getting praised? Are your achievements recognised as yours? It’s easy to feel apathetic about your quality of work if you aren’t treated like a valued member of the team. Your Values Are Suppressed What is most important to you? What are your core values? Are any of these values shared by your current company– plainly speaking, do these people care about what you care about? If not, it may be time for a change. A workplace isn’t just a place you go to to deliver eight hours of dummy work. Your principles and personal choices play a role, and should have a place alongside your projects, your work ethic and your team members. If your colleagues share your values and mindset to an extent where your work feels dynamic and like a ‘together’ effort, or your ideas are frequently suppressed, something might be wrong. You Know You Want Something more We’re gonna break it to you gently: people who are happy at their jobs don’t fantasize about other (very different) jobs, companies or industries on a daily basis. Don’t misunderstand this: it’s healthy to look beyond your current job, and you should absolutely do it every once in a while. You should know how the job market is going, make sure you’re happy where you are, and value yourself professionally. But if you're constantly eyeing up other companies, or have a specific career path in mind, or have identified your dream job, you owe it to yourself to go for it! You Made It Through This List Did you read this entire post fervently? Yeah, we noticed. Chances are, if you made it all the way to this point, you are thinking pretty heavily about making a switch. This is a choice that can be very difficult, and ultimately the best advice is this: don’t make your choice out of fear– don’t let it be a decisive factor in your life. Trust your instincts: do you want to do something about it? Be bold. You can do it! Changing careers and investing in yourself is a big commitment… but you don’t need to do it blindly. You might know you’re not happy where you are, but you might not be sure about where to go. Good news: we have you covered! You can use our Career Vision Planner to figure out what your dream career will look like– and it comes with a Job Hunting Checklist to help you go out into the world and GET IT! And if you want the skills to switch to a booming career in Tech, check out our bootcamps !

There are different kinds of learners: some swear by the Pomodoro method , and others learn better in bursts of 2-3 hours. You might get more from your studying session if you reread materials and quiz yourself, whereas your friend only really gets it if they put it into practice themselves. And some people thrive in part-time bootcamps, whereas others find it a bit tricky. There are many benefits to part-time education, like the flexibility to fit more activities in your day, or the smaller workload per day. Part-time courses can be the key to advancing your skills or furthering ( or changing !) your career without dropping everything else, and if you need some tips to make it work for you, we got you covered! The Benefits of Part-Time Education There’s a number of advantages to part-time education that make it much more worthwhile for some students who don’t have a lot of time available but still want to get a good education. It Allows For a Flexible Schedule Part-time courses usually are mindful of busy schedules, and flexible to fit around your life with as little effort as possible: they will usually happen in the hours that are less likely to have been previously booked, or, more often than not, they will have a higher percentage of on-demand content so you can do it whenever you want. It’s Compatible With Full Time Work As mentioned above, part time studies are designed for people who already have pretty big previous commitments, like a full time job or a full load of classes in another educational program. Additionally, part time education often has room to tweak details here and there and accommodate the most problematic of schedules: just ask! It’s Less Mentally Intense Although it takes longer in terms of weeks, you'll have more time to digest the same amount of information. Depending on what type of learner you are, this could be a huge plus for you: studying something for longer usually means it sticks better, as you give your brain more time to internalize what you’ve learned. It Gets You the Same Results! To some, it seems that dedicating less time a day to a course makes it less effective. Not only is this argument defeated by the fact that bootcamps, for example, take a longer time to complete if done in the part-time modality, resulting in the same amount of study hours– but you’re definitely getting the exact same value. You’ll still finish painting a wall whether you do it in one full day, or dedicate just two hours a day to it over a full week. Part-time doesn't mean part-results! How to Make Part-Time Work for You Studying a part-time course requires different things from everyone, but successful students always have one thing in common: great time management skills! If yours are not great, don’t stress: this is a soft skill that can be very easily acquired and trained. We break it down into several concrete tips for part-time students. Find the Balance At first, starting a part-time course can be dazing. You have so many important areas that cannot be neglected: your new bootcamp, your work or other path of study, and your personal life– and if you start thinking about your sleep schedule, housekeeping routine, and diet and self-care habits, it can start to feel impossible. But we promise you: there’s time for everything, if you manage it properly. And for that, you have to find the balance. Decide exactly how much time you’ll be allocating to every section of your life: if you don’t have experience with this, be prepared to make changes. Prioritize and dedicate the correct percentage of time to each activity, and you’ll soon see progress. Make a Schedule This tip is tied to the last one. When you plan out your time in chunks, you often end up with a schedule, which will allocate specific times to every activity according to your personal necessities. Knowing how to make, withhold, or modify a self-imposed schedule on the go is a very important adult life skill that will be useful to you when you start a part-time bootcamp. And then, don’t forget to stick to said schedule! While schedules don’t work for everyone, the clear visual representation they give for the time required to do different tasks during the day is very useful for many. Use Time Management Tools There are many time management tools which can become really useful once you learn to apply them well. These come in the way of both tools and apps like, for example, Notion , a highly customizable organization tool, or whiteboard platforms like MURAL and Miro ; or methods like Kanban boards, a workload management process used in companies to have a clear vision of what is being done and what is on your plate. We highly recommend you do your research beforehand: a little bit of advice and knowledge can go a really long way! Get Support From Your Community Lastly, no one is an island: tell your family and friends, your colleagues, your bootcamp classmates, and your boss (if you can). Share the fact that you’re starting a part-time course that is important to you, and that your time is valuable– and share your concerns, and your community will stretch out to support you when you need help. This can come in many ways: from your boss letting you leave the office on the dot, to your friends being understanding about why you’re less available all of a sudden; or your classmates sending resources your way, and colleagues sharing unexpected wisdom for the journey you’re starting. Conclusion: Every learner is different, so the biggest piece of advice we have for you is: know thyself! Try out different ways of studying, learning, and testing your knowledge– experiment and figure out what works for you, and don’t be afraid to ask for it! Interested in giving part-time education a try? Good news! All of our bootcamps are available for part-time study! Check out our courses , and kickstart your career in Tech!

A UX strategy or user experience strategy should be just as vital to your brand as its overall mission statement. We will look at what exactly makes up a UX strategy, why it is so important to have one, and cover the basic steps that should go into putting one together. What Is a UX Strategy? A UX strategy is a detailed plan for how to align the user experience (UX) of a brand’s customers with the overall objectives and goals of the company. A good UX strategy requires a well-defined goal for the ideal user experience, a good understanding of the expectations and needs of customers, and a clear plan of what needs to happen to fulfill these targets and satisfy users. UX strategies should also include information about what competitors are doing and a clear analysis of how a brand is performing compared to how it should be performing. Why Is it Important to Have a UX Strategy? A UX Strategy helps to unify the goals for user experience with the targets of the business so that designers can make decisions that are in the best interests of both parties. It also enables the organization, and its stakeholders, to play a more significant part in the development process. A strong UX strategy allows clients and stakeholders to see exactly what UX development teams are working on and highlights the importance of UX design decisions for them. It can help justify the time, effort, and money spent on getting design decisions right. Providing a good user experience is incredibly important, as it leads to increased sales, customer loyalty and can even reduce development costs. Image sourced from econsultancy.com By including well-defined, measurable goals, a UX strategy can help businesses to know when key targets have been achieved. This also provides data that can be used to measure past performance and set realistic targets for future growth. These metrics will be useful, especially if you look to add a product management consulting expert to your business. A good UX strategy helps all teams in an organization to work towards the same goals and steers all areas of the organization towards achieving targets that are beneficial for the business but also line up with the needs of the customer. How to Create a Strong UX Strategy There are several crucial steps that all organizations should follow when crafting their UX strategy. Evaluate The first step is to look at the current state of the company, the product, and the market in general. Assessing the challenges of the business will help advise a relevant and actionable UX strategy, which will confidently inform your UX design . If there is already an overall business plan in place, this should be considered when drawing up the UX strategy to ensure that the goals of the business are held in as high regard as the needs of the customer. Set Goals Once you know the current state of the business and the market in general, you can use that information to set goals. These could be how you wish your company to be perceived, what gap in the market you want to fill, or how many users you want to accumulate. For example, if you are selling an ai photo editor , it would be beneficial for your company to be seen as technology experts, who are providing a unique product. The key when setting goals is to make them specific and realistic. They should be measurable, wherever possible, so that you can determine how successful you have been in achieving them. Define Focus Areas The next step is to determine your areas of focus. You should consider your user personas, which are snapshots of your target demographics. Understanding these will help you to develop features and make design choices that will most appeal to your users. You should also hone in on which areas of the UX design need priority. These include aspects such as the visual design, interface design, and the accessibility of the experience. It may not always be possible to combine all the desired elements of the UX experience into a single, functioning app. Therefore, determining which areas are most important to your users and business is important. It will let you properly carve out your niche in the market . Image sourced from interaction-design.org Create Guidelines Creating guidelines as part of your UX strategy helps everybody stay on the same page. By having a set of preferred methods for solving problems (such as forgetting your login password ), approaching decisions, etc., you can be sure that all the work is moving the brand in the same direction towards the goal. These guidelines can be relatively simple, such as adopting a mobile-first approach. It will ensure that any design decisions taken are focused on making the user experience best on a mobile device. If you’re developing a virtual PBX system , you may choose to make future-proofing and cross-platform support key areas of focus. Plan Once your guidelines are in place, you can focus on creating a more detailed plan for how development should proceed. It will be a sequence of steps that need to be undertaken to produce the final product while meeting the needs of users and the business. Don’t forget to use video watermarking or other methods to protect your designs from piracy. Having a plan will allow everybody involved in development to keep track of how work is progressing. It provides a good way to assign tasks and delegate work while ensuring that work is undertaken in the correct sequence. Enterprise communication tools help ensure that members of different teams work in unison. Review and Update As new technologies and practices are introduced, the way UX is developed can change rapidly, especially if you're working with a machine learning product or similar technology. You should also be mindful of shifts in the market that can change the needs of your users. Therefore, a good UX strategy should be adaptable to change. Check in at each review point to ensure that you are meeting your targets and that your targets are still relevant. If they’re not, you shouldn't be afraid to change them.  An overly rigid strategy can make your brand irrelevant, as providing a good UX experience is critical to success. Image sourced from uxdesign.cc Create Your UX Strategy Today A strong UX strategy informs your design choices, helps your UX designers stay on track, and generally unifies the whole process of conceptualizing and designing new digital products. Do your research, set realistic targets, and create a detailed plan that will help guide development. Most importantly, remember that your UX strategy is there to bring together the needs of your business and the needs of your customers. If you’re interested in upskilling in tech or changing your career, why not look at Ironhack’s UX/UI design bootcamps ? About the Author Grace Lau is the Director of Growth Content at Dialpad, an AI-powered communication platform providing cloud collaboration solutions for better and easier team collaboration through products like Dialpad's virtual call center software . She has over 10 years of experience in content writing and strategy. Currently, she is responsible for leading branded and editorial content strategies, partnering with SEO and Ops teams to build and nurture content. Grace has also written for other domains such as VMblog and nTask . Here is her LinkedIn .

Contrary to popular belief, badly managed tech companies will not lie flawlessly about their work conditions in order to trap you in a miserable situation. Granted, they will not be super honest about their shortcomings, but it’s remarkably difficult to hide certain flaws during the interview process. With some experience and guidance, you can learn to decode expressions commonly used in tech job postings that actually mean something very different. Watch out for these frequent red flags, and learn to understand them in context to know what you’re getting yourself into! Common Red Flags in Tech Job Postings No Salary Specified, or Very Wide Salary Range We had to start with this one because not specifying a salary is, unfortunately, all too common in most job marketplaces. While Tech is certainly at the spearhead of a change towards a healthier and more honest work culture, there’s still a ways to go. However, even if not many companies are doing it yet, your standards should remain high. Expect and demand transparency from companies regarding compensation: some companies only reveal the final salary when they’ve decided you’re the one, and that is just not ok! You also deserve leverage, and the right to know so you don’t waste your time. Be careful with job processes that don’t reveal the salary early on in the interview process… and be particularly suspicious of job postings that specify a salary range going from nothing to everything. Absurd Entry Level Requirements Some recruiters seem to have forgotten what the words ‘entry level’ mean. No worries, we’ll give them a hint: it’s jobs that don’t require previous experience or even education. So, naturally, a job that demands five whole years of experience as a minimum shouldn’t, by any logic, count as one. Simple, right? The same goes for ‘entry level’ jobs that demand a long list of skills… the type you acquire after a decade of experience. No twenty-something has had time to learn all of that, and entry level positions are for acquiring and perfecting the skills on the job, not for demanding perfection. Call out this type of nonsense! Unreasonable or Unclear Job Responsibilities Tech has a bad reputation for demanding that employees carry out way too many responsibilities– the famous demand for people who can “wear many hats”. Most times, recruiters who don’t fully understand the education required for some technical skills and the amount of time they can take are at fault, but companies do take advantage of skilled people to do the work of four for the salary of one. If the job responsibilities are vague, contradictory, or just too many, steer clear: at best, these people have no idea what they’re doing. At worst, they will have foolish demands from you, like asking you to do customer support even though you’re a dev, or run after the uninformed, nonsensical whims of higher management. And, since they have no idea about what you can actually do with your skillset, you will be given misguided or impossible objectives and then be chewed out when, predictably, these don’t work out. Signs of Hustle Culture We’ve all seen job postings asking for ‘high energy individuals’, people who have drive, highly motivated professionals who will go the extra mile to help the company achieve its objectives… but be wary of the language used. It’s one thing to have an energetic environment, and another to stick to the outdated hustle culture and demand workers burn out and clash with each other for bonuses in a toxic, survivalist workplace. Take extreme care if you see oddly competitive language, or demands for high motivation in exchange for a measly salary. Ambiguously ‘Flexible’ Hours In the last few years, due to the extreme changes we’ve had to go through with the way we work, job postings have gotten creative when it comes to schedules and workload– it’s not rare to find a surge of remote and hybrid jobs, flexible schedules for teams all around the world, and other shenanigans that, yes, maybe will let you sleep in every day, but can also be pitfalls. Be careful and double check: many companies throw the word ‘remote’ around without actually having the intention of ever letting you work remotely. But, most importantly, keep a watchful eye over any posting that advertises extremely flexible or customizable hours; ask how the workload and the time-tracking are managed, and inform yourself about alternative work modalities. Urgently Hiring for a Non Urgent Job Let’s be honest here: conditions have to really align in a special way for a company to need a UX/UI Designer or Data Engineer urgently, desperately, right-the-heck-now. Even if their technical setup is in shambles, asking for the spot to be filled ASAP won’t improve their situation quickly. So why would a tech job include the word ‘urgent’ in the posting? Read between the lines: oftentimes, this is code for a high turnover rate, which means people are leaving the company one after the other. And this only happens for bad reasons, like terrible working conditions, unclear expectations set from the side of the company, or straight up burnout. The flag is as red as it gets. Tech Buzzwords Okay, these are not bad per se. Tech buzzwords became so for a reason: investors listen to trends and try to invest on them, so companies follow suit. However, a job posting that just throws around a bunch of words like ‘web3’, ‘scalability’, ‘Agile’, or ‘cloud-native’, without the job being actually related to all of those, or without some actual, serious, clear job description behind them, that’s a reason for concern. An unclear or long and winding description of a company’s identity and objectives, especially if it leads nowhere (and tells you nothing), is very much a sign that they shouldn’t be trusted. Louder for the people in the back: these people don’t know what they’re doing. “Rapidly shifting priorities” This is one of those that might be okay in context. Some businesses really are dependent on markets or frameworks that can turn everything upside down from one week to the next; for example, a company that depends on Google or Meta software or policies might have to change everything when, as they tend to do, these companies pull last-minute changes that impact millions with very little warning. Being adaptable and tolerant with rapidly shifting priorities is also commonly requested for roles in Customer Support. However, if your work is closer to big, collaborative development projects, an environment or management that tends to make sudden changes can be catastrophic (and extremely stressful!). Uncertain Onboarding Process If they can't tell you what your first months are gonna be like, that’s not a great look. Even for roles that are newly created within the company, objectives and responsibilities should always, always –read that again–, always be crystal clear. Even more so if someone held this position before! You’ve probably seen a company that calls itself a startup, or claims to have a ‘startup culture’, even though they’re several years old, have many employees, and seem to be settled in their niche. This is, more often than not, telling you “We’ve grown enough to be an adult company, but we don’t have established processes yet”. Not having a clear, well aligned onboarding process is a thing that can happen in startups, but never in large, settled companies; and even startups ought to have a one-size-fits-all process to acquaint new employees with the company. Odd Workplace Culture Descriptions, or Lack Thereof Along with the job description, it should be commonplace for companies to disclose not just the salary, but also all of the other benefits, and information about their workplace culture, too. To culturally fit with the company is vital to do well and be happy in your job. If there’s no details whatsoever, either on their posting or their website, of what the workplace culture is like (or if there’s empty platitudes and keywords, but nothing that sounds specific), this might be a sign that the workplace culture is terrible here… or that there’s none, at all. Not good. Specifying benefits and additional conditions can also be a telling sign of complete disregard for employees’ needs, or for their demands for a healthy work-life balance. Even worse if they just say, very excitedly, that they have a foosball table. No mention of parental leave, but hey, office beers every Friday! Other Red Flags to Watch For In tech, job searching can take a little time. Searching for several months is expected, and hiring processes can last as long as a full month. But this experience looking for jobs and sending out resumes pays off: soon enough, you’ll have a good grip on what red flags you should be watching for. Some, like the ones listed above, are blatant hints that a company doesn’t have a good grip on their scope or hiring process. Some others can mean very different things depending on context, and it’s up to you to weigh all the pros and cons and decide whether this looks like a healthy fit for you. While you learn to recognize the signs and nuances of the secrets hidden between the lines of job postings, remember it’s not always a guessing game! Websites like Glassdoor work towards workplace transparency, and you can find honest (and sometimes scathing!) reviews from ex-employees and interviewees. Remember to also watch for red flags during the interview process, like the ones we talked about in this post . Get the best Tech skills and become job-ready with our career support services, and start your Tech career with a bang: do an Ironhack bootcamp !

It is International Literacy Day, and we’ve prepared a selection of books from every tech discipline. Learn about different perspectives on Web Development, UX/UI Design, Data Analytics, and Cybersecurity– and take a look at our recommendations for career advancement, too! Web Development You can learn to code anywhere, but Web Development books will teach you how to code smart. Take your coding skills to the next level with these industry-leading books. Code Complete, by Steve McConnell A time-tested and comprehensive, practical guide to programming, this book provides a framework for managing complexity, showing how to think about programming and software development. JavaScript Cookbook: Programming the Web, by Matthew MacDonald, Adam D. Scott, and Shelley Powers Like a real cookbook, this book gives you straight-up code recipes to address common programming problems and tasks. Working in Public: The Making and Maintenance of Open Source Software, by Nadia Eghbal Nadia Eghbal offers a history of open source software and a wide vision of the difficulties and intricacies of working in open source projects. Clean Code: A Handbook of Agile Software Craftsmanship, by Robert C. Martin From an Agile perspective, clean code questions perceptions of what ‘good’ or ‘bad’ code is, giving an introduction to the concept of software craftsmanship and universal code readability. Release It!: Design and Deploy Production-Ready Software, by Michael T. Nygard Release It! is a lesson on how to avoid the pitfalls that application releases usually face, and make your code have the best possible performance and return on investment. UX/UI Design App and web design and usability are experiencing a shift towards a more human-centered, kinder perspective. Learn about what the future of UX/UI Design looks like. We’ve recommended more UX/UI books here , by the way! The Laws Of Simplicity, by John Maeda Less is more, especially in design, and John Maeda shares ten rules for balancing simplicity and complexity to take a design to its best possible state. Don't Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability, by Steve Krug Intuitive is where it’s at: users don’t want to think, and Krug tells you exactly how to achieve a no-nonsense design. 100 Things Every Designer Needs to Know About People, by Susan Weinschenk Designers must understand how people think, and the reasons behind their behaviour– and this book teaches you how to design more intuitive, engaging projects that understand their public. The Design of Everyday Things, by Don Norman Don Norman reveals the impact behind good (or bad) design of the most unsuspected items, and derives lessons on user friendliness and practicality. Mismatch: How Inclusion Shapes Design, by Kat Holmes Mismatch provides a framework for how to design for inclusivity and account for the impact of what we design. Data Analytics Statistics are a feared word, because few people know how to get around the first assumptions on what data seems to be showing, and actually see the underlying patterns and get useful insights from it. These books show you how to do exactly that! Data Smart: Using Data Science to Transform Information into Insight, by John W. Foreman John Foreman introduces you to fundamental techniques of Data Science to process raw data into useful, actionable insights. The Data Detective: Ten Easy Rules to Make Sense of Statistics, by Tim Harford This book teaches you how to look at statistics without being fooled by what’s apparent– learning how to reason with data and see its hidden patterns. Statistics Done Wrong: The Woefully Complete Guide, by Alex Reinhart Statistics Gone Wrong shares cautionary tales of common statistical fallacies and traps, teaching proper methodology for how to become a good data scientist. Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men, by Caroline Criado Perez Gender biases are baked into the data, the systems, and the algorithms we use, and this book combines the efforts of hundreds of studies to show exactly how it affects our daily lives. Calling Bullshit: The Art of Skepticism in a Data-Driven World, by Carl T. Bergstrom and Jevin West Become aware of your personal biases when reading data results, and learn how to see ‘bullshit’ in manipulated stats. Cybersecurity From the history of hacking to its very exciting present, our Cybersecurity selection will change the way you think about security and data protection in the digital age. The Art of Invisibility, by Kevin D. Mitnick Kevin Mitnick, one of the most explosive hackers, draws upon the history of hacking and his own personal experience, and shares tips on how to achieve online anonymity in today’s internet. Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution, by Steven Levy From outcasts, nerds, or criminals, to the ethical risk-takers helping protect our sensitive information from the inside: this is the pioneering book that changed the public image of hackers. Cybersecurity Essentials, by Charles J. Brooks, Philip R. Craig, and Donald Short The bible of cybersecurity: the ultimate book to take you from cybersecurity newbie to expert. A must-have. The Code Book, by Simon Singh A complete history of encryption, all the way from ancient Egypt to internet commerce– complete with explanations for the biggest nerds! Cult of the Dead Cow, by Joseph Menn A book on what’s arguably the most significant hacker group in history: the inventors of hacktivism, the developers who helped create Tor, and vital shapers of cybersecurity as we know it. Tech Career Advice Not all career guidance is built the same way. The world of Tech has its own idiosyncrasies, but advancing your career doesn’t have to be a guessing game. Learn how to become a unique, valuable professional with these reads. Thriving At Work, by Michael Dam An incredibly relevant work full of actionable advice for career starters and switchers alike, with practical solutions and real impact. It Doesn't Have to Be Crazy at Work, by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson In a world that seems to push working hard over working smart, this book spearheads the resistance: a healthier, slower work culture is possible. Pivot, by Jenny Blake We’ve talked about career pivots before , and Jenny Blake does a deep dive into the transition, breaking it down into universal, simple, fail-proof steps to turn your career around. Range, by David Epstein Range is a defense of inefficiency, of dabblers, and of jacks-of-all-trades. As it turns out, the secret to learning (and thriving!) in innovation is broad thinking. The Making of a Manager, by Julie Zhuo Pulling from her own experience as a young manager, Julie Zhuo gives us this handbook full of wisdom and tips to be a great leader. Did these book recs pique your interest? Learn more about Tech, and launch your dream career with an Ironhack bootcamp !

Tech is one of the fastest growing sectors and the highest paying fields. You’ve been told about this many times before, and you’ll keep reading about it in the following years: not just from us, but also from other tech companies, on the news, and at your job or school. ‘I know’, you might be thinking, ‘I heard you the first time!’ And yes, learning tech skills to start a career in tech is a pretty safe bet nowadays. But it’s much more than that: technology touches more and more aspects of our daily lives. Ten years ago, we weren’t able to collectively track the transmission of illnesses with our phones or pay through contactless cards and smartphones. Twenty years ago, we couldn’t have dreamed of the impact social media has in our society. The use of computers and the internet was a thing we, as a society, all had to learn and acquire not just to be competitive in the job market, but also to improve our quality of life. And today, the journey hasn’t stopped. Knowing skills like web design and development, cybersecurity, and data management can not only change your career: they should be common knowledge. Imagine having the power to create your own websites, tailored to your needs, or your own programs and apps, set to automate your tasks, save you time, and make your life easier. Or your own games! The possibilities are endless: what will you create? The Not-So-Long and Not-So-Difficult Journey to Learn Coding Learning to code is often compared to learning a second language. Sounds kinda fake, but it’s not that far off– except that programming isn’t just one language. You start reading about JavaScript, Python, SQL, C++, Ruby… and you close the tab. And you haven’t even looked at things like frameworks, IDEs, and Git. How many years will this take? The answer is not straightforward, but probably not years. Firstly, because you don’t need to learn every programming language out there to ‘know coding’ (even if you want to be a full-stack developer!). Setting the groundwork for computer science key concepts and paradigms will make it incredibly easy to pick up new coding languages after your first one, so don’t worry about that. Coding requires, most importantly, problem-solving skills, attention to detail, and a strong ability to keep up with such a rapidly changing environment! Acquiring the basic concepts of programming and getting handy with some languages, enough, at least, to be able to create things like applications and websites, can take as little as three months or as long as you need to. It all depends on how much time and dedication you can put aside for coding– and also on whether you use freely available resources only, or sign up for an intensive program like our bootcamp . What’s Stopping You From Learning to Code? Acquiring coding skills seems like a difficult path, full of obstacles and traps. Some of the concerns that arise when you consider learning to code are incredibly common and have solutions you might not expect. ‘I don’t like math’ And you don’t need to! Coding doesn’t necessarily involve calculations: mainly, because computers were invented to do those for us in the first place; but also because the field is so vast that any kind of skill set, and any kind of person, has a place for them in technology. If you want to work with math, you could look into a career in Data– but if you don’t, you could do everything from Design to Web Development. The limit doesn’t exist (wink). ‘I’m too old to learn code’ Learning is a lifelong process: it’s a complete myth that we stop learning after graduating from university. Challenging ourselves with new skills constantly is a painfully human trait, and coding is one of the most widely available, versatile skills out there, as well as one of the skills that pay off the most. And it’s not hard: we promise! ‘I don’t have the discipline to teach myself to code’ That’s fine! Some people are insanely motivated to learn by themselves, and can pull it off in record time, but you shouldn’t feel bad that you’re not like them. Everyone’s conditions are different, and some of us just don’t have the bandwidth to assume the extra work that comes with a self-taught journey. This is why options like videos, online courses, and bootcamps are so popular, too! There are fits for all sizes: don’t hesitate to ask for the one you need! ‘I don’t have time to learn coding’ Deciding to learn to code is not an all-or-nothing situation. Depending on your objectives, available free time, and learning style, you could dedicate anything from 30 minutes a day to 30 hours a week, and still acquire the skills you want. If you’re not sure about the time investment, look into the learning options available. Dip just the toe, or dive in, or anything in between! Coding Gives You the Power to Start, Change or Boost Your Career When people sign up to Ironhack bootcamps, they do it for many different reasons. Certainly, starting a career in Tech when you’re fresh out of school is a road that many young people take, because, if you want to be a Web Developer, you don’t need to spend four years getting a traditional degree when you could do an intensive bootcamp that will give you all the skills needed to get a job as a developer and keep growing after graduating. But coding is a great skill to have for people from all walks of life, which is why Ironhack is a very diverse coding school, too. Recently, we talked about career pivoters : experienced professionals who have dedicated years of their lives to all kinds of careers, and have decided to acquire tech skills to switch careers entirely. Many of our alumni have pivoted careers, from jobs like Customer Success Manager or lawyer to Web Development– many of the skills acquired in these jobs are transferable, and the experiences and successes that professionals bring from different backgrounds can make their profile incredibly valuable for recruiters in Tech. Some people learn coding to expand their skill set in their current jobs, too! Coding skills can take Digital Marketers, Project and Product Managers, and all kinds of other roles to the next level, helping you advance your career, expand your responsibilities, and, ultimately, increase your value for companies and your salary and work benefits, too. Coding can be a lifelong learning journey, because there's so much to learn and the number of different applications of code is vast. If you can code, you have the boundless potential to reinvent the world– sign up for our Web Development bootcamp , and make it happen!

The relationship between employers and employees is changing. We’ve heard and talked about all the never-before-seen work trends we’re witnessing: the Great Reshuffle, the Great Resignation, Quiet Quitting… call it what you will: the ground is shaking in the job market! The views on what work is worth are evolving to a new, more humane understanding of what work is supposed to be like: more fair, better compensated, with a better work-life balance, and, more than anything, more rewarding. Professionals are resigning to pursue careers they actually enjoy: over 20 million American workers quit their jobs in the second half of 2021 alone. We’ve seen it happening since the start of the pandemic: the sudden shift to working from home revealed new possibilities to the workforce, new ways to do things, and we’ve become empowered to ask for what we want. Now it’s easier than ever to start a career in Tech without having to get a university degree– and also, for more experienced professionals, to pivot from any job to a Tech career! So if you’re not satisfied with your current job and want a change, you’re not alone! The tech world is wide and has a place for everyone. Not sure what your dream career in Tech looks like? We’re here to help! Get the Ironhack Career Vision Planner and Job-Hunting Checklist , and build the steps towards your future! Why Job Satisfaction Matters Professionals now have the power to demand, and they’re using it! During the difficult shifts and unpredictability of the decade so far, it feels like we’re looking at our lives through very different eyes, because if not now, then when? Quality of life and growth potential have surged to the top of workers’ priorities when looking for a new job. What we want to do matters: we’ve gone from living to work, to working to live! Job satisfaction is vital in the long run: if we have to dedicate ourselves to a full-time job for well over 30 years of our life, why would we make it excruciating? Professionals are training themselves outside traditional institutions and leveraging their skills in the markets with more jobs up for grabs, like technology. And job satisfaction isn’t a mere triviality: it impacts psychological and physical well-being in deeper ways than we thought. And we’re no longer willing to play with our health. Job satisfaction has also proven to be important to companies: happy employees just perform better! Less turnover rate means less expenses to companies and less job insecurity for professionals, making for a healthier job culture, and a better professional future for the coming generations. The job market is ripe for workers to call the shots and change the old ways, and virtually anyone can join what we can no longer call just a ‘trend’: the Great Reshuffle is here to stay, and if you’re been waiting for a sign to go after the dream career you want, this is it! Happiness Factors At Work Lots of factors can make or break happiness at work– a comfortable and safe work environment has to have a set of qualities, like trust, respect, and job security, in order to become a safe space where you can be creative and productive, carry out healthy communication with your teammates, and actually achieve something! Your boss A bad boss can make a great job feel horrible! A bad boss will make you dread going to work every day, hating every interaction and making the entire time sour and frustrating; and someone unsupportive will hinder your career advancement, or even affect it in worse ways! However, a supportive boss will be the perfect support, helping you develop your skills and responsibilities in safe ways and showing you how to direct your career towards what you want. Your team The same thing happens with your team at work: a bad, non-constructive or just plain unfriendly team will make any work hell, but the right people can make a tough job feel easy, helping you and sharing responsibilities fairly. Your opportunities for growth Even a great job needs to evolve. If you’re in the same role with the same title and same pay for years on end, it’s time for a change: and some jobs will not offer you the same opportunities for development as others. If your career is being hindered by the options for growth where you are, consider trying elsewhere! Your company’s mission Working hard is easier when you’re passionate about the mission you’re all working towards. Maybe you don’t care about improving communication networks, but you do feel strongly about working in education, open source, or renewable energy technologies, for example. Don’t be afraid to seek out a company whose objective fuels you, too. Your location Knowing your needs regarding job location is a must: are you fine with showing up to the office five days a week, no matter how long the commute? Do you need a hybrid schedule to thrive? Or would you want a fully remote position? (And how compatible is that with your job responsibilities, too?) Do you have the skills for your preferred work mode? All these questions can help determine whether a workplace is right for you or not. You should always aim for a job that doesn’t just pay the bills, but also satisfies you, excites you and makes you happy to show up every day. And if your current job isn’t that, you’re probably better off taking your chance to try out greener pastures! But before you jump the gun, you have to know where you’re going next. Do you know what your dream career looks like and, especially, how to get there? If not, fear not: we’ve got you covered! Click here to grab Ironhack’s Career Vision Planner and Job-Hunting Checklist to help you pave the road towards your dream tech job!

The world of work is transforming in front of our eyes, thanks in great part to the exponential growth in the use of new technologies and the speed at which digital tools like Artificial Intelligence are catching on across nearly all industries. However, the value of employability remains unchanged through these transformations– and that’s exactly why your employability skills and traits are the most important factor in getting you hired! While its importance is still incontestable, what the word ‘employability’ actually entails has certainly shifted in the last two decades. Recruiters’ priorities are very different for us than they were for our parents at our age, and we’re about to see exactly why! Employability in the Classic Office: the 9 to 5 Hustle Culture Not too long ago, employability was understood as a much more straightforward, though rigid, set of workplace expectations: you had to fit a specific profile to be considered a good candidate for an ‘office’ job. Through the 90’s and early 2000’s, television and media ingrained into us what we now call the American ‘hustle culture’-- just those words must have given you a clear image of fluorescent light fixtures, grey cubicles, water-cooler talk… Remote work wasn’t a thing, not with the technology we had back then: you were expected to turn up to work in an office building five days a week, no exceptions or hybrid schedules, and sit there from 9 am to 5 pm. The commute ate up a significant part of your day, stuck in traffic among many others who were going to their jobs exactly like you. And, notably, getting a job with an unusual educational background or experience was rare: to work in Tech, you needed a computer science degree, of course! Higher education was a must for high-paying jobs (and this is still the status quo in many industries, to this day!). And of course, you’d have to face the classic chicken and egg problem: how could you get a job when you started your career and had no previous work experience, when every entry-level job required experience to access it? The grind was mandatory, and putting in more hours than you were supposed to was considered a good thing– how else would you show your boss you were a hard worker? We coined a whole slew of terms to define burnout syndromes, because we reached levels we’d never seen before… but no worries, because the weekend was always just around the corner! TGIF! Sound familiar? What’s worse: hustle culture is far from gone. In many of the less dynamic industries, workplaces still haven’t abandoned these habits. Thankfully, the tech industry, historically one of the biggest examples of these toxic work environments, is now at the spearhead of change in workplace culture. And how has workplace culture evolved in the last decade? How Employability Is Evolving Towards The Future The world of work has changed, but the twist is that these changes will keep happening more and more often. The technological revolution we saw happen in the later decades of the last century has only accelerated. As a direct consequence, our new understanding of employability is inherently tied to flexibility. The ability to adapt quickly to changes in the workplace is a must, particularly after the forced shift to remote work brought about by the pandemic. The new workplace moves quickly and demands different ways of working and even changes in career specialization; instead of investing time and effort into a particular mode of work, software program, or specific field of study, the best bet is to master the subtler soft skills that will help you catch up with the trends and market shifts, acquire new proficiencies quickly, and stay employable throughout your entire career. Hard or technical skills keep losing importance as technologies like AI match human skill and take over some tasks. It’s no concern, however, if you’ve put your focus on developing those skills that, in their subjectivity and complexity, machines won’t be able to replicate in a very long time (if ever): for example, critical thinking skills, interpersonal and communication abilities, and other soft skills that are transferable across industries are guaranteed to retain their value and their place of importance in your resume. Attitude is a big part, too! Gone are the days when your learning period ended in your twenties. Willingness to learn is an absolute must for entry level roles and non-traditional educational backgrounds, but also for more experienced professionals that need to keep their skill set current. The other side of the coin is that formal education requirements are not as rigid. Basically, it's more important that you're a good fit for the role than whether you have a fancy degree or not. Alternative ways of showcasing your skills and experience are also much more accepted and even demanded. While previous experience is still very important, you have many more ways to acquire it: freelancing, building your own projects and portfolio, and participating in open source initiatives, collaborations, or hackathons will speak highly of your self-motivation, initiative, and resourcefulness, which, you guessed it– are all highly-valued transferable skills! In short: what recruiters are checking is whether you have the right skills for the job, not ALL of the skills listed in the job description (and this is also why we only teach the most in-demand skills for the market rather than teaching you absolutely everything you could ever want to know about tech, by the way!). What You Can Do To Improve Your Employability As we’ve seen, companies’ priorities when it comes to hiring have shifted to a more flexible position, that is open to profiles and perspectives more diverse than before, but simultaneously demands versatility and boldness. Your resume and professional presence online tell a story that they want to be captivated by; your mindset, approach to work, and passion are key. And how can you show you have what it takes? It’s not enough to just list your qualifications, experiences, and things you’ve done: you have to frame them into a narrative that tells exactly who you are and what you bring to the table. This is called your personal brand: make sure your information available online is consistent, keeping both your resume and your LinkedIn profile up to date and using the algorithm to your advantage. Building your own website and finessing your portfolio will also speak to your other skills and give you an opportunity to highlight what you consider your best successes and traits. Also, don’t tell recruiters that you’re a lifelong learner: show it! Investigate other areas of study, particularly those that might come in handy in the career path you want; try out new hobbies, courses and experiences, read different books, and, in general, give new things a go! Additional education beyond university degrees is more highly considered than ever before, so don’t hesitate to check out free online courses and other available, intensive no-nonsense for professionals… like an Ironhack bootcamp! Whether you’re looking to get into tech, or just want to complement your resume with Web Development, UX/UI, Data Analytics or Cybersecurity expertise, Ironhack teaches you the crucial skills to start applying your tech skills from the get-go. Check out our bootcamps !

Deep learning (DL) is a subset of machine learning. It allows artificial intelligence (AI) to use neural networks to predict outcomes based on data analysis. It essentially allows the AI to mimic how the human brain works to “think” intuitively based on what it already knows. Think of how a child learns to speak. Every day they are hearing new words and sounds. Their brain begins to file those pieces of information based on what the child understands from the context of the language. That is how AI deep learns. The AI scans massive quantities of data rapidly to predict an outcome based on previous occurrences. Deep Learning vs Machine Learning Machine learning is when a computer can learn from data using algorithms to complete a task. They do not need to be explicitly programmed, but they do need time to train with existing data sets in order to produce the desired action or response when they are given a certain intent. For example, a chatbot on a banking website will be trained using language snippets based on intents that seek to elicit banking-related responses. If the user types in “see my account,” the bot will be trained to respond with something like, “do you want to see your checking or savings account?” Deep learning takes this concept a step further. Deep learning means the computer uses a structure vaguely inspired by the synapses in the human brain. This allows the system to process unstructured data and learn how to make decisions after training on a large dataset. For example, if elections are coming up in town, a deep learning algorithm could scan news headlines and, based on the sentiment it finds in the text, predict who is going to be leading in the polls. And that’s just one example of the many ways deep learning is mixed in with our everyday lives. How Does Deep Learning Work? Deep learning works using layers of processing units that allow for the extraction and transformation of numerous variables. Each network in the hierarchy transforms pieces of data and passes it on to the next layer to build a static model with iterations of output. The number of layers varies based on the level of precision and learning the output sought requires. It sounds complicated, so let’s add a visual: (Image from Vitalflux ) Deep learning depends on networks that mimic the neural networks in our human brains. Deep learning depends on networks that mimic the neural networks in our human brains. It allows the network to transform the data into what data scientists call different representations, which highlights salient information like the edges of objects in images or particularly relevant words in a text. This progressively abstracts away the raw data, reducing an image with millions of pixels to what might be a list of only a few dozen numbers, each representing the “cat-ness”, “dog-ness” or other properties we care about. This process is called dimensionality reduction or feature extraction. Once found, classical analytical methods like linear regressions or k-means clustering, which would struggle with the original input because of its size, can be then used to make a final decision. Applications of Deep Learning (AKA How To Use It In Real Life) So let’s get out of the technical and into the practical. Where do we see deep learning in our lives? Pretty much everywhere. Here are just a few of the many examples. You’ll definitely be able to think of more! Virtual Assistants One of the first and most commonly referenced uses of DL are smart virtual assistants, like Alexa or Siri . Online service providers use DL to respond to users' needs through speaking. Many companies use these virtual assistant tools to get to “know” their employees’ needs and provide them with useful information as needed throughout the day. Virtual assistants can be either voice activated, or chatbots, or both. They can serve as excellent training tools, teaching new employees the ins and outs of the job on the fly as they have questions about policies or procedures that are documented within the company. Virtual assistants are also great just to have around the house! Playing trivia or watching Jeopardy? Ask Alexa! In an argument about a factoid? Your VA can provide the correct answer. Deep learning powered VAs can manage your schedule, take notes, keep inventory, and generally help you manage your life with minimal thought. There are so many ways to take advantage of their help. Healthcare Deep learning is revolutionizing healthcare and helping medical professionals make diagnoses and treat illnesses based on data that may not be apparent to the human eye. While most deep learning in healthcare is still at the experimental stage, its potential use is certainly growing, which means you are in time to become an expert. Deep learning is used in healthcare for imaging analytics and diagnostics. The neural network model works really well for analyzing MRI results or x-rays since it is specifically well-suited to analyze and extract data from images. Deep learning models can detect anomalies on a medical scan much more quickly and accurately than the average nurse practitioner. Entertainment Of course, deep learning affects all of us when we are consuming entertainment. If you watch series or movies on an online platform, you are experiencing deep learning models in action. TV Have you ever stopped to consider how your streaming service knows what shows or movies to suggest to you? They are able to match your tastes, and even provide suggestions for different moods or genres that you tend to shift between. This is a perfect example of how deep learning algorithms observe massive quantities of data and filter it to understand the complex layers of your preferences. The algorithm then learns from your previous choices and uses that information to sort through new additions to the library to suggest things you will like. Music The same goes for music. If you’ve ever signed in to Youtube and seen music video suggestions that you know you’ll like, it’s because their deep learning algorithm keeps track of music you’ve listened to before. Not to alarm you, but these suggestions can also be provoked from music you heard outside of Youtube if you have a microphone enabled on your device. Those virtual assistants are always listening, and deep learning allows them to process sound bytes even if you aren’t actively engaged with a device or platform. Gaming The future of deep learning and video games is absolutely fascinating. Remember those choose your own adventure books? Well now, role playing games are using deep learning to allow you to make choices within the game, and the game will change to predict how you are going to act based on your previous choices. The deep learning agents within the game can actually compete, even on the professional level, in complex strategy games. The game is always learning, and consequently transforming. This phenomenon began with machine learning and chess, when, in 1997 we witnessed the historic match between IBM supercomputer Deep Blue against champion Garry Kasparov. Spoiler alert: Deep Blue won. Since then, AI and gaming have gone hand in hand to create increasingly challenging problems for humans to solve in the name of fun! Translation According to Google, shifting Google Translate to deep learning led to a 60% increase in translation accuracy. Before the change to deep learning, Google relied on phrase-based machine learning. But with deep learning, their tool is constantly improving its language knowledge and translation accuracy as more and more people use it. Also known as neural machine translation (NMT), AI models that use deep learning for language understanding and translation deliver more accurate and natural sounding translations. In most of these models, each word in the input sentence is encoded as a number to be translated by the neural network into a new sequence of numbers that coincide with the target language for output. The model then uses complex mathematical formulas that it refines to meet parameters that are defined through training with data sets of each of the languages. NMT works with any language pair, and can learn new languages very quickly and easily. It can also be fine tuned to understand different accents or dialects (like British English vs. American English) and translate appropriately. The only downside is that since the algorithm learns based on new inputs, consistency can be diminished. New vocabulary may affect future translations, so additional neural models may be needed to overcome such faults. Those are just a few of the many examples of how deep learning is working in our every day lives. Imagine the possibilities if we apply it to even more aspects! Of course there need to be some rules and oversight, but we are on the brink of some very amazing technological breakthroughs with deep learning models. How to Learn More About Deep Learning Do you want to learn more about deep learning and tech? You should! This is just the tip of the iceberg. If you're ready to take the next steps in your tech career, check out an Ironhack Bootcamp ! Or, join one of our events to learn a little bit more and connect with other like-minded technology enthusiasts!

The tech industry is one of the largest employment sectors right now following the shift in many companies to remote work and data storage in the cloud. The best part is that they’re willing to pay for that talent and make sure to keep them happy . So with a little research, you can find the best role and company that matches what you want in a tech job. Here’s a list of some of the best tech companies to work for in Germany, and why! The German Tech Scene Germany’s Digital Strategy 2025 predicts that Germany’s GDP could rise by an additional €82 billion if the country leverages digital technologies to the fullest. The country has some ambitious digital plans that include creating a gigabit fiber network, plans to assist startups and connect them with established companies, and updating the digital regulatory framework that will encourage more investment and innovation. The country is investing heavily in digital education and is in the process of creating a digital agency meant to be a modern center of excellence. And that’s not all! Germans work an average of 35 hours per week, and every full-time worker is entitled to 20 days of holiday plus 9 public holiday days, making Germany an excellent place for work-life balance. The cost of living is relatively low in Germany compared to other European countries when you consider the average salary and benefits. Transportation is cheap and effective, but more importantly, there’s Oktoberfest ! Most tech employers in Germany are forward-thinking, and with so much government support, they have the freedom to make sure their employees are enjoying themselves. And if you’re not a citizen of a European Union member state, you can apply for the German Blue Card and obtain special privileges if you have a job offer in the country. Best Tech Companies Hiring in Germany: With all the government investment in digital infrastructure and technology companies, you can bet there are some awesome places to work. Check out our list of the hottest tech companies in Germany! Read why they’re great, and decide where you want to send your resume. Google Google has multiple office locations in Germany , and they are all pretty awesome to work for. With offices in Munich, Berlin, Frankfurt, and Hamburg, the company is currently hiring for multiple roles in engineering and technology. Google is well known for its excellent employee benefits which include comprehensive healthcare, retirement matching, flexible spending accounts, and even life insurance. In Germany, many of these benefits are covered by the government, but Google will give you an even better deal. With a bachelor’s degree or equivalent practical experience in computer science or a related technical field, you are eligible to join Google’s technology and engineering team in Germany. Plus, in Germany, you are automatically given preference if you have a disability. Google also has a very strong culture of diversity, equity, and inclusion which you can read more about on their belonging page. When you apply for a job at Google, you’ll potentially be joining a best-in-class global enterprise where you’ll get to work with and learn from some of the best engineers in the world. Check out more of Google's awesome Düsseldorf office here. N26 N26 is one of the world’s leading mobile banks. N26 operates with a full German banking license and operates according to EU directives. The company works with advanced 3D secure technology and relies on biometrics to safeguard its clients’ accounts. N26 is very popular with ex-pats since the barriers to opening an account are low, and there are no foreign transaction fees. Working for N26 is a great way to get your foot through the fintech door. N26 empowers its employees to develop professionally and personally because they consider it an investment in themselves. Each N26 employee gets a personal development fund that they can spend however they want to further their career. They are also a progressive company, with lots of inclusive initiatives with the goal of creating a banking experience that customers of all backgrounds, cultures, ages, genders, sexual orientations, ethnicities, religions, abilities, and experiences love to use. We borrowed this awesome image from N26's careers page ...a must-see if you're thinking of applying. Blinkist Do you love to read, but can’t find the time? Blinkist may be the perfect place for you. Blinkist is an app that condenses the best nonfiction books into bite-sized summaries so you can get the gist and learn in a fraction of the time it would have taken you to read the whole thing. Of course, if you hear the highlights and have the time, we hope you’ll read the full book! But in a pinch. Blinkist is the solution. They even do the same for podcasts. They call them shortcasts. Blinkist knows people are busy and want to help them learn on the go as efficiently as possible. Blinkist describes itself as a group of “curiosity-driven readers, writers, designers, developers, and strategists connected by our passion for reading, building meaningful products, and sharing the power of big ideas.” It sounds like a pretty great group of potential colleagues. Based in Berlin, Blinkist also has remote roles available, but if you want to go to the office, they offer relocation and visa support for non-German nationals. Plus get free, plant-based lunches and enjoy a four-day work week. Trivago Based in Düsseldorf, Trivago wants to be “your companion to experience the world.” Founded by three friends in 2005, the company is a part of the Expedia group and is publicly traded, which means it’s a pretty big deal. The company is dedicated to empowering people to organize amazing trips all over the world using technology. Trivago also helps new employees relocate to Germany if needed. You’ll be supported with topics like getting a visa and work permit, a newcomer’s loan, and a relocation reimbursement budget to help cover flights and moving expenses. They are also into employee growth, so everyone has access to both in-house and online courses. You’ll also get at least 20 days of vacation outside of Germany, and the ability to work from home when needed. Soundcloud If you’re into music then Soundcloud may be the next best step in your tech career. Soundcloud considers itself a “next-generation” music streaming system, that is especially dedicated to empowering undiscovered talent. With a European headquarters in Berlin, Soundcloud Germany is looking for all kinds of engineering talent. An international company, getting into Soundcloud in Berlin could open the door for you in New York, Los Angeles, or London as well. As far as benefits go, Soundcloud offers the works. Apart from relocation assistance, you’ll get creativity and wellness benefits, a professional development allowance, 35 days of paid time off annually, and even free German classes to get you settled in. You can participate in the employee stock ownership plan, and you’re invited to two free lunches per week at the office. And remember, you’ll get to listen to the newest music while you help new artists break onto the scene. Ubisoft Maybe gaming is more your thing. You’ll feel right at home at Ubisoft . The Assassin’s Creed game developer, headquartered in France, also has offices in Düsseldorf. Ubisoft is dedicated to creating enriching games for everyone and is the company behind popular games like  Far Cry, For Honor, Just Dance, Prince of Persia, Rabbids, Rayman, Tom Clancy's, and Watch Dogs. Working for a gaming company is already pretty cool, but even more so when the company is dedicated to having a positive social impact like Ubisoft. The company actively invests in the communities it works with to minimize its environmental impact. They are also very family-oriented and actively work with their customers to encourage gamers to maintain a healthy lifestyle. As far as careers go, there are so many options at Ubisoft if you have a little experience in tech. From design to localization, there is literally something for everyone. Working for Ubisoft means working in offices so nice they were featured in Archello! Personio If you’re a people person, Personio could be the perfect place for you. Personio is a leading human resource solution for European small and medium-sized enterprises, and they’ve been crushing it over the past few months. Considered the people operating system, Personio just raised $200M in second series E funding to continue to drive its rapid expansion across the continent. Committed to sustainability and diversity, Personio has an employee advisory board that serves as the eye and ears for management on each internal team. A sounding board for internal communications and people programs, the board drives initiatives based on engagement surveys to improve the organization overall. They also offer employees a stock option plan and have an extremely laid-back and inclusive culture at their Munich headquarters. Get a taste of Personio's team culture . Innogames Innogames is another gaming company that makes some of the most popular videogames in the market today. They are best known for some of their role-playing games, like Tribal Wars and Forge of Empires. Based in Hamburg, Innogames has millions of registered players and revenues that reached €190 million in 2019. Innogames has excellent employee reviews, and its CEO has a 98% approval rating on Glassdoor. Its company culture is founded on principles like sustainability, fair play, open information sharing (they have an awesome Github presence!), and of course passion, among other things. Innogames also has a great career development system in place that allows new hires to decide whether they want to specialize in their field or take a management career path. Either way, you’ll be supported to pursue the career of your dreams. Delivery Hero Passionate about pizza? Get into the delivery side of tech! Based in the heart of Berlin, Delivery Hero operates in 50+ countries internationally in Europe, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East and partners with 500,000+ restaurants. The company experienced a huge boom in business during the COVID-19 lockdowns, and despite restrictions easing in Europe, they continue to deliver excellence and keep growing. These heroes enjoy flexible working hours and shared workspaces, and they can even take a nap at the office in a dedicated napping space. The company offers relocation services, subsidized yoga classes, bike sharing and gym memberships, and employee long-term incentive programs. The company is invested in people leadership principles and believes that where there is potential, it needs to be nurtured. Delivery Hero will invest in making you your own hero. Contentful Contentful is an API-based content management solution, that sets itself apart through its specialization in omnichannel content distribution. They are especially proud of their vast quantity of out-of-the-box tech stack integrations that make it easy for any and all content creators, marketers, and sales teams to reach their audience easily without a lot of backend tech development. Contentful is very dedicated to investing in its employees’ growth and professional development. The New York Times reported that Contentful is one of 50 startups on track to become a unicorn: valued at more than $1 billion. With options for employees to buy company stock and extremely competitive salaries, Contentful is an excellent option to flex your tech muscles in Berlin. The office is open, but work-from-home options are available as well. How to Land Your First Tech Job Landing a job at incredible companies like these is definitely achievable. All you need is a little knowledge and some practical experience. Most companies in tech aren’t too worried about whether you have a Master’s from Harvard or a Ph.D. They want to know that you are able to learn and adapt in a fast-paced environment. A degree from a legacy brick-and-mortar school isn’t going to cut it. Ironhack teaches the skills that these companies are looking for, and we know how to get you ready for the job so you can hit the ground running! So if you see yourself strolling through, for example, Madrid’s Google campus on your way to a user interview, or joining Glovo’s rockstar development team, take a look at Ironhack’s tech bootcamps . Nothing is more important for getting one of these gigs than practical experience and a wide network within the industry. You’ve got this!

Remote work is here to stay: after being forced to work from home in 2020, it seems we’ve sort of realized it’s actually fine to skip the commute and join the company meeting from the comfort of your sofa. Or is it? While remote work certainly sounds easy and laid-back, it’s not just about remembering to unmute yourself on the Zoom call: remote brings its own challenges, and if you’re aiming to get hired for a remote or hybrid role, you have to get comfortable with it, and show you’re capable of giving your best in an online environment and aligning with the company and with your coworkers. While some companies are pushing back for a return to the physical office, the trend is clear: in the last two years, the number of U.S. companies that offer a remote option has multiplied by eleven. Remote work offers higher flexibility for everyone involved, a more efficient workflow, a better work-life balance, and better job opportunities for everyone. Ready to show employers and recruiters how ready you are to work remotely? Read on to find out how! Build Your Online Portfolio For most (if not all) jobs in Tech, especially those that involve coding and design, a portfolio is becoming a must. Now that university degrees aren’t the norm in the industry, and newcomers learn to code through shorter, more agile and non-traditional means (such as bootcamps!) employers aren’t looking at your qualifications as much. They want to directly evaluate your skill set, your growth, and the way you solve problems, to name but a few, and they want to see your work: in other words, your portfolio. An online portfolio shouldn’t be just a dump for everything you’ve ever done. Consider it a gallery, a well-framed and contextualized selection of your best projects. It must be relevant to the jobs you apply for, but it should also give insight into what you’re capable of doing beyond that. If you can frame your work to highlight specific skills (especially those that are original, and transversal across industries!), then more power to you! As Sarah Doody explains in this Ironhack Podcast episode , you must tell a story that tells prospective employers why you are unique and why they’d be missing out if they don’t hire you on the spot! And if you don’t have enough projects to showcase, there’s two more things you can do. If you have previous experience in another field, it’s guaranteed that you will have something to talk about in your portfolio in a way that will display your transferable skills in past successes and achievements. And if you don’t have previous work experience: get started! You don’t need a job to begin your own projects, and self-initiative will be a huge plus when applying for remote jobs. Optimize Your Remote Resume Want to work from home? From start to bottom, your resume can and should speak of how well-adapted you are to the remote work environment. Experience in other remote roles, or remote education, will be a huge plus, but there are more ways for employers to read the right message between the lines of your resume. Showing awareness that remote work isn’t exactly the same as office work (but in your pajamas) is a great way to tell employers that you know what you’re getting yourself into, and that you’re great and managing your own responsibilities, too. Soft skills such as time management and communication are unskippable assets for an online work environment, because without them you will have trouble syncing with your team and getting things done. Knowledge of remote work tools, such as Slack and Miro, will also come in handy. How are you going to know what is expected of you in the job, if you can’t jump in the huddle with your boss, schedule a meeting on Google Calendar, or correctly handle your tickets on Jira or Clickup? Are you educated in cybersecurity and able to keep your company data safe from hackers ? Do your research on time management and organization tools that are used in remote workplaces, watch videos, ask questions during the interview and mention them in your resume. Show that you’re down with the lingo and the tech! Are you enjoying this article? Check out this awesome episode from Ironhack Podcast, helping you figure out whether remote and part-time learning are right for you. Explore Outside of Your Timezone One of the biggest advantages of working remotely is that you’re no longer restricted to finding work in your area. This is particularly relevant for skilled workers who live in smaller cities and towns, or countries with a smaller technological industry. But don’t stick to just your country, either! Many countries are adapting their laws to ease remote work internationally: neither borders nor timezones are an excuse now! Workers are now able to apply to jobs all over: as long as you can connect to the internet, you can show up! For example, the European Union and its free trade laws make it easy for a, for example, Spanish web developer, to apply and work for a German company. English is usually the workplace language, and borders only matter when it comes to work regulations and taxation (be sure to check your options depending on where you live!). Not even timezones are a hard pass, though: asynchronous work is catching on. Even in workplaces that aren’t fully async (that is, those where people don’t have to be online at the same time, as long as the work gets delivered), usually an overlap of part of the day is enough for the few necessary meetings and live communication. It really depends on the job, but the options are endless: ask and negotiate! Often, tech companies are spread out across continents, and European workers can greet their American counterparts and have afternoon/morning meetings that fit everyone’s schedule. Anything is possible! Optimize Your LinkedIn For Remote Job Hunting LinkedIn being the social network of work, with over 600 million members, your LinkedIn profile is your professional face; some recruiters will even look at your LinkedIn first and only open your resume if they like what they see. Just adding a good profile picture will massively increase your views and the number of messages you get from recruiters. Therefore, it’s important to know how to use it, keep it updated, and let it speak to your skills and achievements. Through LinkedIn, you can do much more than just list your education, work experience and skills. If you can exploit its features to the most, it becomes an unparalleled display, at a glimpse, of what makes you a special, skillful, and apt person for the job. Having a filled profile and a fine-tuned headline and description will do wonders to differentiate you from other candidates: the LinkedIn algorithm rewards profiles with valuable content, appropriate keywords and frequent activity, showing you first in search results: you will definitely be seen! You can also carry out great networking with other professionals on LinkedIn, and engage with content relevant to your field (or even create content about your own projects!); sharing valuable comments and input gives you visibility and credibility. LinkedIn is your landing page: the place where you ‘sell yourself’ as a professional. Julianna Rabbi shares this and many more insights and tips in the Ironhack workshop ‘LinkedIn as a Tool to Land Your Dream Job’ , so be sure to check it out!

This us a guest blog by our friends at Paperform . If you have tech industry knowhow, or the inside scoop on hacking the job hunt, contact [email protected]. All across the globe, companies and governments are quickly taking steps to protect employee and citizen health by encouraging remote working. In 2018 remote work was gaining popularity but still overall uncommon. But looking through the lenses of the post-pandemic world, we can see that COVID-19 has pushed many individuals and businesses into working primarily from home or shifting to a hybrid model. This has entirely changed the conversations around remote work, with projections showing almost 73% of all departments are expected to have remote workers by 2028. Not only does this confirm what we already know about the evolution of remote work, but it also shows that telecommuting will become acceptable in an even wider range of industries. While this is all well and good, improving your cybersecurity is something that’s become necessary now more than ever before. Remote collaboration between team members is a struggle already let alone when having to deal with the fact they’re always at risk of being cyber-attacked. That’s why it is so important for remote team managers not only to watch remote employee experience but to provide training on cyber-security. What is cybersecurity? Cybersecurity is the protection of computer systems and networks from potential theft or damage that’s caused to the hardware, software or data held by the individual. As a business, this disruption can cause many problems not just for you but for customer data that you hold confidentially. To be effective, a good cybersecurity strategy must include multiple layers of security spread across different parts of an organisation’s computer systems, networks, applications, or data. To be successful against cyber attacks, organisations need to have people, processes, and technologies that complement each other. Cyber risks of remote work It’s worth understanding just how frequent cyber attacks take place. Proofprint assessed the state of phishing attacks and found that 88% of organisations worldwide experienced spear phishing attempts in 2019. Cyber attacks vary in their form, whether that be phishing attacks , hacking systems, involving malware, or identity theft. An eye-watering 11,762 breaches have been recorded between January 1st 2005 to May 31st 2020. That’s not including those breaches that haven’t been recorded, of which there could be many more. Unfortunately, there can be a lot of reputational risk in dealing with a breach, and so some companies or individuals may try to avoid mentioning a potential attack. You’ve also got the physical risk of things becoming compromised, like a laptop being stolen, and so having a good cybersecurity system in place can help put in preventative measures necessary to protect your company. Data leaks and insider threats are also common for businesses, so it’s good to ensure this doesn’t happen in the event of an employee going rogue. Best Practices for Remote Working Cybersecurity Without effective cybersecurity in place, you open your business up to the dangers of hackers and scams. Hackers and scammers have become so advanced in the attack methods that any one of your employees could fall victim to them. So how can you protect your employees? Physical security Talking of physical security, it’s good to have security measures in place both for those working from home and on the go remotely. In terms of cyber security, the purpose of physical security is to minimise the risk to information systems and information. Additionally, as digital transformation continues and employees work more and more remotely, the efficiency of the company's physical security measures is reduced. The moment that a device is connected to a shared network, there is a potential risk for a hacker to reach the network, implant malware, steal data or disrupt business operations. The more you can educate yourself and your employees on the physical risks of cybersecurity, the better everyone’s awareness and caution will be. Some ways you can do this are: Location of work: Locking doors and ensuring you don’t leave your work laptop unattended in public places or in your car is essential. Only use your company laptop or computer for work : 30-40% of employees' internet activity is non-work related, affecting not only their productivity but cybersecurity. A company laptop should only be used for business, and all personal activity resigned to a different device. Be wary of the people around you: With remote working, it can be easy to let your guard down, but if anything, there should be more wariness when working in public or on a remote server. The dangers are likely to be increased as a result, and so more care should be taken to protect oneself. Digital Security Remote workers depend on various online collaboration tools to be able to maintain the same level of cooperation between team members as they had in the office.While digital tools offer excellent support for remote workers, shifting work patterns on such a massive scale can have serious unanticipated implications for cybersecurity.Is your company adequately prepared for the changes in your cybersecurity risk? Digital security is something you always want to keep up to date because cyber attackers never stop improving their methods and ability to hack their victims successfully. Phishing emails: Be mindful of phishing emails. If you see something that looks suspicious, don't open it, delete it immediately, and most importantly, don't download any attachments. Insecure passwords: Likely, you have already heard not to use an obvious or the same password. But in addition, businesses should install multi-factor authentication passwords to prevent security breaches. Connect over VPNS: Virtual public networks (VPNs) are similar to firewalls; they allow you to protect the laptop data online while retaining the same functionality and appearance of normal actions. Log out of your accounts: Making sure you log out of your accounts is good practice, and not saving your passwords to any other computers unless it’s your own. With work data, make sure you keep it on your work computer and, where possible, avoid public wifi. Unfortunately, public wifi is not as secure as you’d hope it to be. This is all-important when working remotely, especially when working in places like coffee shops and co-working spaces. Remote work cybersecurity policies To help avoid these cybersecurity threats happening to your employees, companies should have policies in place that are related to the workforce. This can ensure that all staff have an awareness of safe practices when it comes to using the internet when working remotely. Not only that but being aware of the physical risks that are posed too. These policies need to be in place so that if a cyber attack does happen, the right form of action can be taken to do as much damage control as possible. Employee Awareness and Training on Cybersecurity With human error playing a part in so many security breaches – more than 90%, according to a recent study – it's not surprising that many companies are taking the initiative to train their employees in cybersecurity. Cyber security awareness training for employees addresses one of the biggest factors in major security breaches: human error. The human error refers to unintentional actions (or inaction) by employees and users that lead to, spread or allow a system to be breached. This encompasses a vast range of actions - from downloading a malware-infected attachment to failing to use a strong password - which is part of the reason why it can be so difficult to address. Some of the common types of human error in cybersecurity are either Skill or decision-based errors. Skill-based errors consist of lapses in judgement when performing familiar tasks. On the other hand, decision-based errors are when the employee makes the wrong decisions. Whether that's due to the necessary level of knowledge or lack of information. Some of the most common human errors are: Misdelivery: Sending something to the wrong recipient ranks 5th for the most common cause of all cyber security breaches. It's scarily easy for employees to accidentally send confidential information if they're not careful. Password problems: 123456 still remains the most popular password in the world, and 45% of people reuse the password of their main email on other services. It's not surprising this is one of the main issues. Not installing the latest security updates as soon as they are available. Unfortunately, most users delay these installations. Physical security: As mentioned in the previous section, more often than not, data breaches happen because unauthorised persons gain access to secure premises. By training employees, whether that be through in-person courses, or more in the spirit of remote work, or through a virtual learning environment (VLE) how to recognize and respond to cyber threats, organisations can dramatically improve their security posture and cyber resilience. Are your remote workers security-safe? It’s important to take cybersecurity seriously, not just when working remotely but in your company’s typical working environment. Remote work does not have to pose a cybersecurity risk if the correct precautions are taken to prevent it from happening. About The Author Kayleigh Berry is an growth marketer at Paperform . Her strong history in psychology, marketing, and creativity, combined with her 100 miles per hour personality, keeps her up to date with all the latest trends in the new and changing digital industry. Outside of work, you’ll find Kayleigh surfing or training her Australian Shepherd puppy.

Have you been thinking about switching careers? You wouldn’t be the first: about half of the workforce is considering a job change, and 20% have already taken the leap in 2022, joining professional fields with growing demand, such as Tech. They call it the Great Reshuffle for a reason: even in the most unpredictable of times, workers have raised their standards and aren’t afraid to go for it, because pivoting careers might not be as difficult as you think. What Is a Career Pivot? A career pivot is a term that refers to switching from one career to another (similar or not!); it does not apply to people who are breaking into the job market for the very first time. If you’re a student, a graduate or a person who just hasn’t had a proper work experience yet, you wouldn’t be pivoting, you’d be starting! However, if you’ve already gotten a few years of experience in your career, and are just now considering switching to something else entirely, a career pivot is what you’re thinking about. Despite this seemingly limited definition, career changes can lead you anywhere: you could be just changing course slightly towards a different area of the same industry or field, or you could be switching to a completely unrelated job! The more disparate the jobs, the more of a reckless move this seems: after all, why would you abandon an established career where you’ve invested years of your life, just to start all over again? As you’ll see, career changes aren’t always as dramatic as they seem. Reasons to Embrace Uncertainty and Pivot to New Careers Gone are the days when you kept a job title for life. For the most part, at least. Granted, doctors usually stay doctors after so many years of medical school and with such a specialized set of skills and qualifications… but even doctors switch careers! A career pivot can happen for many reasons, but during the Great Reshuffle, some clear trends and patterns have arised. A great number of jobs that are in demand today didn’t even exist a few years ago, and many of those who have recently switched to a career in Tech didn’t know their current path existed until very recently. People can also pivot to a wholly different job when they feel unfulfilled in their current situation. Maybe your path isn’t what you thought it would be, or maybe you settled for a ‘safe’ career and now find your job to be unbearably dull. Maybe, you changed; and that’s great, too! All of these are very valid reasons to opt for a career pivot, and there are many more. And, though some people decide to switch careers without knowing what to do instead (ah, if only one could sample jobs like ice cream flavors, tasting each one until you find your favorite!), you might know exactly where you want to end up: you felt a spark, a calling, that, without telling you how to get there, knows exactly what type of professional you want to become. That ‘aha’ moment can’t and won’t be ignored: you know what to do! Square One, Clean Slates, and Other Myths No doubt about it: the worst fear that stops people from changing careers is the idea of having to start from scratch and having to play catch up, in an extremely competitive job market, with people ten years younger than you who already know more than you. It’s an unfathomably difficult position to be in, but it happens less than you might think. For nearly all industries, technical skills can be picked up quickly at any age. But, according to studies , 85% of job success is attributed to the soft skills that are used in all careers. These highly flexible skills are very transferable across industries; as Sarah Doody explained in this Ironhack Podcast episode , every person with years of professional experience has transferable skills that can be reframed and used in many other careers. If you have years of experience in another discipline, you will often find that you advance quickly in your career, even if you have to start at a more junior level. The skills you acquired in your previous role will always come in handy.You won’t be starting from scratch! Experienced professionals who consider switching to Tech are often convinced that they are too old to learn about new technologies, but there’s nothing further from the truth: tech has no age! As long as you have the attitude to push forward, your technical skills will grow along with you. How to Pivot Into a Tech Career Choose your career track Figure out which path you want to pursue: investigate your options, ask industry experts, and try out as many different things as you can before settling on a choice. You need to know where you’re going in order to get there! Consolidate your current skills Do your homework: reconsider your experience and skill set, and figure out how to reframe it in order to get where you want. Figure out which vital skills you’re missing, in order to fill in the gaps and learn what you will need for your dream career. You don’t need to get a whole new university degree for this: many accelerated paths of study, such as bootcamps, are designed for experienced professionals who are looking to acquire a strong background in a specific area. Define your 'why' You need to have a north star to work towards, something to focus on while you're figuring out the messy middle of career pivots. A clear objective that makes you jump out of bed every morning will help you maintain focus and motivation. Additionally, work on an ‘elevator pitch’ to explain your professional journey in a few words; interviewers who ask about why you’ve decided to make a change will be impressed when they hear about the passion that drove you to do it! Scout out the job market Look into the current types of jobs on offer, and the companies hiring. Don’t be afraid to get specific! Find your dream job, and some reasonable backups, and learn from the job listing: what responsibilities would you be excited about? What skills can be your biggest asset? Make a list of what you want and don't want from your future career; this will make it easier to find the right job for you. Find your community Everything is better with friends, especially in the tech world, where technical advances happen through worldwide collaboration and partnerships. Find and join local and area-specific Tech communities that bring you value… and don’t forget to network! Set yourself targets The ultimate target is to get a new job, but you can’t build a house from the rooftop. Start by setting the goals that will lead you there. And don’t be too hard on yourself; hunting for a new job while you're already working full time is tough! It will help to set time constraints: aim to join a career development event once every two weeks, create a plan to learn the skills you need , and apply to three new jobs per week (but make them good ones!) Ready To Pivot Into Tech? Ready to take the plunge and pivot to an exciting, cutting-edge line of work? A career in tech is always a safe bet, because let's face it, technology isn't going anywhere! It's also a fantastic place to grow and challenge yourself, with constant disruption and an ever-changing landscape. Start by getting a solid education: take a look at our bootcamps and launch your career in Tech!

You’re reading an interview with Sian Davies, straight from The Ironhack Podcast. Every week our hosts, Tim and Dan, catch up with Ironhack alumni, teachers, and other tech professionals for industry deep dives and personal success stories. To listen to this episode (or to binge-listen to every single one, we wouldn’t judge you!) check us out on Spotify , or wherever you find your favorite podcasts. Sian Davies is a Data Analytics Lead Teacher in Ironhack Barcelona, previously in Berlin. She started Data Is Female, a quarterly meetup in Barcelona, designed to give a platform to women in the world of Data to talk about their experiences and share their knowledge. Sian shares her insights with us, from a Data Scientist perspective, on gender biases in the Tech and Data industry, and how we can overcome them, within ourselves and in society. Teaching the Ironhack Data Analytics Bootcamp A: My name is Sian Davies. I am British, as you can tell from the accent, I'm 38 years old, and my pronouns are she/her, And I am the Lead Data Teacher for the Ironhack Data Analysis Bootcamp in Barcelona. Q: We first met when you were a Data Analytics Teacher in Berlin. A: There was an opportunity to come over here and teach, and the timing was better, and the weather was better, so I decided to give it a chance. I'm teaching in person. That's the main important difference. Back in Berlin, we only managed to teach in-person for a couple of weeks before the pandemic kind of ruined that party. I was teaching online for the best part of 8-9 months. Now I get to teach in my own classroom in person in Barcelona, which is day and night compared to that. It's just a different experience, so much more human, and you can really see if the students are struggling, and feel that energy in the room and react and respond, and we're having a much better time. I'm really enjoying it. Not to say that remote doesn’t have a bunch of positives. I think it can work really well; we adapt very well to the remote format and there's great advantages for the students. They can watch the recordings back, they never get caught behind. We have this breakout room concept, so they get a bit of privacy to discuss away from the teacher. There's wonderful things about it! And they are learning to work remotely, which is probably going to be their future job environment as well. But from the teaching staff perspective, I think we've been forced to see the best of it and coming back to the classroom reminded me why I love teaching. Q: Well, it does feel like lockdown is looming over us again, so let's not speak too soon. A: No, absolutely. And at the beginning of this move to Barcelona, I said I’d be very surprised if we get to graduation without going back on into remote format. So I'm enjoying it. I'm enjoying every week. Q: In the long run as well though, it's probably a good thing because the students get to experience both modes in the hybrid format. A: Absolutely. And the ideal teaching situation is that the students get to meet each other in person, and also bond with you and the TA. And then if you do have to go remote, it happens later in the course. That works much better that way than trying to do the whole course remotely, or starting remotely and then trying to retroactively bond. It’s like dating online for six months and then seeing if you actually get along in person. Q: The last time we spoke, about a year ago you were teaching in Berlin. Since then, has the curriculum changed? A: Yeah, absolutely. The curriculum at Ironhack is always evolving. Each teacher, me included, adds to the materials and improves them. We actually introduced some new stuff today that we've never done before, and I wrote the materials only last week and asked my students for feedback on it. I think it has to change with the times, the needs of the class, and the motivation of the teacher. Q: I know our Web Dev bootcamp changes all the time, so I was wondering how fast it moves in Data Analytics. A: I would say at least the languages are not changing as fast. You add details and maybe the libraries change, but we're still using the same core technologies as we were back in December. But we are trying to adapt to changing requirements in the job market and new technologies, and I also adapt to what I know about my students. I get opportunities as well, for example, I was recently given access to a bunch of training materials for Databricks, as I'm collaborating with them, and I use it in the classroom. Q: What's Databricks? A: Databricks is a cloud platform for cloud warehousing but also joining the blocks together. Hence, bricks. So you're joining together the various parts of your remote workflow in order to build a machine learning project or do some data analysis and reporting, and dashboarding whichever tools you need to use. It's an enhanced way of joining all that together, but in the cloud; and we have nice prebuilt pipelines between the tools, which saves time since you don’t have to sit and code to connect those pipelines. Q: Cool. That's one of the lessons I've had about Data Analytics: a big part of it is actually presenting the data. Gathering it and wrangling it is one thing, but then presenting it and getting your insights across… A: Yes, visualizing it and constructing a narrative doesn’t matter if you can't get someone to listen to you, believe you, and take that insight on board. The presentation is two things: the narrative, and also the visuals. Unfortunately, it's not where we spend the vast majority of our time. We spend the most time getting the data, cleaning it, preparing it, and shaping it. Q: Like when in Dev we spend most of our time finding the single piece of syntax we missed or spelling mistake we made, rather than actually building the cool project. Data Is Female: Why We Need a Platform for Women in Data Q: The main topic we wanted to discuss in the show is this network or community that you are building in Barcelona, called Data Is Female. A: We had our first event last Friday, and I want to do it every three months if I can. The idea is to, just as you said, start building a network here in Barcelona. It's something I've always wanted to do. I've pushed myself a little bit into doing it because, looking around my classroom, we've got three amazing female students in the class. And then the rest of my students, eleven of them, are all men. Q: I think that Data is predominantly male. A: The whole industry is male dominated, especially Data Science, and there’s a number of structural reasons for that, but we can do something to address that balance and give women a platform. Because that’s another thing I find frustrating. As a woman, I certainly feel shy when I go out and I meet people that I don't know, but if somebody asks me to do a speech, show up at an event, or do any kind of representation, like a podcast or an article, I'm like, yeah, absolutely, let's do it! Even if I’m a bit unsure of how it will come out. But I find that’s uncommon among women. You ask any guy to appear on a podcast or talk to your students and they’re up for it even if they're not that highly qualified. But ask much more qualified women, and she’ll hesitate and question whether she has anything to say or anyone will want to listen to her. We need to fight that in ourselves, and I figure I can help a little bit with that. Q: The idea of being intimidated if you’re not naturally extroverted keeps coming up in the podcast episodes; if you graduate from a bootcamp along with hundreds of other students, how do you actually rise above the noise? A: Having the confidence to get out there and say something that may not be groundbreaking and may not be the top of the top is a gift, and I think that the more platforms we can create for women where they feel like anyone can go out there and have something to say, the more they can talk about their experience. And they can talk about anything, but they definitely have stuff to say: they are working in Data! They are working in tech, but they're, for some reason, a bit reticent about it. Q: Congratulations on, on starting the group. So Data Is Female aims to happen every three months in Barcelona, on campus: is it streamed online? A: We didn't stream the last one online because it was the first one, but I think it's something that we could do in the future. I really wanted to see if we could try to build an in-person community, but, as you said before, we don't know if there's more restrictions coming. So it makes sense to do it in a hybrid format as much as possible. We’ll probably get more guests as well if we can do it online. Let's see what happens. Let's try and build that network. Q: Why do you think that it is intimidating for women to speak up in the world of data? Is there an equal amount of interest in the field from women and men? A:Well, if you look at the statistics about schools, it’s tied up with the STEM problem; I think there's a lot of overlap. STEM is an acronym for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics. It seems that these are the technical subjects that girls are very keen at and do really well at until they turn 16. And then there's a sudden drop. They just drop out of it, and for a very long time we didn’t know why. Lots of organizations are now doing stuff about this, like Women Who Code, and I have a friend, Debbie Forster, who is involved at the UK Tech Talent Charter, which is fantastic. Many organizations are working on diversity and inclusion and making sure that girls have access to STEM and that they're excited about it.. However, there's still a massive imbalance to address there. One thing is the dropout problem, since studying science and mathematics obviously takes people down the road of data. But then there's also this concept of who is a gamer and spends lots of time on video games, which is another avenue that could take women towards tech and data, yet is still very much seen amongst young people as a male pursuit and very unusual for women. Q: Actually, I read about the history of this male/female divide within tech, which was very different in the earlier stages, right? A: Yeah. María shared this great slide about how many women were involved in technology and computing in Europe and the United States until the eighties or so, when computers started being seen as crucial to our future development and economic generation. And then suddenly women were sidelined, and very deliberately so, by organizations, by governments. They were told: this isn’t a place for you anymore, and we were quite happy to have you work in computing during the war when we needed you, but now it's actually become quite important, so go off and do something else while the men take over. I was also reading about child psychology, and maybe you guys can align with me on this. As a kid, I was told that I had to be perfect and get things right, and that I had to look good, be tidy and tidy up after myself, never get messy or mess up. Whereas boys are encouraged to break things, and try, and fail, and get dirty. Because Data Science and Machine Learning (and coding in general!) are all about getting things wrong to then learn how to do things better, I think this during very early socialization we're giving girls the message that they can't do trial and error. Q: The generation that we all grew up in was very differently raised. We’ve seen this recently emerging trend of raising children in a gender-neutral fashion or allowing them to break gender stereotypes, though. A: That will change things, yeah. Now kids are being encouraged to code regardless of gender and I think there is a generational change coming, but at the moment we still have a real lack of women in the tech industry, especially at the top. We don't have great role models to follow. So yes, there are a lot of systemic problems, but there's a lot of hope as well. Q: I think this conversation about early conditioning is really interesting and complicates the conversation around diversity, because it’s elementary that there should be equality, but the inequality is much more deeply-entrenched and much more complex than that. I used to have the approach of simply treating people equally and thought that would be enough, but the longer I spend in tech, the more I realize that's not true at all. The disparity is still huge, and the general attitude towards women in tech seems almost… it's very strange until you see it. A: I felt similarly, that as long as I was doing my job and I was there and visible, I’d be a leader, a role model, and I could go on pretending that the world was gender blind to me just because nobody has explicitly stood in my way. And when they have been critical, sexist to me, spoken over me or when I see anything directly, I call it out and I always have done, and I've always got away with that. And I'm very lucky because I'm white and I'm privileged and I can leave a job and find another. But you're not really doing much to help anyone else. It’s a bit like recycling: you convince yourself that that's all you need to do and the planet will be saved. Q: But, and I wonder if it's the same with the diversity issue, it's very difficult to see the benefit that you alone are making. Like 71% of all pollution is generated by a hundred companies in the world. It’s way bigger than that. However, it is gaining more momentum. A: I think you have to see our actions around both of these issues as ripples in the pond. You don’t necessarily see them, but there are ripples nonetheless. Gender Biases From a Data Analytics Perspective Q: At the event you mentioned the margins of difference being small yet significant, whereas in other contexts huge margins can be considered very close calls. So I wondered, in the world of data, how do you call biases and see these trends? A: It's difficult to see the trends when they're marginal. This goes back to some of the core concepts; we teach about confidence intervals and margins of error. And you have to assume that data is noisy, it's one of the laws of big numbers. The more data you collect, the closer the totals are gonna be split down the middle; elections and electoral polls are a classic example of that. Even if the margins are tiny, they can be statistically significant, and there are methods to find out if they are. But the biggest problem with when you've got quite small differences is your own bias when you encounter patterns and gaps; confirmation bias will make you interpret the tiniest gaps as proof if you don’t do statistically rigorous testing to make sure. Q: Is it a useful exercise then to give yourself deliberate, false bias on things? A: I think it's a very useful exercise to define your hypothesis before you start. What we tend to do is define a null hypothesis, and you start from the basis that there is nothing there, rather than starting thinking that you have something. Writing your alternative hypothesis also helps you to see your own bias; you refer back to that question and check yourself. Q: To bring it back to the women in data topic and unconscious biases: before we started, you mentioned this fascinating article , a data analysis of how gender bias impacts GitHub contributions. A: I was looking for interesting examples of men versus women in different scenarios, and I found this article where they found a remarkable difference in the amount of successful pull requests between male and female GitHub members. And for example, 25% of women had nearly 100% of their pull requests accepted, whereas for men it was closer to 13%. And that is a substantial difference. That's not marginal. I discussed it with a couple of people after the event. However, the article still shows how women’s contributions are less accepted and there is a bias against women there, still. Q: It might go back to what you said about men being more confident. A: Yes and, and this is a known problem with women. They’re generally not as confident putting themselves forward unless they know for sure that they have every qualification. And I’m doing exactly what I said, I’m looking for evidence to back up my supposition that women are scared to be anything less than perfect, but I do think there's enough repetitive or repeated evidence there to suggest that there is something going on. It feels wrong, and we can certainly do something about it. Q: Another one of your guests actually mentioned patience. It can take a long time to get where you want to be, and patience is a great tool, but if you are aiming for perfection, that's an unachievable goal. A: It doesn't matter how patient you are. You're never gonna get there if you try to catch up with the technology, because there are new models and languages coming out all the time. You don’t have to be 100% qualified for the job. That is actually how my Ironhack interview went. Men apply for jobs when they know they’re not quite there, and women should as well. This is not a women-only event, everyone is welcome, men and non-binary people too. But I want to give women a stage and a chance to talk about their experience and to share their ideas. We do need to take more opportunities. It might take a while for you to be ready in this industry. You might have the job success really quickly, but maybe you are not ready and that's okay. Take that job if it serves you as a stepping stone, and if you change your mind later, after you’ve learned more and figured things out, you can switch. Sometimes you just need to have that keep your eyes open and look for those opportunities, and be willing to learn. Q: Well, congratulations for finding a career that you are happy in. Sometimes you have to take a look around and acknowledge that you’re doing great. A: Yes, I think you have to every now and again. I try to get my teaching assistant to do this sometimes. We have hard weeks, we have great weeks, we have great days in hard weeks… and sometimes you just have to give yourself a pat on the back. Because we have to celebrate those things. If you want to know more about Sian’s career in Data and her Data Is Female initiative, you can listen to the full Ironhack Podcast episode here . Sian told us about how Data Analytics can reveal statistically vital information and teach us more about our unconscious biases. If this piqued your interest, take a look at our Data Analytics bootcamp , and start your career in Tech!

Why start a tech podcast? Well for one, it's fun! But it's also great for your personal branding, which is a critical and often underutilized tool for breaking into the tech industry. Show off your knowledge and your entrepreneurial spirit at the same time...and it's actually easier than you might think! The Ironhack Podcast's co-host, Dan Parry, shares his expertise to help you figure out how to choose the right equiptment, design your branding, and how to launch! Start Your Own Tech Podcast, by Dan Parry Are you thinking of starting your own tech podcast, but you don't know where to start? What tools should you use, how often you should record or what it should be about!? We have you covered in this guide to starting a tech podcast - this article will cover everything you need to know to get your first podcast off the ground, and it's easier than you might think! As the amount of podcasts grows, so too do the tools and platforms you can use to create them. It can be a little overwhelming to compare all the different hosting and posting platforms but there are some great solutions that we want to recommend, and that we use on our own, Ironhack Podcast. Bear in mind that all recommendations in this guide will vary in price and account type, depending on your needs. Organize yourself First off, always remember that routine and schedule is an invaluable tool for any podcaster. This applies to the whole process - from booking and recording through to editing and publishing - the more structured you can make the process, the easier your life will be. We started with the reasonably chaotic approach of booking recording sessions with guests whenever they were available instead of a set schedule defined by us. This makes publishing regularly harder to maintain and leads to weekends and evenings spent editing or squeezing in last minute recordings. Once we set a regular time for recording and a set day for publishing, the whole operation began to run smoothly. We will explore in a little more detail later exactly how to break up your creation process into easy and manageable tasks from preparation to publishing. The basics - audience, content and naming Who is your podcast for and what is it about? Identifying your target audience will help you define the episode topics, the guests you might want to book and the way you structure your episodes. There is no right or wrong answer, maybe you want your podcast to be for your average tech enthusiast to enjoy on a run, or maybe you want to target c-level professionals with some in-depth industry knowledge. Talking about what you know may be an obvious and comfortable approach, if you are an expert in, or even just very passionate about a particular topic, then you can probably wax-lyrical for an hour a week with no problem. Alternatively, you may want to play the learner role in the podcast and have interesting and smart guests to help guide you through specific topics, in turn your listeners will learn about the topic and of course you get a little smarter every episode. Format is the next thing to consider, this may be a bridge you cross when editing, but think about how you want your episodes to be structured and how your audience may consume them. More serious and information dense topics will fit an interview style with little to no interruptions, whereas some more casual discussion based episodes could benefit from a few fun features, like a “tech news” section with a cool little jingle, for example... Do some research on podcasts you like, take some mental notes, see what strikes you and go with that. You can also adjust after a few episodes. When it comes to your name, try to keep it something original but easy to remember, SEO is king - Avoid having a “The” at the beginning. (We've learned that the hard way!) Setup and branding There is a list of minimum things every podcaster needs to be ready for recording and publishing: Recording equipment - Microphone, headphones and a laptop. Recording software or an account on a recording platform. An account on a hosting platform. Artwork/logo. An intro/outro jingle (if your podcast has one). Choosing your equipment There is a huge market of podcast and streamer mics to choose from, your budget will define this somewhat. We recommend the Blue Yeti line of microphones, easy to use, USB friendly and reasonably priced Headphones are again down to your personal preference and budget but we highly recommend using some over ear headphones to help block out any outside sounds when recording. We use the DT 240 pros. Your laptop will or desktop is a non negotiable, you need it for every other aspect of your podcast so we will assume you have one of some description already. Thankfully creating a podcast does not require a high end device, only a decent internet connection. Choosing a podcast hosting platform A podcast hosting platform will be your hub once you have created your content, they allow you to upload episodes, distribute and promote them. We use, and recommend, Buzzsprout for first timers, it is a holistic and easy to use platform that allows you to add copy and artwork to each episode and easily publish on multiple distribution platforms at once (Spotify, Apple music etc). You can also control your monetization and promotion from most of these sites. There are some great guides out there for which hosting platform might be best for you, but as a go to, all in one solution, we say check out Buzzsprout. We will look at exactly how this site fits into your creation process soon. Designing your branding You will need some channel artwork as well as a thumbnail for each episode. Some podcasts use a picture of the guest for each episode and others use their standard artwork, check out the Ironhack podcast episodes, we have used both over the years, so you can see for yourself how both look: Canva is a great resource for creating your artwork for free, especially for any banners or social media branding you want to do alongside your episode art. You can also use some great, free, logo generators (google “free logo generator”) to create a great logo with minimum effort. Just try to avoid having a 🎙️ in your artwork if you can, it's not that its bad, it's just that literally every podcast has it... While the artwork is an essential requirement for a well branded podcast, a jingle is optional. You may want to have a few seconds of music to book your episodes or to separate the intro from the content, but many great podcasts choose to forgo the inclusion on one. If you do choose to get a jingle you are better off paying a small amount for some audio you can own and use without fear of any copyright issues down the road. Recording setup Make sure you have a quiet space to record in, obviously we can't all have studios with sound proof walls, but avoid construction sites near an open window. Soft surfaces are your friend, anything that absorbs sound. We recommend Zencastr for actual recording, it will allow you to record with multiple guests and then instantly download all the mp3s after the recording is finished. You can then edit them however you like in your own editing suite, or if you prefer, you can download them pre-processed from Zencastr. Are you enjoying this article? Check out The Ironhack Podcast to get inspired and see how Dan and Tim bring you the best tech conversations in the biz! Producing your podcast As mentioned before, structure and routine is a great ally when producing a podcast episode, there are a few steps to do but after a few episodes you will get much more efficient. It's about breaking your process down into simple, manageable tasks: Book your guests. Prepare the episode. Record. Edit. Publish. Guests and booking Guest acquisition will vary from person to person, maybe you are lucky enough to have a network you can draw from or maybe you will use social media to ask guests you really want to have if they would be willing to come on and talk. Usually a few episodes are required to give a potential guest something as a frame of reference. Don't be afraid to do a pilot episode here to entice further guests, this can be just you (or you and your co-host) introducing future audience members to the podcast and what it will have in store. You can add all your artwork and jingle to this and it will work great as a supplement to your guest invite. We use our students, alumni and staff as guests to tell the story of Ironhack. Remember there are two types of interview - the first is about the guest, how they achieved a specific goal or built something inspiring. “Today’s guest is the mind behind this awesome piece of tech you all know, introducing...Person X” The second is about a topic, episodes in which you have a guest present to help you discuss a specific concept. “Today we are talking about the evolution on mobile phones, and do to that we have Person Y, a long time mobile phone designer” However you do your outreach, try to offer a set recording time for your guest to choose from, Wednesday at 7pm, for example. This will make it much easier for all involved when finding a time and it will help keep your content process regular. Preparation Once you have a guest, set up a short preparation meeting. This can be as short as 15 minutes, and the goal is to find out a little more about your guests to find some topics for the episode. We usually have a document open during the call and a general idea of what the topic of the episode will be. Have a conversation about topics of discussion or questions the guest might be best positions to answer and create a running order in your doc. The running order should always be a guide and not a script. Add a list of questions, usually with an intro section first, a body of questions about or around the main topic and maybe some additional talking points. When you record, have the document open and use it to guide the conversation. Don't just read the questions one by one, use them as touching points - this will give you a much more natural flow. You can also use this prep to answer any questions the guest has and make sure they are comfortable ahead of the recording slot. Make sure they have a good enough microphone and at least somewhere good to record. Recording Most recording platforms will allow you to use webcams while recording, and we recommend this. While you may only use the MP3 files for your final product, having the video recording makes the conversation feel a lot more natural for all involved. Get on your chosen platform 10 mins before the guest and make sure everything is running fine, you don't want to find a problem when it's time to go! Don't worry about mistakes or taking a few goes at the questions, you can always just edit it out later if you want. The goal in recording should always aim for a relaxed and fun experience. Tangents are usually the most interesting part. Editing If you choose to download your episodes premixed from your recording platform, you wont need to edit at all. If you do have access to come editing software we recommend keeping it light. Don’t over edit your podcast! New producers may spend hours and hours tweaking every last part of their episodes to make them perfect. Our tips are to remove any obvious mistakes or re-dos, delete the track for the person who isn't talking (to help remove any background noise from off mic participants) and maybe add some noise reduction if the mic quality needs it. Of course this is up to you but if your content is presentable and ‘good’, your audience usually won't mind about these minor details. Publish Once you are recorded and edited, you can upload the MP3 directly to your hosting platform of choice and then it's just about adding your copy and clicking publish! A lot of this work will be done in your account set up on your chosen platform, again we recommend Buzzsprout. Each time you upload and episode the artwork, and where it is distributed to will be preset, you just need to add the title and description. Research seems to vary, but the best time to publish is 00:00 on Thursday, therefore it will show up in the morning for those listening to podcasts and usually podcasts are listened to on the weekend. Of course this varies and doesnt move the needle too much in our experience. Go get started! You have some checklists to work through and it may seem like a lot at first, but once you settle into a routine and get to know your tools, you will be a pro in no time. All the tools we recommended are beginner friendly and with a little commitment you should have no trouble. Feeling inspired? Check out The Ironhack Podcast !

You’re reading an interview with Ben Legg, straight from The Ironhack Podcast. Every week our hosts, Tim and Dan, catch up with Ironhack alumni, teachers, and other tech professionals for industry deep dives and personal success stories. To listen to this episode (or to binge-listen to every single one, we wouldn’t judge you!) check us out on Spotify , or wherever you find your favorite podcasts. Ben Legg is a portfolio professional and the CEO of The Portfolio Collective , which you can read more about below. Ben, in his own words, helps people reinvent themselves and society for the better; to achieve this, he creates learning materials and gives career guidance and coaching to entrepreneurs and independent professionals, teaching them how to stand out from the crowd and build their own unique portfolio careers. He believes that community support is vital for single-person businesses, and is here to tell you all about it. The Portfolio Collective, a Community for Independent Professionals A: My name's Ben Legg, and I’m the CEO and co-founder of The Portfolio Collective, based in London. The Portfolio Collective was founded in early lockdown last year, and it's designed to help professionals anywhere in the world launch and sustain successful portfolio careers. A “portfolio career” basically means you make money in multiple ways, as opposed to having just one day job, and it's forecast that about half of all professionals in the world by 2030 will effectively have multiple income sources rather than just one day job, and, like so many forecasts, that’s being accelerated because of the lockdown. We realized that being a portfolio professional is quite hard and quite lonely, so we said, let's build a community that helps make it less hard and less lonely. Q: Nice. you said that you started it in lockdown, was it a lockdown idea or was it something that you were kind of cooking away on for a while? A: It kind of happened to me, as opposed to the other way around. I gave up my last full-time job nearly a year before lockdown and launched what I now call my portfolio career, which was primarily helping founders build great companies. I love building companies, products, communities... And so it was a mixture of angel investing, mentoring, board jobs consulting, and I also filled in the gaps in synergistic ways. And then, lockdown happened. And friends and family started contacting me, saying they were done with corporate life and asking about my career, so I just gave them a zoom link and said, let's chat, doing four or five of these chats a week saying: here's what I do and here's why I think it's kind of cool. But I like structure and having clear thoughts in my head, so I started doing research and writing articles and, when my calendar got crowded with people asking for help and telling their friends, I knew I needed to do this more efficiently. I started running a workshop every week talking about portfolio careers and thought leadership, but they asked questions I didn’t have the answer to about things like website platforms, taxes, branding, LinkedIn and networking, and so on. I realized I didn’t just need the answers; we needed community. It's really lonely being a portfolio professional. I was just seeing all these intertwined needs, so in June of 2020, I set aside some money, posted a job ad for a co-founder on WorkingStartups.com, and launched The Portfolio Collective. Portfolio Careers as the New Work Paradigm Q: And you said that you didn't coin the phrase “portfolio career” yourself, it existed before The Portfolio Collective. A: Yeah. A management author, Charles Handy, wrote about it in the eighties. He was primarily talking about ex CEOs who sit on boards and give speeches, but there's so many other kinds of careers that he wasn't referring to. Q: So, to break that down, a portfolio career means someone uses lots of different skills that they've maybe learned in their past career, transferable skills, to form income from multiple sources in a freelancing portfolio. A: And the range of skills can be massive. If you're a portfolio professional, you're a one person company and you want to have a unique personal brand that stands for something. Q: That sounds absolutely fantastic. As you know, at Ironhack, we teach four disciplines: Web Development, UX/UI, Cybersecurity, and Data Analytics. More than ever, they’re skills that can be full-time jobs, but they lend themselves so well to freelancing different projects for different clients. A: Our lovely community is already getting employers who come looking for talent, the vast majority of them coming from the startup ecosystem. As you're probably aware, startups and venture capital and investment have been mostly booming throughout lockdown, and startups are much more pragmatic than big old-fashioned corporations in terms of how they hire. They have limited resources and unpredictable growth; they can't afford a complete full-time management team, and their needs for talent might change, so they get maybe a part-time CFO and maybe an interim COO to teach them how to run the business. And for marketing, an expert to build the brand in three months. And they’ll manage it with more junior people after that. There's lots of temporary talent needs coming and going, which lends itself very well to portfolio professionals because that's the kind of work they want: they might have one client at a time on short projects or work with five clients at a time for a bit. Q: The statistics on the industry acceleration is crazy. Industries have been pushed forward by about seven years. Portfolio careers must be booming more than ever before. A: A McKinsey report that looked at digital adoption had this forecast that most industries, or most habits, were going to be brought forward between five and fifteen years. And the forecast that half of the workforce would become portfolio careers was moved from 2030 to 2027. Q: Do you find that the people you work with and the professionals in The Portfolio Collective have a digital focus or is it spread across a wider range of different industries? A: Most of our members are digitally savvy and confident about it, but they don't necessarily sell digital skills. Portfolio pressure comes in all shapes and sizes. Our community tends to be mid-career, mostly 30 to 55, and they come from all backgrounds and professions. They feel confident they can add value to the startup ecosystem. Q: It's interesting that the age range is concentrated around the thirties bracket. When I did my Ironhack bootcamp course, I thought I’d be the dinosaur, but the average age for my course was actually 32, my age exactly. It must be a reflective period where you look back and decide you want to do something different. A: I would definitely agree. When you’ve had a decade of work and time to reflect, tried some stuff, you've worked out a bit of what you like and don't like, and you maybe have a big name employer on your CV as well, which helps with your employability, you take time and say: I've still got many decades to work, I better future-proof myself, and I'm not sure a corporate career does that. Or maybe it just doesn't satisfy me. I want to do more for people in their twenties because about 60-70% of them will end up with portfolio careers, and things like graduate trainee schemes are shrinking so fast. I think traditional education doesn't prepare you well for a portfolio career. People want to get at least one big name employer under their belt because that will help define them, give them a seal of approval, let's say. We need to show people in their twenties other forms of validation they can use: awards, referrals from happy customers, TED talks or articles they wrote… There are other ways to get a seal of approval. Transferable Skills Are Crucial in the New Educational Paradigm Q: I think there’s a certain lack of understanding around transferable skills. So very poignant of what we've been talking about. A very good friend of mine who’s had quite a successful salesman career in the automotive industry wants to move into tech now, and he'd be perfect for customer success or even recruitment, because he has really good people skills that he's been building for years, but it's a whole different industry. So how do you express this transfer to an industry where you don’t have direct experience? It’s a hard barrier. A: It is. When people come to us and say they want a portfolio career starting from scratch, the first thing we do and where we spend the most time is asking: who are you? It's a lot of reflection. What are your monetizable skills? And a lot of them say they’re generalists, a Swiss army knife; but after they go through a structured process, most people end up with a list of 30-50 skills they could monetize. But another important question to ask is what skills you want to develop that you could monetize, because these days, for most skills, you can learn them way faster and more efficiently than you could in the past when you had to spend a fortune on an MBA. We are running a sales pipeline as a sales pipeline. You work out what you’re selling exactly, you work out your prospects, you get efficient at communicating them and sorting and filtering, and you work out how to land the clients. A lot of the skills involved are very transferable. Q: Are there training courses of these skills taught in The Portfolio Collective? A: Yes, we have some training courses and one big training course called Catapult, for those who want to launch a portfolio career. Pretty much a bootcamp. You learn to work out your monetizable skills, value proposition and personal brand; to polish your LinkedIn and online presence; and to get out and start marketing, selling, listening, landing a client… You get the core skill set from us (we refer to ourselves as a lifetime accelerator!) and keep updating yourself, with support and guidance from the community. Q: The fact that you can learn this quickly certainly resonates with the Ironhack mentality, too. Do this in eight weeks, get the basics, and go from there and keep learning on your own. A: Life's the journey and you gotta keep learning forever, on every project and job, do short courses every year and such. Going to university once or twice and doing all your learning there just doesn’t cut it anymore. We don't aim for perfection. We aim for momentum. And afterwards, as long as you're good at listening, you'll definitely find other ways to add value. There was a famous German field Al who said something like “No plans survive contact with the enemy”. You can make the best plans, but you’ll have to adapt and change. Q: It's really about how you present yourself to the world. How do you think one can stand out from the crowd? A: A little bit of a twist, like a top-up skill: a certain focus, industry or function where you have credibility and passion and that stands out and is unexpected. Find a niche. And there are other ways to stand out too, for example with the way you respond. Q: How do portfolio professionals get work? How do you flavor yourself out there, what's the best strategy here? A: If you’re in the early stages, you work through your network and let people know what you do. It’s often not well paid, but get people to refer you and get samples of your work to show. Focus on the network before you leverage the network. If you wanna get paid fast, you can also use a freelancer platform like Upwork or more role-specific platforms; in these, a couple well thought through and tailored applications for freelancer jobs will get you further than sending a hundred generic cover letters. Q: The hardcore grinding can be really mentally damaging, whereas having a healthy routine and constantly, slowly building your portfolio and your name and skills will definitely get you further. A: And there are other ways to win work. One bit of work I won literally came from an article I wrote on the future of careers. A contact in Poland read it and asked me to give a paid speech to his company board about it, because their value proposition to young employees wasn’t very attractive. The right people need to know what you are knowledgeable and passionate about at the right time. Q: Initiatives that share this insider information, like The Portfolio Collective, are great because they come about very organically and they’re basically people getting together and helping each other. The symbiosis between a collective like this and the work we do at Ironhack goes without saying. We have a book recommendation related to business survival and adaptation in the face of change: Tarzan Economics, by Will Page. People have to be patient when they build their careers, and use the momentum when they leap into the unknown, and this book touches on that. If you want to know more about Ben’s career mentoring and thought leadership, you can listen to the full Ironhack Podcast episode here . Whether you’re aiming for a fabulous developer position in a word-class company, or you dream of starting your own Tech business, Ironhack bootcamps teach you the transferable skills that you need: grab our syllabus and start your career in Tech!

The Ironhack community includes everyone who enrolls in our bootcamps, as well as everyone who has already graduated from them– our Ironhack alumni! It also includes our awesome teachers and TAs (because what’s a school without teachers?), our on-campus staff and, of course, Team Ironhack! (Like the people writing this article… hi there!) Ironhackers are people who have decided to take the leap and start the tech career of their dreams. We are inherently diverse. Ironhackers are often tech newbies and career changers, which is a very open definition; our community includes people from all walks of life, demographics, and lines of work. We have Ironhack campuses in 10 countries, and that’s not counting our remote students and campuses! However, we all share a set of values and traits that make us true-blue Ironhackers. Our sense of community defines us: we collaborate and support each other, and organize many networking opportunities and Ironhacker events to meet and come together, like the Ironbeers events. As you can see in this video, with 10 years of Ironhacking and over 10,000 graduates, we’ve become a large tech family! What Makes An Ironhacker So, do you have what it takes to become an Ironhacker? Read on to find out about our core values that define exactly who our Ironhackers are. A love of learning Working in tech requires constant learning. There’s a myriad of coding languages, programs, and technological advances out there, and their number grows every day. A relentless thirst for knowledge is, therefore, a must to face the daunting world of tech and thrive! At Ironhack, everyone shares this enthusiasm: we pick up new skills, we learn from each other, and we share what we’ve found to be valuable in our social media channels, live webinars, and more. Just take a look at our podcast, where Ironhack alumni and industry experts tell us about the unique tech careers they’ve built and how they did it. Or check out some of our blog posts, where we talk about stuff like digital nomads in tech or ethical hacking ! The spirit of adventure If as a kid you fantasized about exploring jungles, oceans, or even other planets, the tech world might be the place for you! It takes guts, nerves of steel (or rather, iron!), and, especially, a love for change and uncertainty to work in tech, where trends and technologies change in the blink of an eye. Ironhackers know that flexibility is key to improve, and are ready to jump into adventure. Some of our alumni even cross borders to change their lives! Ironhackers aren’t afraid to embrace change, going as far as moving to a different country or turning their careers around to follow their passion, like Amr did when he left Syria for Germany and used his background as a fine artist to become a UX/UI designer . Respect and empathy Ironhack is for everyone: we love people and their stories! Diversity makes us stronger, and that isn’t just a catchy phrase: it fuels innovation, bringing in new voices and a variety of perspectives that spark new ideas and out-of-the-box thinking. Research has proven that the more diverse the team, the more fruitful and original the results of collaboration will be. But being open to diversity also changes the way we think and behave. If we consciously make an effort to listen to others and put ourselves in their shoes, no matter how different their viewpoints, what we put into the world will be more inclusive of differences and constructive, too. We’ve all seen the studies on how face recognition AIs can share the unconscious racist stereotypes of their creators. Our biases and prejudice reflect in the technology we create; but our actions to respect and include those that are different from us will have a profound effect, too. Ambition Everyone who comes to Ironhack comes because they have a goal. Whether you want to take the plunge into tech for the first time, level up your current skill stack, or completely transform your life, Ironhackers are all in! We're driven and ambitious, and we can adapt to any environment in order to reach our goals; we’re committed to long hours of learning (bootcamps are intense!), and we don’t wait to start our own projects. In Ironhack, we’re always hearing about the latest ideas our students and alumni have come up with. We’re just that excited about tech! Do You Have What It Takes To Be An Ironhacker? The Ironhacker life is challenging, but incredibly rewarding. As we said at the beginning of this post, we aren’t just any tech school: we value our community more than anything, and we care for our own. No one is an island, especially in the world of tech. When you become an Ironhacker, you get a family for life. The friends you make along the way, as you acquire tech skills and become job-ready, will accompany you after you finish the bootcamp. We keep in touch; we constantly hear stories about alumni who met on campus and started projects, startups and other ventures together! But with Ironhack, you also get much more than a top-tier education and a diploma: we are outcomes-focused, which means we want you to get that tech career you’ve been dreaming of! We give our students personalized career support and access to our list of hiring partners so you can start your tech career with a bang and an unshakeable confidence in your career prospects. With Ironhack, you’ll join a global community of learners and tech lovers. Download our syllabus and start your journey into tech!

You’re reading an interview with Sarah Doody, straight from The Ironhack Podcast. Every week our hosts, Tim and Dan, catch up with Ironhack alumni, teachers, and other tech professionals for industry deep dives and personal success stories. To listen to this episode (or to binge-listen to every single one, we wouldn’t judge you!) check us out on Spotify , or wherever you find your favorite podcasts. Sarah Doody is a UX Researcher and Experience Designer who runs the Career Strategy Lab , which is a six-month career accelerator program that focuses on career coaching and helping people perfect their portfolio and resume. In this episode, she tells us about how she pivoted to UX career consultancy, the role neuroscience and psychology play in our professional lives, and her expert advice on networking wisely in professional communities. Unleashing UX Superpowers A: For the past ten years I've been running my own User Experience consultancy, where I mainly focused on research and Experience Design, which includes thinking through the user or customer journey, product strategy, and the whole experience. I don't do visual design nor coding. In 2017 I fell into the world of UX career coaching, for lack of better words; it started with portfolios and now it's evolved into an end-to-end career coaching service that helps people with everything related to getting that next role. Q: And about the initial steps with portfolios, was that for people that didn't have any portfolio to speak of, any experience of making portfolios, or for people who just couldn't convert their career into a good portfolio? A: So it all started when in 2017, I received a lot of emails asking things like, how do I make a portfolio? How do I create case studies? How do I show my work in an interview? My solution was a one hour Lunch and Learn workshop, and within 24 or 48 hours, 85 people had signed up. I taught that workshop, people got hired, and they asked for a longer format with expert feedback. It is intended for people who have some experience and need that portfolio. So if you are starting out in your educational journey with UX, it might be a little premature for you, but career switchers probably have experience that could be framed as things that we do in UX. You could change the perspective on research projects you did and turn it into a project for your portfolio. Q: I think it speaks to a lot of our listeners who are either at the beginning of a bootcamp or just finished one, and a lot of them are career switchers; a big part of the Ironhack audience are career switchers by definition. We’ve talked before about applicable skills that can be reframed, which is a big skill in itself. A: Yeah, it’s a UX superpower: connecting the dots between things, and starting with yourself by connecting the dots from your previous experience. Learn to “Unspiral” and Find Your Creative Flow Q: So speaking of career switching, you wanted to be a neuroscientist, correct? How did that go? A: I'm not sure what this will say about me, but I didn't really know what to do with myself when I was in high school. I was always very creative and really good at writing and science, balancing the right and left brain. I wanted a stable job, and neuroscience seemed tolerable. I got accepted to a really great program in Ottawa, and then, long story short, I ended up taking a year off and I didn't pursue it. But what interested me was the mind-body connection and the psychology and physiological side of things. That didn’t play out, but I think there are topics and strengths in UX design that are very adjacent to what I would've been doing with neuroscience. Q: That's very interesting. We talk a lot about the concept of imposter syndrome, and coders and UX/UI students feel that, especially when they're switching careers. So it's always great when someone who switched shows that there are many parallel or reusable skills, which you do at the Career Strategy Lab. A: Yes. I'm such an analytical and “get things done” person, and when I created this program, I included extremely detailed instructions on how to make your resume, but I didn't focus on all the underlying issues that come up during this process, like how to deal with imposter syndrome and confidence, which continues our discussion on neuroscience. In a Brené Brown interview they were talking about the power of the stories that our brains make up. She said that, when things happen, our brain needs to know the outcome, or we might spiral and make things up, to avoid being in the messy middle of not knowing. Our brains don't know the difference between fact and fiction, so if you can change that story from negative to positive, you’re tricking yourself into shifting to the positive. It's easier said than done, but I think it's something to keep in mind. Q: You’re absolutely right. I just finished reading a book on that topic, by a neuroscientist who talks about the ideas of the currency of attention, and how your brain is trying to redirect your focus and trick you, pushing you towards either side. Once you become aware, you can reassess and try to be more objective and more positive. The same idea is repackaged in many different books and sometimes it sounds condescending to tell someone to be positive, but reprogramming your thinking really is hard work. A: It's funny you mention this because at the beginning of 2020 I was writing a book, maybe I still am. I thought that many people might benefit from a key skill set of UX, which is context finding, context setting, and communicating context to other people. These could be used to get out of the messy, catastrophizing spiraling; I was going to call it Unspiral. The three steps to how you unspiral, or stop catastrophizing, are its three P’s: to Pause, to Ponder, and to Proceed. I think our brains need to process those thoughts and filter out what is real and what isn’t. On the Pause step, you recognize that you're careening down the catastrophe highway. The Ponder step was where UX came in: step back and ask yourself, are these thoughts or things that are happening? Are they real things? Are they assumptions? Filtering fact from fiction is an interpersonal challenge we all have. Then, you Proceed with a new lens that is rooted in reality and not assumptions. When the fire department came to my school and taught us about fires, we learned Stop, Drop and Roll. It's really easy to remember, which is why I applied that structure to the three P’s. Q: After structure, the power of habit is important to build these positive thoughts. If you’re in a flow you’re also in a positive mindset. A: Charles Limb explained in his TED talk that when you’re in a state of creative flow, the volume of negative self-talk decreases. So spend less time comparing, and just dive in and work on your resume, your portfolio, code that project. You’ll feel better, you’ll learn and you’ll get results. There's a discussion to be had about mental health in this industry, for sure. The tech industry is obsessed with keeping up with the trends and new software, and that creates a lot of stress for people starting a tech career or switching to it, making them feel unqualified. In the Career Strategy Lab we want you to treat your career like a product.The first thing we do for people is a career roadmap, a miniature User Research project on themselves: they look back on their career and evaluate it. When was I really fulfilled? Where did I feel like I was using my strengths? I did not anticipate that this exercise would be considered the best part of this program. You gain a ton of confidence because half of it is just remembering successes and achievements, and asking other people about yourself, which gives you unexpected insight on strengths you dismissed or were oblivious to. I encourage people to think three years ahead to plan the skills they need to learn or acquire now to prepare them for the role they want, but the timeline is different for everyone. Q: It’s been a blur since I finished my bootcamp: two years! You focus and work and when you look back you’ve learned much more than you thought you would. It might be the effect of the pandemic on our perception of time. Have you noticed changes in job dynamics during the pandemic? A: A lot more people are switching jobs, particularly with companies that didn’t transition well to remote work. People reconsidered their values and priorities, like travel, family and work-life balance. But hiring hasn’t slowed down. Some people are nervous about how the interview process has gone remote, making it a challenge to read the room. My advice is to build some rapport in the first three minutes and find an icebreaker to have a human moment, so it doesn’t feel like a conveyor-belt robotic experience. Q: If I spend a small amount of time finding something outside of their job title and the interview topic, the conversation is much easier. It’s the substitute for the elevator chat that you don’t get with a video call. You're a big advocate of online communities and networking. Do you think that in-person networking still has a place? A: Getting to know people on a human level is easier in person. And it can be achieved online, it just has to be more intentional and needs a little bit more effort, but I don't think it's going away. Online Communities and Social Media: Are You Doing Too Much? Q: Are there any online communities that you recommend to your students? A: I think you have to be really intentional about which communities you join, why you are joining them and how much time you spend in them. Does it actually contribute to your goal or your life? On that note, Jared Spool has a great community called the Leaders of Awesomeness. Interaction Design Association is another UX association that does events and initiatives. Another one I'm a huge fan of is Tech Ladies. They do a great job of vetting companies for their job board, which is important these days, because there are so many not so great job descriptions or companies that know they need UX, but they don't really know what that actually means. On this topic, there's a trend of being more extroverted and vocal in tech communities. But tech often attracts more introverted people. Do you think that it's more difficult for those people to get ahead? A: I think it's an even playing field. I consider myself an introvert, maybe an ambivert, but I come across as an extrovert because I'm good at talking, which I've practiced. I think it's more about confidence and not about how vocal you are or how much you sell yourself. Some UX education programs encourage people to document their learning journey, but sometimes that results in people writing articles just to tick a box. And it’s important to have a presence on social media where you can be discovered and even hired. And that's possible, I've definitely had people reach out to me because they found me online, but if you're doing it as a job search strategy, your time is better spent working on your resume and portfolio, or your LinkedIn. Use your time to proactively hunt down the roles that are right for you and make authentic connections with people at those companies. I use social media as a very strategic marketing decision. If you’re starting your career, you are a tiny, tiny goldfish in a massive, massive ocean. Social media shouldn't be your only strategy; you should approach it with a researcher mindset, diversify, and see which activities garner results. And then put more effort into those. Treat yourself like a product! Q: So what's next for you and the Career Strategy Lab, Sarah? Great question. I just hired two career coaches to work with me and free me up to focus on the next chapter of Career Strategy Lab, which is how to make a dent in the world of UX hiring. Because there's two problems. There's the candidate side and the company side of hiring and Career Strategy Lab is helping the candidates become more competitive and focused. Now, I want to focus on the companies and fix problems such as job descriptions and hiring processes, so that I can play matchmaker with companies that have higher UX maturity and aren’t a dead end for our candidates. If I can close the loop, it'll make a powerful difference in the industry. If you want to know more about Sarah’s UX work and Career Strategy Lab, you can listen to the full Ironhack Podcast episode here . Still curious about User Experience Design? Take a look at our UX/UI bootcamp , or check out this post with our recommendations on books about UX/UI Design!

You're reading a guest blog by Andrea Saez, Senior Product Marketing Manager at Trint. If you have tech industry know-how and would like to contribute to The Ironhack Blog, get in touch with [email protected]. Welcome reader, You’ve probably heard of the role of a product manager and will likely be working with one some day. Who knows, you might even become one! In order to work effectively with others, it’s important to have at least a high level understanding of what they do, what’s their focus, and how you can support each other in your organization. Let’s dive in. Product Management - A Brief Introduction Product management is a discipline that is often misunderstood. Confused with “project management” (a major trigger word, please never call your PM that!) product managers sit between multiple teams and help steer the direction of the product. Image credit: Saeed Khan At their very core, product managers will focus on: Creating a strategy and future direction for the product Creating and sharing a product roadmap Help decide what problems you’re solving as a team, and how those translate into features and solutions that add value for a customer Prioritize and set guard rails for the engineering team around what to do (and what not to do!) Think of the product manager as your valiant protector. Instead of your engineering team being flooded with requests, feedback, and sometimes even mandates for things to do, the product manager will be there to sort through the noise and help decide what you can work on next. Product management - A slightly more complicated introduction Ok, so the above was actually a little bit simplistic in nature. Product managers do a lot more than what I just said. Because it is a misunderstood role, PMs tend to do a lot more than what sits outside of their remit - at times even doing things like project manage for the team. Yes yes, I just contradicted myself. While it isn’t something they should be doing, it is often something they might be doing. In addition, product managers are also often described as the team psychologist. They will inevitably be managing relationships, help diffuse arguments, and run a lot (a lot) of negotiations across multiple teams. Product managers are there to help make sure that the entire organization is aligned around what to do, where the product is heading, and ensure the product is constantly bringing value to your customers. A Day In The Life Of A Product Manager I’m not going to give you an hour-by-hour breakdown, because every day might be different. At a high level though, product managers generally focus on three key areas: Communication and alignment Documentation Learning Let’s explore these a bit further. Communication and alignment In order to be a product manager, one must have excellent communication skills - including written, oral, and storytelling abilities. These three skills coupled with empathy is what truly makes a product manager great. A PM is there to make sure that not only are they able to communicate decisions to the rest of the organisation, but also align everyone as to why those decisions have been made. These may be through meetings, presentations, and Q&A’s. Product managers will also be talking to your customers and teams a lot. I mean, a lot. At the end of the day, a product isn’t built for a single user, so it’s imperative that customer feedback is always being looked at. If you’re curious about what your customers are saying, your PM can easily get you involved in the process, allowing you to also be that close to what your customers’ needs are. Documentation This is not to be taken lightly: Write 👏 it 👏 all 👏 down! Whether you sit with the product team or not, documentation is key. Product managers have a lot to sort through and analyze, and being able to track things down back to the source can help clarify decision-making. This can come in the form of nurturing the backlog, writing specs, or putting together problem-statements to record potential future solutions. All product managers generally kick off their documentation by answering three key questions: What problem are we trying to solve? Why? How will we measure success? These apparently simple yet powerful questions can help enable, focus, and guide conversations - so don’t be surprised when they come up! It helps draw the line between jumping off to a solution, and understanding that there’s a hypothesis you can start testing with. Learning And speaking of hypotheses… experimentation is how your product managers (should) approach everything. A product team that is solely building features upon request is not a product team. A product team will challenge, test, verify and repeat the process until they have enough evidence to proceed or dismiss an action. Not only is this helping the business avoid the risk of failure by preventing potential debt (whether that be UX, tech, or otherwise) - but it can enable your team to be more innovative. Setting Up a Product Team A product manager never works alone. Product management is and always will be a team sport. Because of this, it is important to clarify that product managers sit within the product team - not within the “product management team.” In other words, a product manager is a role that exists within the larger product organization. There isn’t a strict way of setting up your product team, and it will most certainly vary based on the size, growth, and maturity of the company itself. That said, you will generally find the following team members: Product manager Sets the product’s strategy, direction, and outlines the product roadmap. Works to understand what, why, and for whom you’re building things for. Product marketing manager PMM’s are the PM’s strategic and communication partner. They help align the business around decisions, and focus on positioning, messaging, and lead with go-to-market initiatives. UX Researcher UX Researchers will help uncover how to best solve problems by looking at user behavior, data, and interviews. They help the product team come up with the right evidence to move forward. Product designer Product designers help bring research to life. It’s important to clarify that there is a difference between product, UX, and brand design. While some designers can have a wide remit, particularly in smaller companies, these specializations will differentiate as your team grows. There are also other team members that may sit within the product team, again, depending entirely on how the product organization is made up. Product Owner (scrum) If you’re part of a scrum team , the product owner role will be present. While the product manager focuses on the higher level strategic decisions, the product owner will look at other responsibilities, such as managing the feedback backlog, writing user stories, and making sure items are being passed on to the development team. When there is an absence of a PO, it will either be a product manager or an APM that may take some of these responsibilities onboard. Data analyst The data analyst will take a look at data and help communicate conclusions to the team. The insights that data analysts bring to an organization can help understand users better, and help the product management team create more meaningful experiences. Product Ops Product ops make sure that the team is working efficiently, set methodical workflows into place, and help develop business processes aligned across the whole of the organization. Engineer Engineers don’t traditionally sit within the product team, but this practice is becoming more and more common. Having members with a highly technical capacity can help unblock ideas and help bring fresh new perspectives to the team. With all of this said, it’s also really important to know that it is not a product manager’s job to come up with solutions, but it is their job to lean on the people around them to find out what the best solution might be. They will lean on design, engineers, product marketing as well as the extended business-facing teams. The best ideas are solved as a group, not as a solo act. Good PM vs Bad PM Personally, I don’t like to think there’s such a thing as “good PM” or “bad PM” - because the real difference here is experience. As with anything in life, we grow and evolve based on what we learn. Product management is pretty much the same. A PM is only as good as the lessons they learn, but also as good as the support they are given to learn those lessons. If there’s one thing I’d like you to take away from this article today, it’s that product management is about asking lots of questions and trying to learn as much as possible before making a decision. We can’t make good decisions based on the unknown - that would be risky! But your team will be able to mitigate some of those risks by running research and gathering evidence. When working with a product manager, know that their number one priority is to create value. In order to create value, they must be open to learning - and learning sometimes includes finding out you might be wrong. When this happens, make sure to celebrate your product team. They've probably just saved you a huge headache and made sure you don’t accidentally spend time on the wrong thing! About the Author Hi there 👋 Thanks for reading! My name is Andrea, and I’m Senior PMM at Trint. I have a background in product management, and have spent the last 8 years training product teams and building product tools. I love product management because it opens you up to asking lots of questions. I can be inquisitive, while calming my inner scientist and ask “why” 100 times if I must until I uncover as many truths as possible. I pivoted into product marketing a couple of years ago. As I like to say, I’m a product manager who happens to like to talk a lot - so it works!

You’re reading an interview with Kara Payne, straight from The Ironhack Podcast. Every week our hosts, Tim and Dan, catch up with Ironhack alumni, teachers, and other tech professionals for industry deep dives and personal success stories. To listen to this episode (or to binge-listen to every single one, we wouldn’t judge you!) check us out on Spotify , or wherever you find your favorite podcasts. Kara Payne joins us once again to tell us about her career in Tech after participating in an Ironhack bootcamp in late 2020. In this episode, she tells us about her experiences as Engineering Manager at Wikimedia Deutschland, giving a clear account of her transition from developer to Engineering Manager, her thoughts on different ways of learning about coding, and the important open-source mission the Wikimedia Foundation carries out. Early Career: Wikimedia Engineering Manager Q: So are you working as a dev on Wikimedia Deutschland? A: I am their Engineering Manager, which is one of these new fancy titles that have come out in what like the last three years. I feel like Engineering Manager is one of those titles that changes depending on where you're at, in the same way Product/Project Manager doesn't mean the same thing at every single company. But for me, the origins of the Engineering Manager role come from the fact that you have a Product Manager that takes care of the product, a Scrum Master or Project Manager that takes care of the execution of the project, and then the Technical Lead, taking care of the technical development. And then you have the developers that just don't actually have any kind of support in terms of professional or personal growth. So the Engineering Manager is a position that appears to kind of tie all of these roles together with a focus on taking care of the team and making sure that they are supplied and unblocked in every possible way. Q: There's been this emergence of middle roles, connecting roles similar to Product Management, which has always been this in-between, facilitating role of connecting teams. A: On the day to day, I'm working directly with a Product Manager with a view our current project or focus and taking that and checking in with the team to make sure that they have all of the things that they need, from making sure their laptop is currently up to date, to facilitating the interaction with the Product Manager if they currently don't understand the direction the product is going in. So basically unblocking the team, but more with the focus on the engineers themselves and their professional development. Q: Very supportive. Is it very common for dev teams to have that kind of support? A: This is a position that is going to gain more and more traction, because it really is a function that doesn't exist with the other titles. Before I was working as an engineering manager, I was working as the head of operational delivery at a company, where I was taking care of the operational delivery of all the servers, but also focusing a lot on making sure that the people were prepared and that they knew what was coming up, that they had the information and that they were as organized or had everything that they could need in order to meet our goals.* Q: So for your role now, is it very people-focused or is there like a technical element skill set that you use day to day? A: The majority of what I'm doing is people focused, but if I didn't have the technical background, I would not be able to be an effective people leader for them. Q: Shout out to Ironhack for giving you your technical background! When exactly did you graduate from the bootcamp? A: I graduated in December 2020. So a year and a half ago now. It was interrupted by the second lockdown. I think we had two weeks in the classroom and then straight back to home study, which has been fantastic preparation for remote working. Q: Are you going to the office at all? Are you fully remote or hybrid? A: Right now we are remote first, but this is slowly changing. There’s still quite some rules in place, like wearing masks or limits on the number of people in a room. I can say that Wikimedia Deutschland is the most people-forward organization that I've worked for. They really put an emphasis on making sure that the environment is good, that people are developed and supported and that they don't put unneeded stress onto people. Q: Are there any other examples of your role within other teams? Do you have sister roles like in the design team or people who are looking after them in the same technical way, or are you focused on other skill based work within the company as well? A: I care for everybody that is in the software department at the very least, which is the largest, and their team leads are the Engineering Managers, and this is a little bit different as everybody else has sort of like the standard lead. This is sort of a unique position. Being responsible for only people and not a product is an interesting situation to be in. If I'm a team lead, I also have some sort of product responsibility, and because I am used to affecting the product in a very strong way, now I need to take a step back, so it's an interesting dynamic. Q: So is there any kind of conflict between the Product Leads? A: I would say most of the conflict actually happens between the Engineering Managers and people like the Tech Leads. So this is an interesting dynamic as well, because the Engineering Managers are definitely people that have a technical background. They understand tech, they often are previous developers themselves, but at some point, when you switch away from being a developer to being in a manager position, you have diminishing skills. There is a choice in everyone's career, if they're a software developer to either stick and become a senior and stay on the technical development side, or move into a management role of some sort, and the minute you do, your knowledge becomes outdated. But I have noticed, and I've talked to other engineering managers, that there is a tension between being an engineering manager and wanting to implement something in a certain way, but then also supporting the team and letting them make their own decision and being okay with them choosing a solution which is not the one that you chose. The transition from being a driving force to a supporting force can be really, really hard, and that creates tensions. Life at Ironhack: Benefits of Bootcamps vs Self-Teaching Q: Do you work with a lot of people who also graduated from bootcamps, or are they self-taught developers or people who went to technical university? A: My staff engineer is completely self-taught. He's one of those people that basically just logged into YouTube one day I taught himself and then continued on from there. And he's fantastic. He's probably one of the best developers I've ever worked with. Q: That must be so hard. A: Yeah. I can also say for myself that I don't do well with self-teaching, so Ironhack was actually much better. It gave me that solid technical base so that when I learn new things it no longer feels like I'm teaching myself, it's more that I'm exploring a hobby, and that's really useful. For the other people in my team, most of them come from a more traditional background where they studied computer science in school. I think I have two that did a short course, like two year programs as opposed to a bootcamp; they retrained themselves and rejoined as software developers. At Wikimedia, we do try to make sure that we are hiring all sorts of people. My boss, the Head of Engineering, is a woman. I've never had a technical lead that was a woman, so that's quite nice. And then out of the nine team leads that we have, three of them are men, which is also unusual. Q: Nice. When you say unique compared to your previous experience, you mean your previous job, or just generally in tech? A: At my previous job, I was one of three women in the IT department and I was one of three women at the management level. I should also add I was working in the video game industry, which is particularly bad for the gender dynamics situation. Working on Wikimedia: Recording History Q: But on that topic, actually, when we were talking about this kind of gender bias and other biases in Wikidata, you mentioned the term “notable” and what is defined as notable. Maybe you could dive into it a little bit. A: Wikipedia is completely maintained by volunteers and the community itself, same with Wikidata, and we who work on the software behind it are enabling these people to do their job better. We give them spam filters, and we just made a mismatch finder, which finds inconsistencies. We do not affect the content of Wiki data or Wikipedia at all. There are communities that have been around for a long time and have their own rules and regulations, including very strict things about what it means to be a notable person. I think you have to have two publications reference you, like a newspaper. Q: To become a person of note. That's an interesting metric I didn't know existed. A: There's a whole set of requirements for what it means to be notable and you need to make the requirements and prove this when you make the list, and when new pages are created in Wikipedia, they go through a review process. But, for quite a long time, the rules were more strongly applied when a page about a woman was being created, so you would have people that would meet the base requirements yet not considered notable enough to be on Wikipedia. A statistically significant number of pages for women or about women were being taken offline. At the Wikimedia Foundation we’re trying to figure out ways that we can encourage the community to fix this, but you have to consider that Wikipedia is a repository of knowledge that is being curated by the world. But how we curate knowledge around the world is also very different. So in the western world we have this tradition of academics in university and we write things down and we have publications, but other places rely on things like oral tradition. These ways of recording history can have legitimacy conflicts with each other. Q: So the concept of who's writing the history is important. But Wikipedia does have a mission statement that values history based on the culture in question, right? A: The Wikimedia foundation's tagline is “Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge”. It’s very important to us to make sure that people can access knowledge without having to pay for it, but also that the knowledge is free from bias and free from knowledge gaps. Q: And that's a very modern concept, isn't it? Because usually history is written in a very skewed way. “History is written by victors”. We use the sources of information we get now and put them in Wikipedia, and once it’s peer reviewed and remains there, it becomes our arguable source of truth. So the weight of responsibility for an organization like that is profound. A: It definitely is. And Wikimedia Foundation and Wikimedia Deutschland are two separate organizations and we interact all the time. At the Wikimedia Foundation they have an entire department devoted to how to handle news in conflict areas, which they have to handle constantly. I mean, it is a repository of all the knowledge around the world. In the interest of free knowledge, because not only is it accessible to everybody, but it also aims to be without biases and gaps, we do everything open source. All of Wikipedia, Wikidata and their associated projects are open source. So if you're looking to help and don’t want to just edit Wikipedia, you can go and check out our GitHub, or Gerrit, which is an open source version of GitHub. You can check out our ticketing history, which is on Phabricator, an open source version of Jira, essentially. It's all open source and open knowledge. If you want to know more about Kara’s journey into tech, you can listen to the full Ironhack Podcast episode here . Thinking of following in her footsteps? Take a look at our Web Development bootcamp . Not sure if a full bootcamp is right for you? Test your skills and see if you’ve got what it takes to be a developer with our free JavaScript short course !

You’re reading an exclusive preview of our latest whitepaper: Life After The Great Resignation: The UK Guide on How to Retrain in Tech . Millions of workers around the world are re-evaluating their job and how it fits into their lifestyle – and you might be one of them. According to one survey , a third of UK workers are considering a career change in 2022. Are you one of them? Where do you want to work? What do you want to do? How can you achieve that elusive work-life balance? Do your career hopes look completely different to the way they did two years ago? It's time to make the most of new opportunities. With a growing number of job vacancies and digital skills in high demand, retraining with Ironhack is a great way to maximise them. Ironhack bootcamps aren’t just about coding: think about Web Development, UX and UI Design, as well as Data Analytics and even Cybersecurity – which is a job with 0% unemployment because there’s so much demand. You’ll be building connections and working on live projects from day one, learning vital skills that will boost your chances of walking into a higher-paid job. A Great Time To Build a New Career Job vacancies are at an all-time high and digital skills such as web development, UX/UI and data analytics are in big demand. The Great Resignation is happening - maybe you’re one of the millions of people who are looking for more from their job. More work/life balance. More remote working. More autonomy. More of the lifestyle you want. And more opportunities. In the UK, ONS figures show the number of job vacancies outnumbers the number of unemployed people for the first time on record. With so many vacancies in tech jobs, particularly web development, cyber security, data analytics and UX/UI roles, the time to retrain is now. But if you’re staying in the same job, it’s vital that you expand your capabilities. Digital skills are no longer optional. Are you ready for the next five years of your career? Should You Pursue a Career in Tech? Think about the last job you had. Now think about your transferable skills. From problem solving and the ability to think creatively, to time management and leadership, you already have skills that you can use in a technical role. All you need is the training to complement those skills. The tech industry has always been open to remote work - and the more tech-driven the world becomes, the more companies need software engineers, developers, product managers and UX designers. What do all these jobs have in common? They all require the skills you’ll learn on an Ironhack course. Change The Way You Think About Tech Education Learn in-demand tech skills without spending three years at university. Tech vacancies are booming, but could you walk into a job and hit the ground running with a degree? Current tuition fees for a degree course in England are up to £9,250 a year, so by the time you’ve graduated you’ll have racked up debts of nearly £30,000 - and that’s before you factor in the cost of accommodation, bills and food, which is at an all-time high. And without the hands-on experience you need, you’d still have to start at the bottom after graduating. Of course, you could teach yourself many skills and take a few short courses if you have the discipline. But if you don’t want to wait three years to kick-start your career - and you’re eager to learn valuable practical skills from day one, bootcamps are for you. The moment you start studying with Ironhack, you’ll be working on practical projects that boost your skills, teamwork and confidence. Ironhack courses are widely recognised by companies with vacancies in the tech field. Once you finish your intensive course, you’ll be focussed, skilled up and ready to jump into your first job. Graduates learn on the job, but Ironhackers get a head-start… Interested in learning more? Download the full whitepaper to find out what the job opportunities in the UK tech industry are like in 2022, as well as what some of our alumni achieved after graduation.