The Ironhack Blog

Ruth and Anäis met at Ironhack learning UX/UI . With completely different backgrounds, they teamed up together to deliver an awesome final project to win Hackshow. Ruth is British and has never been in touch with the tech industry; Anaïs comes from France and has previous experience working in the tech industry. Let's take a look at their stories! Why did you choose to join Ironhack and break into tech? I’ve always been in education - from being in school, to uni and then I started working as a primary teacher. I felt I was preparing children for a world I didn’t really know much about . That aroused an interest in changing careers and doing something different. I first learned about UX/UI design from my partner, who is a web developer . The more I learned, the more interested I became and the more I saw that skills I had as a teacher would fit well with the skills of a UX designer. I chose Ironhack because I didn’t want to take a lot of time away from working (and earning money!) to do something new. So, the 9 week course seemed perfect for that. I also wanted to work with people, rather than learn it on my own. I tried a couple of courses online in the past but I really need to be able to interact with "real" people to motivate myself and to get the most of the course. I also know that I work best in a team and that’s why Ironhack was such a good fit for me. On reflection, being able to work with people from all different kinds of backgrounds really helped me grow and learn, much more so than I thought possible. What was the key moment in your life that made you think about taking this step? As I said before, I had heard the term " UX designer " from my partner, but I had always dismissed the idea because the word designer made me think I would be out of my depth because I wasn’t particularly artistic. I now realise that you don’t have to be artistic to be a designer! So I first realised that I was really interested in this when I watched a Youtube video explaining what UX actually is. I saw lots of similarities between being a teacher and surprisingly, it seemed to resonate with my interests and skills. How did a remote bootcamp fit into your plan? Why did you choose remote instead of an on-campus bootcamp? I currently live in Scotland and so my only option was to join Ironhack Remote to do the course without moving to a different city. I have to say that this was a perfect fit for me also because I want to work remotely in the future. I also enjoy that there isn’t any commuting time in the mornings and afternoons but you still get to feel like part of a community. What was your favourite Ironhack moment? Probably during my cohort’s final presentations! Just seeing how far everyone had come and realising that we had actually completed it was surprisingly emotional. There was such a sense of collective achievement. You won the Hackshow with your project. Can you tell us a bit about it? So my final project, which I worked on with my partner Anais, was for a company called Almotech . They are a Spanish startup that have developed a home appliance which can convert used cooking oil into multi-purpose soaps. We had to create an app that allows users to interact with the appliance, as well as coming up with branding suggestions for the company. It was a really interesting project and we learned so much – especially from working with a real company. What are you aspiring to do next with your new skills? Right now I’m finishing fine tuning my portfolio and practicing my UI skills with short daily challenges. I was also lucky enough to be asked to be a teaching assistant on the next course so I’m really enjoying helping (and learning from) the new students. My plans for the future are to start applying for jobs as a UX designer. Ideally I’d like to work in a big(ish) size company which has a team of other designers from whom I can learn. I would also love to work for a company that has a clear purpose and solid values that align with my own – perhaps something environmentally focused. Thank you for being so open about your experience. Do you have recommendations for anyone who is thinking about changing their life with Ironhack and tech? First of all, reach out to Ironhack alumni and find out what their experiences were, especially people who have a similar background to you – whatever it may be. The people I spoke to were really happy to share and gave lots of tips and advice. Secondly, my advice would be to "just do it" (thanks, Nike!)! It’s easy to say, but I found it really hard to do because it meant leaving a career I was comfortable in and also it meant a financial commitment. I wrote so many pros and cons lists and found myself going round in circles until I realised that I just had to do it. I had to take the first step (which meant taking the course) and only then I would know if it was for me. I’m glad to say that it is! Now is the time! Join Ironhack to launch your career in the tech industry. Click here to see course details , remote options , and international campus locations .

Meet Vincent , who started his career at Google in the Sales department and switched to business analytics successfully. Read the interview to learn more about his transition and the learnings he made on that way. Vincent, before we jump right into your journey, can you please introduce yourself? I have a very French name but I'm originally from the Netherlands. However, I actually work for Google in Dublin. In the context of my journey, let me explain where it started and where it goes. Before I started to work, I studied in the Netherlands. I did a bachelor’s in business, and then a master’s in Business Information Management. So, that’s where it already got a bit more technical. That's probably where the transition might have already started. Almost 5 years ago, in 2016, I started at Google. And most of the time, I was working in sales teams, which I think is a great start if you come from uni, as you get to really understand the products, the organization, the processes and culture. Even though it was a very customer-facing role, I spent a lot of time on understanding the products, especially the very data-driven ones. For example, I worked on selling Google Analytics . But I think the biggest frustration that anyone who likes tech and data has, is this talking about data, but when someone needs to crunch the numbers, you usually give that away if you’re working in a commercial role. That’s when I started to think “Hey, actually, I can do it as well, or I think I can do it.” Therefore, over the course of 4 years, the frustration was growing and growing in a very positive sense leading to saying, “Hey, instead of talking about data, I actually want to do something with data.” During the journey, I tried to find ways to educate myself, see what's needed, try things out in certain projects, get learnings on the side. That's why I made the transition around a year ago to move to a business analyst position, to instead of talking about data, now actually crunching the numbers myself. When you first discovered that frustration, did you directly think about transitioning into the role? What was the tipping point that made you do it in the end? There have been a combination of different points that let me make the decision. Let me try to summarize as much as possible, and potentially highlight a couple of points. When it came to the frustration, the main element was that I’ve only had 40 hours a week at work and tried to split it into 80% of my core role in sales and spending the other 20% on analytical projects and learning.. In reality, it’s usually 100% core job and 20% on top of it. Therefore, I felt like stretching myself by wearing 2 hats at the same time, switching between my sales mindset and the analytical one constantly. I realized that I wanted to focus mostly on those 20% of my time. And the 2 different mindsets are very, very consuming. That’s one point where I say, in a transitioning phase, always make sure you dedicate some time to make that transition. Focus also internally in your company by doing so. That's very powerful as you build a network, you learn from others, especially in big companies, like the one I'm working for myself. The second point is if you look at analysts, you always have a little bit of imposter syndrome, when you speak to them.Sometimes I work for a week on SQL code, and it's like a huge query and you're like, “How the hell do I need to understand that?”. Especially if you just learned it. But then again, thinking back, they worked on it for a week, they don't do it perfectly either. So, the bridge feels really far, but actually, it's a limiteing shortening. The point I want to try to get across is that a lot of the things that they usually know, and I know as an analyst as well, is not something you always know directly or you need to spend time on finding the information. In other words, I think one way that helped me make the transition is not only looking at the resources in my company, but also with the resources outside the company to take particular skills. It could be from project management skills, to coding skills, to just working well, especially to particularly telling a story. So, dedicate some time or think out of the box, in terms of things outside your work. And then last but not least, I think discipline is very important. What I mean by that is, if you do something 1 hour a week, it doesn't feel like a lot during a 40-hour workweek. But if you've done that for a year, you’ve already spent 50 hours on it, and you're already way better than a year ago. And I think there, if you already have a commercial sales job, making time within the work to spend on something else and convince your manager about it, can be quite hard. So, lowering that barrier as much as possible just to consistently spend a little bit of time on learning, you’ll achieve your goal more easily. Doing a part-time bootcamp could also be a solution. To summarize, I would say those three points will help anyone to make that transition. On the one hand, trying to find opportunities to be able to gain the skills, get to know people, and especially understanding what the requirements are to make the transition. Second of all, you can’t always learn everything on your own. So, sometimes, you want to go check externally to learn particular skills. Especially if you think about coding SQL, Python, maybe just Excel and spreadsheets, there are 1000s of offerings that you can easily learn from. So, I think that's the last one. What was holding you back when you felt this frustration? What would be your recommendation to overcome concerns about transitioning into a new field? When I think back about the transition in general, I think of my concerns about leaving the nice people around me at work. But I had to realize that in the end I'm still working for the same company. The culture is quite similar in the new team. Let me zoom in a little bit more about my concerns. I think imposter syndrome is definitely an element but there are multiple perspectives that I can put on it. On the one hand, if you speak to analysts and you see the work they do, you get these daunting scripts of amazing big reports. You’re like, “How the hell could they build that?” You try to digest it in the first 10 minutes you see it, while they might have been working on it for months. One thing I struggled with along the way was, knowing the mountain I wanted to climb, but I didn’t know the route upwards. So, if you think about the metaphorical perspective of literally climbing a mountain, if you have a tour guide who can say, “Hey, here's the way to go upwards,” it's probably very doable. But if you have to figure it out from scratch without any help, it can be very, very tough to get there. I think one of the concerns was the requirements for landing such a job. And then afterwards, figuring out, “Alright, how do I get towards a level that I know a certain programming language? Or how can I prove that I can work with particular stakeholders?”  Especially there, in my particular journey, I spend a lot of time figuring out what's the right thing to do? Because if you think about learning SQL, I think there's hundreds of offerings to do so. But who is the right tour guide to take you up that mountain? And I think that's the question there, if I look back at my own journey, I spent a lot of time trying to figure it out, because I think that the industry was less mature, the way people were working was slightly different. Now, the industry actually sees that need, and has become more structured. So, I know from you from Ironhack , that there's already more value and structure to learning data analytics. That's something that I couldn't find at the time but is the perfect entry for everyone who wants to transition their career. I do say there's certain imposter syndrome, if you see where you need to go. But it's actually like climbing a mountain. If you have the right guidance, it only gets 10 times easier to do so, even though the climb is still the exact same. And I think that was one thing that I needed to invest a lot of time in that maybe delayed my transition. But I had the passion and motivation to go in that direction. You were also talking about, if you transition into this world, in this data analytics world, that it's also important to show what your skills are. Do you have any recommendations on how to make sure that you can prove that you have the skills? So, if I look at a job description that you usually see for analyst positions, you will have two pockets to cover. On the one hand, you have the hard skills. And on the other hand, you have the soft skills. And I think the approach on how to build your resume, or how to build your brand or story for those two are different. I think if you go towards the hard skills, it's mostly about, “Hey, can I easily convince someone in an interview or with my resume that I’m the right one?” So, to give an easy example, if you want to know if I can speak English, I've lived in Dublin for 4 years. So, that's kind of proof there, right? If it comes to soft skills, usually you are asked either hypothetical questions or example questions. In that sense, I think it's good to have examples that you have worked on something that is very analytical. Is there a particular project? Just always demonstrate your analytical mindset. Thank you so much for all those insights. To wrap things up - What has been your biggest learning and what’s your most important advice to anyone about to transition into a new field? That's definitely a good question to ask. The main thing to highlight is that I 100% knew I really wanted this. But not only that, I was also quite vocal and passionate about it. Every data analyst around me says they wanted to work in this field, but they also demonstrated it. Therefore, the main advice would be to always stay curious and also to address that you want to move in that direction. Furthermore, what I've seen during that transition have been people talking about career changes but don’t acting that way or the other way around. That’s a mistake as if you say you want something but you're not acting like it, usually when you get an opportunity, you might drop the ball. If you're acting towards it, but you don't say it, then there's no one helping you along the way. So, it’s very important to act like it and say it in that way.

The best tools to learn as a data analyst depend partly on the role you are in and the needs of the business. Different companies will have different requirements and may work with an internal or external set of tools. Some data analysis tools are used for tasks such as executing algorithms, visualising data and results, while others may be designed for preparing data for analysis, assessing results or for developing hypotheses or predictions. Data analysis tools can also be used to automate tedious tasks, providing data analysts with more time for actual analysis . There are a few key tools that are used in data analysis, however. These include SQL, Python, Git and data management tools such as R, SAS and SPSS. SQL Many large companies use SQL for data analysis, and it is considered to be one of the key tools for analysts. It is one of the most prominent tools you must learn as a data analyst. SQL is also used by software engineers in software development. SQL is a programming language that was initially created for managing data from a relational database . It is a straightforward tool to learn and can be used for complex, challenging data analytics. It is a popular choice among data analysts, as the code itself is not difficult to read or understand and can be used to manipulate and change data. Additionally, it lets you collate data in a similar manner to Excel but over large datasets and across multiple tables at once. Python Frequently used in inferential statistics and probability, Python is an open-source programming language that lets you build and manage data structures with the Pandas library. Python is a versatile tool that supports data manipulation, data analysis and data representation . Many companies that have an online presence used Python to analyse user activity, for example. Python is especially good for creating graphics and visual representations of numerical information. It lets you visualise data collected by presenting it in charts or graphs, and it can also be used to interpret large datasets. Python is also a useful tool if you need to test a hypothesis through A/B testing and to evaluate the data collected. Analytics Tools: Excel, VBA and Matlab A classic in the world of data analysis, Excel tops the list as a crucial tool to learn as a data analyst. It is a straightforward programme to learn, and data analysts should be proficient in all aspects of Excel from using formulas to creating pivot tables. Any spreadsheet application will be useful, but Microsoft Excel is the most widely used one. Along with this, a statistical analysis tool such as SPSS is often required by analysts. SPSS is a good option for newly qualified analysts (more on SPSS below). More experienced data analysts may require VBA - Visual Basic for Applications. It is a programming language specifically designed for Excel and is often used in financial analysis. It is also compatible with Word and Powerpoint. In addition, Matlab is another useful tool designed to create algorithms, build models and analyse data. Data Management tools - R, SAS and SPSS Three hugely important tools in data analysis, in particular data management, are R, SAS and SPSS. Data management is the process of organising, storing and maintaining data within an organisation or company. It constitutes an important step in data analytics, as the information may need to be instantly available, up to date and accessible for various analytical functions. R Compatible with all platforms - Windows, Mac OS and Linux, the open-source programming language R is another essential and commonly used tool in data analytics. It is broadly used by statisticians for statistical modeling, as it offers a great range of statistical and graphical possibilities, and it is commonly used to perform data wrangling. It lets you produce visuals such as plots and graphs to represent data and is available across various libraries such as Plotly. It's used in finance, sales but also some scientific fields such as medicine and technology. You need an understanding of statistics and programming in general in order to work with this particular data analysis tool. SAS Another data analysis tool that is often used in statistical modeling is Statistical Analysis System, or SAS. it is a popular tool for data management and supports processes such as data extraction and data mining. It is a highly secure tool and is available across a wide range of statistical coding libraries. Therefore, it is versatile and can be used for all types of data. SAS Studio is a stable piece of software that hosts SAS functions. It can easily handle large volumes of data and is compatible with platforms dealing in big data. Converting external files into an SAS format is also straightforward, whether it’s an Excel file, or SPSS or Stata. Note that SAS is not open-source software, so you would need a license to avail of this particular data analysis tool. It is also not the best option for creating a visual or graphical representation of data. SPSS Software Statistical Process for Social Sciences, SPSS, is another top tool in data analysis and one of the best tools you must learn as a data analyst. It is a sophisticated tool often used for processes such as trend analysis and advanced analytics, as well as hypothesis testing and forecasting. This is closed-source, so a license is needed in order to work with this tool. It is especially easy to work with and offers in-depth analysis and highly accurate results. It is not the best option for dealing with large datasets and is not quite as versatile as other programming tools such as SAS and R. Git Lastly, Git is one of the top tools you must learn as a data analyst. Git is often used in data science , but if scientists or other professionals wish to analyse data and uncover evidence around a hypothesis, then Git is a very useful tool. It can be used to perform data management tasks such as merging and collating information. If you modify your database, keeping track of changes is generally done through a version control system like Git which allows analysts to monitor changes over time. Take the step into Data Analytics Get started with the fundamentals of data analytics and discover the tools you must learn as a data analyst with Ironhack’s Data Analytics bootcamp . This three-month course will introduce you to topics such as data wrangling, creating a new data set and APIs, and provide you with intermediate skills for data analytics tools such as SQL and Python skills. Presenting data and insights is a crucial part of data analysis and is also covered in this course.

Meet Leonard Philippe-Perron , who completed the UX/UI Bootcamp at Ironhack Remote . We spoke to him about his Ironhack experience and incredible final project. Before we talk about your experience in detail, can you please introduce yourself? I'm French and 23 years old; I studied to be a historian and archeologist, always keen to explore new horizons. I've always been attracted to software, computers, and technology as a whole, but with my studies I never thought I could turn it into something other than an hobby with UX/UI Design . Thank you, Leonard. Why did you choose to join Ironhack and break into tech? Many people think that to be able to work in tech you need to be good at math. I was one of these believers until I realised there are other ways to enter the tech industry. For me, it was a big step as all my education has been related to art: I graduated in Art History at Royal Holloway, University of London and I have two Master degrees, one from the University of Amsterdam in Classics and Classical Languages and another one from King’s College London in Classical Art & Archaeology. Prior to joining Ironhack, I did a course in digital communication: this was my first experience with the technological world. Then a friend of mine recommended taking a look at Ironhack. This would allow me to break into tech, combining my knowledge of the art industry and tech to create a path forward. I would love to know: what was the key moment in your life that made you think about taking this step? After the announcement of another national lockdown, I decided I needed to do something useful. I couldn’t stand the idea of being stuck at home wasting time. So for me that was a key factor when deciding to join Ironhack. Also at the moment of my decision, I wasn't committed to any company so I was able to focus entirely on the bootcamp. How did a remote bootcamp fit into your plan? Why did you choose remote instead of an on-campus bootcamp? If an online format wasn’t the main option, I would have enjoyed a face-to-face program. But due to the COVID pandemic, Ironhack Remote was the perfect solution for me to make the most of my time. 2020/2021 have been really tough so I can’t complain about having the chance to meet all the amazing people by Zoom. Hopefully one day I'll meet them in person! I'm curious: w hat was your favourite moment at Ironhack? The final project! This was definitely the best moment I spent studying at Ironhack. It was such a short and intense moment; I didn't see the hours pass by. Can you tell us a bit more about your final project at Ironhack? Our project was a little bit different from what we had studied before. Nuno and I looked at Virtual Reality and how the user would interact within VR. The company that handed us the project gave us total freedom on what we could bring forward; we decided to create a seamless, intuitive, and interactive control scheme for a virtual experience in which the user would be able to view in detail a product he could/would want to buy. Our project was focused only on how the user would control the experience. It was so much fun and we won the Hackshow! I guess that when you work on something you really like it is easier to stand for it (although we did work really hard!). What are you looking to do next with your new skills? I haven’t decided yet, I’m thinking of either garnering some experience in the VR industry or taking my UX skills to the art market and creating some opportunities there.

Organising data is essential when it comes to data analysis, and this process is called data manipulation. It is a crucial step in data analytics. Whether you need to represent information using a graph, combine multiple datasets, create a pivot table or change an Excel file to a CSV file, Pandas is the best Python library for the task. The Pandas library was written specifically for the Python programming languages , and aside from creating graphs, it lets you arrange data and perform other functions. These include merging data sets, reading records, grouping data and organising information in a way that best supports the analysis required. It is a straightforward, accessible and versatile library that is suitable for new and experienced developers alike. Pandas Library “Pandas” stands for Python Data Analysis Library. There is a multitude of ways to work with data in Python . Depending on how you wish to manipulate your data, you generally need to follow a few coding simple steps and select the relevant syntax in the overall code. For starters, however, Pandas needs to be installed in order to avail of it. It is available across all systems, Windows, Mac OS and Linux, but note that it is dependent on the NumPy Python library, plus, it may require additional libraries depending on the tasks you need to perform. For plotting, for example, Matplotlib will be required. Representing Data Using Pandas If you wish to represent numerical information in a line chart, bar graph, pie chart or scatter diagram, for example, you would simply follow these steps using code from the Python Pandas library: Prepare the data: this could be done by entering it into a simple table or Excel sheet Create a DataFrame by running a code in Python Plot the DataFrame using the relevant syntax: in this step you can specify the type of chart by using the code kind = ‘xxx’ (e.g. kind = "line" would create a line chart.) The Matplotlib syntax will be needed in this step Run the code and watch your data come to life in a chart or graph Pandas, Data & Matplotlib The complete Python codes can be found online and in the Matolib library, but to change the type of graph you are creating simply use the relevant “kind” code. Kind = “bar” would create a bar chart, while kind = “scatter” would create a scatter diagram. Merging Data with Python Another type of data manipulation that can be performed using Pandas is merging datasets. Let’s say you have 2 sets of data that need to be combined. You can follow these steps to join or merge them: Prepare the data: if you have two datasets, then you will have two separate tables to start with Create two DataFrames using the Python code Merge the Pandas DataFrames using a join code Run the code to view the results Create Two DataFrames Using the Python Code There are various codes for combining data in Pandas DataFrames, depending on where you are taking the information from and how you wish to combine it. For instance, you can use the merge function - merge( ) -for merging data on a common column, while the .join( ) code will let you combine data on a specific column. Create a Pivot Table Another very popular form of data manipulation is creating a pivot table. Pivot tables can be generated with Microsoft Excel or spreadsheets, though it is also possible to create them easily with Python. Pivot tables are used to reorganise, sort or summarise data, and let you create an overview of information in any way you wish. Depending on what you need to use a pivot table for, you can select the most appropriate Pandas code for the job. You might need to manipulate data to determine the total number of emails sent to one company by a team over the course of a month, for example, or find the median sales for Q1 in a given location. Begin by again, preparing the data in a simple table and capturing it in Python by running a DataFrame code. Depending on your goal, you can then use the relevant Python syntax in the code in order to produce the pivot table. Pivot Table to Graph To go one step further with Pandas, data and results from a pivot table can be represented in a graph or chart, as outlined above. For this, you would just need to add some additional components to the Pivot Table code. Calculating Stats from a CSV file Statical analysis is another area where Pandas, data manipulation and python are regularly used. If you create a file using Python, it is possible to use the Pandas library to calculate stats - this may be to find the median salary across an entire company, for example, or to measure the standard deviation of salaries among different teams. First, copy your dataset into a CSV file and import it into Python using a code template. Next, run a code to calculate the statistics. Once you run the relevant code, you will generate a summary of the desired results. Data Analytics Course These are just a few of the options when it comes to manipulating data with Python. The Pandas library gives you a huge amount of control and flexibility over your data and lets you represent it very specifically . Once you understand the basics of data manipulation with Python, it is easy to build on that knowledge and use the library for lots of different analytical and representational tasks. Get started with Python and the fundamentals of data analytics with the Data Analytics Bootcamp . If you wish to acquire skills in Pandas, Data Analytics and Python, along with Git and SQL , an online course is a great place to start. Pandas, data and the Python coding language go hand in hand, and anyone working in web development, data or statistical analysis would be very well equipped with this skillset under their belt. It is also very useful for careers in sales, business development and digital marketing; it lets you work flexibly with numbers and also strengthens reporting capabilities.

If Figma needed a cheering squad, we would totally sign up for it. We love Figma, really we do, and we are pretty sure you will too! Sharing Figma with you kind of feels like when you've watched a complete series and tell your friends about it, and they have never heard of it before, and you are excited for them to go through the experience but also kind of jealous (only a little) that they get to relive it from scratch. So yeah, we really are excited for you. It's going to change the way you build, prototype, share, collaborate and more. Before we continue to talk about all Figmas fantastic possibilities, here's something we prepared earlier to show you the amazing possibilities of Figma: our webinar titled "Build and prototype an app using Figma"! This webinar is super practical, and our expert Dina Korkmazova closely guides you step-by-step so that you won't feel left behind. powered by Crowdcast So, let's quickly recap on what the difference between UX and UI is. What is UX? UX stands for "User Experience" , this refers more to the back end like the research, concept stage and defining how to optimise the user's experience while navigating through a website or app. Essentially a UX Designer is responsible for how things work , solving problems and making the life of us - internet users - effortless. For example, the UX Designer will need to consider all the aspects of the product design from start to finish and primarily focus on the interaction between the user and the product experience by using various techniques like storytelling, customer journey mapping and creating personas to ensure that the experience flow is as intuitive as possible. What is UI? UI stands for User Interface; this specifically refers to the visual aesthetics of the website and app, so how things look . The UI Designer is responsible for how the product is visually organised and communicated and will design each screen or page to interact with. Further, the UI Designer must ensure that the user interface correctly visually expresses everything that was thought of by the UX Designer or team. For example, think of the app Tiktok. The UX Designer will create the sign-up and onboarding process for new TikTok users, like, which screens are needed, which buttons, which information comes first. And the UI Designer will be responsible for visually executing it by creating interfaces fit for the desired user interactions. Figma is one of the most effective design tools currently available to us and has really rivalled the famous Adobe Suite and many other popular design prototype tools like Sketch. So if you're looking into becoming a UX or UI designer, Figma is undoubtedly the app for you. Figma, our modern-day hero Figma's robust features, excellent design and code generation tools truly support the teamwork design process. This is largely attributed to its cloud, online, and real-time collaboration functionality, which saw its popularity skyrocket during the Convid-19 pandemic, collaboration was still possible for UX and UI Designers, Graphic designers, students and other professionals (bless you, Figma, bless you!). So why not make your life easier and start working with Figma now !? You can design stunning apps, blogs, or websites in no time and without any code at all; whether you are a beginner, web designer, app developer, entrepreneur or freelancer, you can create responsive designs using Figma. From Sketching to prototyping Usually, the easiest way to express an idea when you first have it is to start sketching. This is how to get the very lo-fi version of your vision or idea. From there, you start building your prototype. A prototype is essentially a "pilot project" and is expressed through a mock-up or demo of what a product will look like and is often used to test a product concept and make further iterations. Remember, this is not the final product, but rather it should allow users to interact with it to be responsive, so it brings your static idea and sketch to life. Therefore, the main goal of a prototype is to provide a simulation of the user interface interaction. Responsive web design The layout of your prototype will adapt based on the device size and capabilities; this doesn't mean you have to consider every single device. Instead, it would be best to make decisions based on what is most used, for example, android and iPhone minimum or maximum pixel size etc. Thankfully Figma allows us to see what a design looks like at different sizes. You will see that from the menu, you can choose between seven other popular phones (iPhone, Galaxy, iPad, etc.), three different tablets, a desktop view, or smartwatch. Simply dragging the edges of the design document to fit the frame gives you an exact idea of how it will appear on a specific device. Lastly, it has a clever function that can connect to your smartphone so you can see how it looks on the physical device as you design. When you're designing a prototype on Figma, there are five main things to consider: Screen real estate User context Goals Surroundings Consistency Interactions and animations for Prototyping in Figma This might sound a little out of your comfort zone, and you might automatically think of a Pixar movie or favourite cartoon but trust us for prototyping; it's more straightforward and super effective. Animations and interactions go hand in hand with a user's micro-interactions. Why? Because they guide the user in understanding how to optimally use the product. So, these animations aren't just fun features (even though they are fun). They are powerful tools for creating an effective prototype. Figma even allows users to take pictures, sketch or image and turn them into interactive prototypes, or you can build your screen design using the design panel. Have you downloaded it yet? No? Wait no longer and click here . And the cherry on the top is, it's FREE for beginners. So, why don't we get started? You have nothing to lose, and as we said, there's no coding needed and a plethora of possibilities! Finally, if you're seriously serious about learning how to use Figma and want to take it to the next level because... you want to become a professional UX/UI Designer you want to be that employee that everyone loves for making your company look spectacular you wanto to have amazing job offers popping up on your Linkedin ...then check out our UX/UI Design bootcamp !

Even though with every project, the context of each company and the demands of the clients differ from each other, the truth is that almost every time we talk about data analysis, the same programming language comes up: Python. Over the years, this has emerged as the main programming resource for the development of tools that allow the analysis, treatment and processing of data. And it’s no surprise that in a world where Big Data has more and more weight for companies, learning Python becomes a higher priority for those looking to enter the world of data analytics. Although there are other programming languages that have also gained traction in the sector, it’s undeniable that the arguments for Python imposing itself on the data analysis industry are high in number. One of the main advantages is how simple it is to learn. Anyone with minimal programming knowledge can learn the principles of this language with no problem at all. And as you learn you’ll see some more of its advantages, such as its versatility and reproducibility. So, not only does it allow you to perform a multitude of tasks but a piece of code, a script written in Python, can be played on any platform. Add to this the fact that this programming language , which has been dominating the Big Data sector, has a wide development community, which allows it to advance very quickly in the development of new functionalities and scripts. Being open source and free, in the same way as Javascript and many others, programmers are encouraged to investigate different solutions, incorporate various improvements and develop new functions, in order to include it in new applications such as Machine Learning or Devops. Python vs R One of Python’s main competitors that seemed to indicate a possible paradigm shift in the Big Data industry, was R - a programming language that also has multiple advantages but didn’t quite manage to win the battle against its main opponent. One of R's strengths was their data visualization, an area Python wasn't quite as advanced in. R had a wide variety of graph libraries that allowed users to show the data that has been analyzed in a clear and simple way. However, thanks to the combined efforts of committed Python developers, their language was updated to offer packages and libraries such as Seaborn or Plotly. Another of the debates that Python and R have been embroiled in was the speed of execution, since experts claimed that the times were reduced when using the first compared to the second which was considered somewhat slower. However, there were those that argued this was down to the libraries they were working with, and therefore, it was not a factor to be taken into account. Which Python libraries should I learn? What every programmer who wants to enter this market should be clear about is that it is not enough to learn Python but you must also put it into practice in Big Data. As some experienced developers who are already working in the field will say, although it is helpful to learn the principles of this language, the best scenario is to carefully select the resources used in order to steer learning towards data analysis. If you don’t choose correctly you could end up learning other branches such as programming, the development of websites, or derivatives towards any of the other applications that this language has. To this end, the Python libraries most used for data analysis are: Pandas Don't be fooled by the name. In addition to sharing its name with an adorable animal, the Pandas library is one of the most versatile and robust , and therefore, the favorite of many data analysts. This open source library has a peculiar way of operating, whereby it takes a series of data (CSV format, TSV or SQL database) and creates a Python object with rows and columns called a “dataframe”. The result of this transformation is a table with a structure very similar to that of a statistical software, such as Excel. That is why Pandas is one of the most used libraries, since it is extremely easy to work with it. Manipulating dataframes with Pandas Do you want to practice and learn the basic knowledge of Pandas? Have a go at these initiation exercises . Are you already familiar with the library and want to make the qualitative leap in data analysis? Download this "cheat sheet" to remember the most important formulas and functions. NumPy NumPy is a Python package that comes from the term "Numerical Python". It is by far the best library for applying scientific computing. In short, it provides powerful data structures, you can implement multidimensional arrays and perform more complex calculations with arrays. Multiplying matrices with NumPy Matplotlib When it comes to creating high-quality, ready-to-publish graphics, the Matplotlib package is usually the right choice. It also supports a wide range of raster and vector graphics, such as PNG, EPS, PDF and SVG. Matplotlib different functions will help you present the information contained in your analyzes in a more understandable way. The key is to adapt the display format to the audience type. Presenting your findings to the management team is not the same as presenting to your colleagues in the analytics department. Stacked bar chart of brand cast by car type Want to learn how to make this chart with Matplotlib along with 49 other types of visualizations? Check out this article . Learn Python for Data Analysis So as we’ve already told you, it’s not just about learning Python, but about guiding it towards the tasks that interest you. You need to be clear that world you’re dedicating yourself to. In this case, Data Analytics. If this is the case, as with any other programming language or technology, you can do your research on your own or you can opt for code schools where you will not only have more resources, but also more support for your learning and more options to find work in the Big Data market. One alternatives is Ironhack's Data Analytics bootcamp , where you will learn to work with Python as well as with libraries such as Pandas or NumPy that help you obtain the necessary skills to work as a data analyst in the field.

If there ever was a person who embodied lifelong learning and the love of language, it would be Ike Okonkwo . This highly educated student of the world is fluent in reading and writing English, Portuguese, and Spanish. He would seem to be a natural fit for a career in the arts, but that's just one part of his expansive skill set.  Perhaps more impressively, Ike has developed and integrated a wider array of interests and abilities to build his dream company, finding some pivotal help along the way. Ike’s wide range of interests started early, being exposed to a variety of disciplines from his parents. Born in San Juan, Puerto Rico, Ike is the son of Obi, a neurologist originally from Nigeria who has his own practice in St. Petersburg, Florida and his mother, Ileana, originally from Cuba, who helped manage his father’s medical office and was a Spanish teacher. Ike’s parents met in Puerto Rico. Ike broke from family tradition by pursuing a career beyond medicine; Ike, one of three children, has a brother who is in medical school and a sister who graduated from Johns Hopkins. “I’m African from Nigeria, I’m African-American and I’m Latino, so I’m Afro-Latino. I learned Spanish at home from my mom, Nigerian from my dad and they each had their English dialects. We also had the language of medicine and science. It’s no surprise that my sister, brother and I started all down the path to become doctors .” said Ike. Ike was four years old when the Okonkwo family moved to Miami to pursue the American Dream. His father, a neurologist, was awarded fellowships at hospitals in Virginia and Kansas. During Ike’s early childhood, the family moved around the country for about three years, finally landing back in St. Petersburg, Florida. It was through this constant travel that he began to pick up different languages, dialects, and cultures. He didn’t know it then, but his ability to adapt while having the support of his family would help him proactively take bold risks to shape his future and career. Learning in his Early Years In his early years, Ike was a math and science kid, looking to follow in his father’s footsteps into medicine like his siblings. But his growing appetite and talent for learning new languages began to blossom in high school. He says it was then that he switched and became a self-proclaimed language aficionado. And as it turns out, this switch was something that served him well and turned out to be ownable and unique only by Ike. “As a kid, I switched from being a math and science geek to language nerd.” In his junior year of high school, when it was time to get serious about applying for college, Ike took the standardized tests and found an unexpected roadblock. “During my first SAT practice test, I looked at the language questions and the answers all looked fine to me.” Ike learned a hard lesson: even though he spoke English with ease, he had not been deeply educated on the formalities of the English language and needed to learn everything to score well. Growing up as a first-generation American, language was all about survival in Ike’s family.  Now, he had to relearn something he already thought he knew. “I had a disadvantage and I had to go back and devote myself to learning the fundamentals of English. I forced myself to understand and approach this as a unique language problem. It sparked my interest. Language became one of my hobbies.” Ike’s hard work and tenacity paid off. He retook the standardized tests and with his superior scores, Ike applied and was accepted to Harvard. He was pre-med, majoring in neurobiology with a minor in economics. He also earned a mini degree, called a language citation, in Brazilian Portuguese. Ike admits at the time, it seemed random and he didn’t know how it would come together. “At college I was allowing myself to be intellectually curious, to lift up stones and pursue my interests in the purest form. It was during this time, while learning languages, I learned Latin Dance. It’s still one of my hobbies today.” Using lifelong learning to change his career Although his education’s focus was on medicine, his interest in language was beginning to grow. Ike learned to speak Spanish from his mom. When he got to college, he had friends who were Brazilian and spoke Portuguese and he could partially understand them. It sparked his interest in learning more and he started taking Spanish and Portuguese language classes. It expanded his mind. At that same time, he also found a niche writing for science. He wrote grant proposals and learned soft skills that helped him write research papers. It was the ideal blending of his scientific study and love of language. When Ike was a junior at Harvard, he started looking forward, thinking about getting a job. At the time, he was dedicated to neuroscience and was pre-med and he was conducting bench research. He worked with rats, doing surgeries on them and writing papers. While science still held his interest, he started to closely consider his devotion to medicine. He was starting to see the role of technology in the world, including in medicine and care. “I wanted to see what else was out there. I had the research skills and some experience helping my father during summers with patients. But I could see the world of technology beginning to grow, even in the world of medicine. The need to upskill to ensure I could find a job triggered me to start exploring product management and technology. I decided I wanted to teach myself to code.” With one summer and fall left in college, Ike made a decision that changed the trajectory of his career. It was his love of learning and “lifting that stone” that led him to do research on full-stack web development (web dev) bootcamps. He found Ironhack Miami on Google. In a surprising move,  he took a break from Harvard and moved back to Florida after enrolling in the eight-week web development bootcamp at Ironhack Miami . “I was pre-med at Harvard, interested in economics and began to really get into technology. But, with a Brazilian Portuguese minor, I didn’t have time for CS50 at Harvard [the top computer science course]. I talked to one of my roommates who was a computer science major and asked him about technology bootcamps. I did a lot of research and found Ironhack Miami. I showed my roommate what I could learn at Ironhack in a short amount of time. He said it looked good. I went through the admissions process. Once accepted, I took time off and headed back to Florida to attend Ironhack Miami and learn web dev.” At Ironhack, Ike expanded his mind once again, learning the value of being technically literate through the language of coding. He also learned the value of being an Ironhacker (the informal name given to anyone who has graduated from the Ironhack program). “The one thing that’s special about Ironhack is definitely the cohorts. I know that through Ironhack I have a strong network. I made a lot of good friends. One of my friends is a neighbor in St. Petersburg. We still go to each other’s Christmas celebrations. I also connect easily with other Ironhackers on LinkedIn.” Ike’s experience of becoming part of the Ironhack community and building a network of friends and colleagues is one of the most valuable aspects of the bootcamp . Ike finished Ironhack with one semester left at Harvard with two internship opportunities, one was in research and the other was with a health technology start-up, TNH Digital Health, based in Brazil. The company uses technology to help organizations engage, educate and monitor large patient populations. It also uses mobile technology to address some of the biggest healthcare problems in emerging markets. Life After Learning Web Development Essentially Ike had to choose between a traditional path in medicine or exploring a new direction. He chose the internship with TNH. His first assignment was to build a company website. With little oversight, Ike did just that. Four years later, TNH is still using the website, a testament to Ike’s expertise in language, background in science and knowledge in coding. He also expanded his network. One of his supervisors, CEO Michael Kapps, became Ike’s mentor. They are still close today. “It was the first time everything clicked. I had the language skills, was working in health care helping patients in rural parts of the country and using my computer science skills.” After the summer, Ike returned to the US to complete his studies at Harvard. While he was figuring out his next move, he was contacted by Harvard Business School. They needed an alumnus who spoke Portuguese and could be in Sāo Paulo to help develop case studies on new companies and start-ups. Ike took the position, spending one year in Brazil. “When I was in Brazil, I saw patients who were fighting neuro-degenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s and I started recognizing healthcare as an agent for fighting inequality. So many people don’t have access to certain kinds of medicine. I was intrigued and realized that I wanted to make a greater impact in my career beyond treating one patient at a time. I started exploring how I could bring together healthcare policy, economics and technology.” At the same time, he became aware of the George Peabody Gardner Travelling Fellowship, which provides Harvard students an opportunity to reflect on their undergraduate life through immersion with a foreign culture. Ike used all of his skills and won the fellowship to retrace his heritage through the study of Afro-Latin rhythms. He moved to Medellin, Colombia for a year. While in Colombia, he started working as a freelancer for Colombia Passport, a business focused around medical tourism that connected athletes who were looking to get stem cell therapy with doctors in Latin America. The company’s owner, another expat, liked Ike’s ideas and asked him to join the business. The skills Ike learned at Ironhack, the ability to speak Spanish and Portuguese, his exposure to medicine, traveling and lifelong learning were all finally coming together, fueling his next journey. “I was obsessed with the medical tourism aspect of the business. It took a lot of work. When we started, we had a lot of other tourism companies asking us how much it would cost to join the website. It clicked for me. Maybe this could be a marketplace.” After the fellowship ended in Colombia, it was time for Ike to go to New York to start his studies in medicine. After three months, COVID hit and everything shut down, so Ike went back to Florida. It was yet another turning point for him. He knew he was destined to combine all that he learned and his interests to bring something bigger to the world. “During the pandemic, the world closed down and I had time. My business partner didn’t really want to take the risk with entrepreneurship and COVID. I decided that instead of pursuing my medical studies, it would be much more fun to put gas on the fire and just build. I also realized that it would be difficult to start a company and pursue being a doctor. I ended up leaving the medical program.” Ike put his skills to work once again. He applied and got accepted to The Wharton School and The Lauder Institute to get MBA/MA. He is pursuing international studies and is on the Latin American track. “I wrote all my essays about how I wanted to start a global business that was all about medical travel.” As of October 2020, Ike became an entrepreneur. He’s the co-founder and CEO of Welltrip , a start-up focused on building a global healthcare marketplace that helps consumers book medical appointments and accommodations for various procedures in Latin America. He and his business partner, Bolivian-born Patrick Prömmel who is also at Wharton on the Latin American track, received funding from The Lauder Institute. They are devoting summer 2021 to supercharging their company. “Patrick and I brainstormed and worked together, sharing ideas. We became friends while we built this company. In the late summer we’ll be in Colombia working together. In May 2022, when we graduate, we’ll both be in Miami, working on Welltrip full time.” Ike’s coding skills and time at Ironhack was a crucial part of helping him become an entrepreneur. His quest for lifelong learning has moved him into success. He’s authentically combined his love of English, Spanish, Portuguese, coding, healthcare and Latin America to make him an especially unique and accomplished entrepreneur, bringing medicine to the masses. Now's the moment! Join Ironhack to launch your career in the tech industry. Click here to see course details , remote options and international campus locations .

Ever nodded your head to say you understand something, but secretly you didn't? And then you're like, OMG, why did I do that? And the next thing you know, you are being asked a question about that thing that you said you knew about or worse, you've been assigned a task to do that thing you said you knew about . Nightmare! Well, lucky for you, if you continue reading, you won't have that problem when it comes to CSS, HTML and Javascript. But maybe you still will in other aspects of your life, like trying to impress someone on a date. You: "oh yeah, I love that band" - *googles band in the bathroom* (by the way, you should really stop doing that), but hey, one thing at a time, we're only human ;). Anyway, let's cut to the chase, shall we? If you've been playing with the idea of building your own website or ever had to manage someone else's, you will most probably have come across HTML, CSS and Javascript. These are the three primary building blocks of any website or webpage. They work together, yet, as we will explain, all play distinctive roles when it comes to coding and web creation. What is HTML? Perhaps at some stage of your life, you have clicked on the little HTML icon (</>) and seen a whole lotta what looks like random, confusing text and symbols that make you jump and feel like you have stepped into some confusing low budget version of The Matrix and pressed Esc a bunch of times to hope it will all go away? And prayed you hadn't mucked anything up? That, my friend, is the world of HTML; we promise it's not as scary or even confusing as it looks. Once you come to understand it, it's another language or world you come to appreciate and maybe even love. So, let's start with what HTML is short for; it's the acronym for Hypertext Markup Language. Hypertext is essentially the "structural text", and a markup language is a special "language" or "content" that computers understand , which was originally designed to describe web pages and make content interactive; think of it as the skeleton of a website. HTML was released in 1989 as an official publishing language of the world wide web and is the initial building block webpage creation. There are three main elements of HTML; tags, elements and attributes, and its most recent version is HTML5. HTML5 bears all the original trademarks of regular HTML yet, is more dynamic and incorporates far less code but still allows you to build something brilliant in no time! What is CSS? CSS is two critical things. It's a killer girl alternative rock band from the 2000s that we strongly recommend you have a groove to! But CSS, for the direct purposes of this article and your knowledge, is also an essential building block for coding your website! So, CSS in the tech world stands for Cascade Styling Sheets (how cool is that?!). As the name suggests, CSS defines the appearance and style of the website. It helps determine colour, fonts, positioning of certain elements and even a little bit of animation. This means that CSS makes up a pretty important chunk of your website, being the visual elements and aesthetics. CSS followed the creation of HTML to make websites look nicer, and indeed it did otherwise, websites would just look all the same, black and white, some hyperlink blue and times a new roman font (BORING!). So if HTML is the skeleton, CSS is the skin, eyes, hair, nose and feet of a website that makes it unique and distinguishable. So while HTML and CSS work nicely together, they're pretty distinct languages. And learning them both means you can also use them separately too, as they both have a myriad of different applications! You can focus on these two and build a website with our expert Uros Cirkovic in just 60 minutes for FREE. Sounds pretty good, a little too good, but we promise there are no hidden surprises, just excellent knowledge, and by the end of it, you'll have your very own website. Interested? Check out " How to build a website with HTML and CSS in 60 min ". Okay, we are nearly there... What is Javascript? This is where things get a little more complicated. Javascript is present on almost every functional website , and it allows websites to be dynamic and interactive. It's the language web developers use to create websites that respond to the user's commands and movements. And Javascript can actually give you the power to change the HTML and CSS on a website. It's like the puppet master. For example, with Javascript, you can do the following: Play a preview when your cursor hovers over a video Play an animation when you scroll down Make a menu pop out when you hit a button on the keyboard Make keyboard shortcuts for your site Create a moving photo gallery so users can switch between slides And the list goes on... How do these three all work together? A brief example: so if you have an online fashion store and the first thing you get on your website is a pop up "10% off if you sign up today," that is Javascript. Whereas HTML is the price, sizes, description, picture of item etc, and CSS will be how your online store looks, the colours, typeface, image size, boards and more. Now that you know the difference between HTML, CSS and Javascript and how they help one another, we have some essential tips for starting to plan your website. And remember, this is a process, one you can truly enjoy! 8 tips you've got to follow to build a website from scratch: 1. Pick! Choose what you want to put into practice, like writing a CV, Portfolio, or landing page about a particular service offering. 2. Would you please not focus on how it looks at this stage? Take that pressure right off! You will get to "glow up" your website soon, but you just need to get the structure and content sorted at this stage. 3. Rough it! There's a reason for the word draft; it's a rough copy of your brilliant idea soon to come to full fruition. Think of it as a rough diamond soon to be polished. 4. Think about the structure You can always look at other websites you like for inspiration but keep it simple to start with. For example, think of where you want the main navigation to be and what you want in the footer. Honestly, many of us developers just grab a pen and paper and quickly draw to imagine the basic layout (many of us still draw worse than 7-year-olds, so don't expect a masterpiece; you don't need it here). 5. Practice your copywriter skills You can totally add some filler lorem ipsum at this moment, buuuut if you feel your creative juices flowing, just roughly write them out. This will save you from going back as the text will be there, ready and waiting. Also, if you, for example, choose to practice your Portfolio, think about a few lines regarding what you do and who you are and the areas you work and your work and education experience. 6. Check some design references beforehand. Do some visual inspiration research . When it comes to CSS, you'll have to think about the design itself, like width, height, margin, padding, position, background colour, font size, etc. So we recommend you visit some websites you like as a reference point or benchmark to have a clearer visual concept. 7. Do it by watching our webinar :) Allow us to assist you! Trust us, it's way easier, and we are really friendly :). So we are sure that the learning experience will be fun and easy to absorb rather than reading and trying everything yourself. Our webinar is almost like a private class , and you will be done in just 60 minutes ! 8. Celebrate! Oooh yeah, ya did it! Whatever it looks like, you have taken a giant leap! And so to make this process more enjoyable, it's time you celebrated! Glass of wine? Boogie in your room to your favourite song? Hug someone you love? Whatever it is, we strongly encourage it! So now that you've read this article and know a thing or two about building a website from scratch, maybe you're thinking, “this is interesting”, “I like this”, “I could do this as a job”. Think of all the celebrating you'll get to do. But in all honesty, you can make a serious career out of this and become a total pro (trust us, you'll be in high demand!). So if you're dreaming big and want to become a master in Web Development, check our Bootcamps here !

In an industry like technology where everything evolves at a dizzying pace, the roles and profiles demanded by companies are constantly quickly changing to adapt to new circumstances. For this very reason, the responsibilities once separated between the front-end developer and the back-end developer have merged over time, creating what we now know to be a full-stack developer. While both front and back-end developer roles still exist and are in high demand, this combination is the perfect choice for those who like both responsibilities and want to work with both. However, being a full stack developer comes with new duties and tasks; before you decide if that’s the right job for you, let’s cover the profile of a full-stack developer, what you’ll need to know, and our tips to choosing the right role for you. Is full-stack web development for me? Not sure if full-stack development is the right path for you? No worries; we’re going to cover exactly what makes it a good fit so you can make the best possible choice: If you’re interested in aspects of both the front and back end and can’t seem to make up your mind, full-stack might be for you. If you like working with the full lifespan of a project , overseeing it as a whole instead of working on just one part, full-stack could be perfect. If you like handling team dynamics and APIs , in addition to programming languages, full-stack development is probably the best choice. The Full-Stack Developer Profile This role is much newer than others in the field of development and its exact profile is still being curated, it’s already a popular role within the industry. And although many think that a full stack developer has to know how to do all the work required of front and back-end developers, that’s not entirely true. After all, if this were true, then those separate roles wouldn’t exist. What differentiates this role from the rest of the profiles that exist in the technology industry? Here’s the key: it’s not that they know how to do everything, but that they know how to understand everything, both what happens on the client side (what users see) and on the server side (the areas internet users can’t access, such as databases). And not only that, but every full-stack developer worth their salt must have the communication skills necessary to work closely with the rest of the developers on the team. To acquire the skills of this role and those demanded by the market, a developer must study the following: Diverse programming languages that cover both front and back-end responsibilities Different environments that are needed by both the front and back end Certain technologies and frameworks both in the front and back end Front-End Programming Languages and Frameworks One of the most common tasks in the tech industry today is taking great care of what customers see and offering them a user experience that is as refined as possible so that they feel comfortable interacting with the web or the application they are using at all times. Thankfully, there are lots of tools that exist to help front-end developers excel in this area: Technologies such as HTML and CSS , although sometimes seen as basic, are essential knowledge for any skilled full-stack developer, and are joined by many other frameworks and libraries whose use is increasingly widespread. Frameworks such as React , Angular, or Vue.js have gained prominence in the development world in recent years. Given JavaScript’s front and back-end capabilities , experts strongly believe that it’s the language that will end up dominating in the near future, making it essential knowledge for all aspiring full-stack developers. Back-End Programming Languages and Frameworks We see something similar happening on the back-end. JavaScript is trumping all competitors (even Java!);  although Java is still being used by several companies, it’s facing a new challenge: adapting to the new industry model. To ensure that they’re not left behind, aspiring full-stack developers should learn how to use Node.js , which allows a programming language such as JavaScript to be executed on the back-end. More and more developers are supporting its use as it becomes increasingly widespread, and even more so with the development of other tools such as Express on the server side. Database management is another area of the back-end of which a full-stack web developer must have advanced knowledge. Let’s discuss: Practice adding new elements to a database and interacting with them Learn how to perform certain queries and show the user the result (a frequent responsibility of full-stack developers!) Review both relational and non-relational groups (the two different databases on the market) such as MongoDB, MySQL, or SQLServer. Learning How to Use Git We know we’ve placed it towards the bottom, but Git is one of the requirements that companies value most when hiring a new developer. Nowadays, every full stack developer must know how to work with a version control software and the most widespread is Git and its cloud counterpart, GitHub. These allow development teams to keep track of their progress and functionalities and, in addition, let each of its members complete their work without interrupting the rest of the team. Everything is then put in a common area so that the product as a whole works properly when it goes into production. Developers are responsible for lots of tasks, but sometimes the simplest are the most important; there are many actions that involve greater risks and that require more knowledge, but creating a repository , uploading it to the Internet, and being able to work with it is one of the simplest and most essential tasks that a developer faces. If you are serious about becoming a developer, and a full-stack developer specifically, consider taking the steps to learn about Git and start practicing. We hope that we’ve summed up full-stack development, what it is, and if it’s the right choice for you. Now it’s up to you: find which area is best for you and get started on your web development journey. If you’re still unsure, no worries; this decision comes later in your career and you can start learning web development and see what you’re drawn to with Ironhack’s Web Development Bootcamp to take the next step on your journey to becoming a full-stack developer.

From Ironhack, we always encourage our students during their bootcamps to be on the lookout for new business and career opportunities. Álvaro Moya is an entrepreneur, has 8 years of experience as CTO and he is the founder of Lidr , a community of leaders in the tech world. Through events, workshops, resources and training, Lidr coaches professionals in tech to acquire the skills to grow and develop personally and professionally. In this article, he explains the so-called entrepreneurial mindset : an attitude towards work that applies to any person in the digital environment, regardless of their position, years of experience or industry. I have met more than 200 entrepreneurs in my professional life, been a consultant and worked with them hand by hand. Each person and each business is different, of course; however, it is possible to identify similar characteristics in all of them. These attitudes and leadership skills are transferable to anyone in the workforce , they are not exclusive for entrepreneurs and will make you stand out when doing a job interview or launching your own company and talking to investors. Business vision : This is the ability to talk about business and understand the needs of the company. Whether you are a CTO or a junior developer, you need to see beyond your daily tasks. Yes, tech experts are able to “talk to computers” but it’s crucial that they see the company from a holistic perspective that allows them to make the right decisions and talk to CEOs and other stakeholders. Ownership : entrepreneurs are pursuing their dreams. Passion is their driving force and responsibility is the consequence, since they are risking a lot. Money is not everything for entrepreneurs, they don’t seek stability or comfort but solving a problem in the market and making a long-term scalable business out of it. It is important to have full ownership of the company, that’s why it’s crucial that entrepreneurs have technical skills: they need to learn as fast as they can, ask when they don’t know and get their hands dirty to try new things. Ownership means thinking in the long run and learning whatever is necessary to get there. Autonomy : Self-motivation is not always easy, but it’s the key to success. Whether it's learning new things, growing or developing soft skills, motivation should be internal and it’s part of every professional journey. Resilience is the fuel that keeps people focused on their final objective; no matter how many times they fail, they get back up and see the connection between what they are doing today with their long-term goals. This is the true root of optimism, it’s not that things always go well but the strong conviction that there is a bigger cause to work for. Customer centric : Digital solutions are built for real people. Without empathy, it is impossible to understand what is not working, both from a technical and human aspect. Whether you are managing a team, you are an entrepreneur or you are a junior professional in tech, having the customer at the center will lead you to find the right solutions. This mindset also makes teams more effective, since they work together for a common goal: solving problems to make other people’s lives better. Continuous improvement : Seeking for perfection means understanding that things can always be improved. This attitude comes together with a lean startup methodology to get things done: lean startup is the management method to experiment, test and iterate in the process of product development. At the heart of every decision and every project, there should be a focus on measurement and learning. This attitude allows teams to iterate quick and fast, perfection is the final goal and the way to go there is step by step. It may seem that these skills are something leaders are born with, but the truth is that all this can be learned. Thanks to agile methodologies applied to workshops, specific training for entrepreneurs or even working in your own projects, these skills are teachable and can be put into practice today - regardless of your current position at the company. Collaborative tools such as Miro or Figma allow people to work in teams, to understand each other and to identify their pain points to keep developing the entrepreneurial mindset. If you are an entrepreneur and want to develop tech skills, check out our bootcamps in UX UI Design , Web Development , Data Analytics and Cybersecurity . If, on the other hand, you are part of a tech company and are looking to hire tech talent or upskilling your workforce, check our Enterprise solutions .

Data is all around us, and it's kind of crazy to imagine what it must have been like to store it all manually in filing cabinets before the digital age came in to make it all easier for us. Luckily, now we have databases (YAY!), but wait, how do we pull the information we need or want from these databases with as little fuss as possible? Drumroll, please… Enter, SQL! But before we dive into SQL and why it's handy... What is Data Analytics? Data analytics is growing more and more in popularity as more businesses move to gathering and storing all their data online, so it's a pretty big deal, especially in the world of business, or governance etc. As you are most probably aware, data is being collected all the time, yet in its raw form, this data will leave you scratching your head because it won't make sense. This is where data analytics comes in: it allows companies to pull out, edit and add specific data they are searching for . This helps such companies or organisations to draw insights and make the most informed decisions for their next strategic move. Data analysts are much sought after because they are able to organise and categorise this data to make it interpretable and therefore usable, and they speak SQL. Btw in case you were wondering, data analysis and data science are two different fields . Data science is more multidisciplinary as it combines statistics, scientific methods, artificial intelligence (AI) and more to extract value from data. Plus they use a range of tools like  smartphones, sensors, websites and more to interpret data. How is data analysis used in the real world? Generally speaking, data analysis can be used infinitely depending on what information is being looked for, yet more specifically, it's used to make better, faster and business decisions to reduce overall business costs and develop new and innovative products and services. For example, it could predict future sales or purchasing behaviours, security purposes as it helps to protect against fraud, analyse the effectiveness of marketing campaigns or increase supply chain efficiency. First steps into SQL: What is it and what is it for? SQL stands for Structured Query Language and is pronounced as Sequel. This is the language used in data analysis to communicate with data ! Three key things to know about SQL Suppose you're in sales, marketing, business etc. SQL is probably the one coding language you should learn as most companies have an online presence and are collecting data. So the more you know how to communicate this data, the better you can pull and analyse and the better you are at your job! If this is you, you can pop into our webinar to learn the basics of Data Analytics ! SQL languages have syntax variations . Different companies follow different databases sets, they are only slight variations, but it is essential to be aware of them. SQL only communicates with relational databases . So any database with a tabular organisation (with rows and columns). This leads us to our next point. SQL and RDBMS RDBMS stands for Relational Database Management System. This drastically helps to organise data so that it can easily be extracted and analysed. Let us break it down even further so you really know what it means. It's a system that manages data organised in tables and the relations between them. Let's break it down again. When we talk about systems we mean RDBMS can store many different kinds of data for many different kinds of applications in one place .  For example, if we are talking about a sale, there is a table or dataset for the sale information, one for customer information and the other for the sales item or inventory; therefore, there is a relation between these data sets. Key benefits of RDBMS: System : can store many styles of data for multiple applications Manager : stores, indexes, keep safes, backups Data : all data can be stored but mostly numbers and strings Tables : organised in columns and rows Relationation : patterns between different values in columns and tables are linked together. So, why RDBMS? Because it’s an effective and reliable way to store information as the basis for online transaction processing systems, and these are systems that keep businesses running. RDBMS are applied in corporate administration and accounting, banking and insurance systems, government data, point of service (POS) and E-commerce systems, and the list goes on. And of course, all the data gathered in these systems are used in the analytics environment to generate insights, but you first need to access such data. And how do we do that?...Through SQL, which speaks to RDBMS! Some key terms in SQL A SQL query allows you to query (investigate) a specific piece of information. Tables Tables are the database objects that hold the data in the relational databases . SQL can be applied to programs like Python or even a simple excel spreadsheet. In SQL lingo, a Column is a field, and a Row is a record, and finally, there is an entity that is the smallest unit that contains a meaningful set of data. An entity is also known as the dataset object . With SQL, the best way to learn is by giving it a go! Yet, here are some quick terms to get you familiar with the lingo. Select, from and where If you are looking to query something, the term "select" always comes first and is eventually followed by "from" . The "where" term allows you to filter out rows that you do now want to have in your search results. Here is a quick example of what it could look like if we were to be using a student database: Select: “*’” or the specific field eg. (student_name_dateofbirth) From: (table name) e.g Student Where: date of birth = (select max ( date of birth) from student) By the way, aside from the equal "=" sign you can use does not equal to "<>" or is greater than "<" ; the list goes on, and you change this based on what you are looking for. When you want to merge two or more tables or datasets, you can use the "join" statement that puts two different tables together side by side based on a shared value; the term joins usually appears after from but before the where statement. For example; From table_1 join table_2 Union Finally, we will mention one more! The “union” term matches columns from top to bottom . This union statement usually sits between two select statements . The union can only occur on columns with the exact same column names and columns that have the same data type. To continue learning more about the basics of Data Analytics and SQL , watch our webinar below: powered by Crowdcast All in all, getting into data analytics can be super interesting and satisfying once you get the hang of it, it's like going on treasure hunts! And if you’re really interested in becoming a serious data analyst pro, want to build your career or seriously widen your job prospects look no further than our insightful Data Analytics Bootcamp!

There isn’t a business out there that doesn’t rely on data in some way. At least…no successful business that doesn’t rely on data! They may handle it with an in-house team, or they might outsource it to a data or consultancy agency. Either way, Data Engineers, Data Scientists, and Data Analysts are the secret superheroes behind the world’s most powerful and impactful tech. But what do they do exactly? The Role of Data In Business Let’s start by looking at what data means to a business. Because it’s not just spreadsheets and targets. Data flows through a business like a stream through a forest, nourishing everything it touches. Or that’s the goal at least! Basically, data is meant to do a lot of different things: Assist leadership in making business decisions Provide key insights for marketing teams, such as customer profiles and channel metrics Measure the success of the business, and provide insight on new avenues for expansion Track employee performance, on a team and individual level Help Product Managers and Product Marketing Managers to launch new products Help Designers to test their User Interfaces In reality, this barely scratches the surface of data’s vital role in business. Research shows that data-driven businesses enjoy more success than their data-blind counterparts , in a number of different ways. As such, there has never been a better time to start a career in data, and the demand for data professionals such as Data Analysts, Data Scientists, and Data Engineers is growing rapidly. But you’re probably wondering what the difference is between these roles, and how the skills needed to land these jobs differ. The Differences Between a Data Engineer, a Data Scientist, and a Data Analyst It is quite common to get confused between data science and data analytics , and to be unsure of how they both relate to data engineering. Naturally, there are some fundamental differences between these three positions. A Data Analyst needs to process and interpret data. A Data Scientist needs to be able to build and develop tools that process information. A Data Engineer needs to be able to build programs or systems that can take data and turn it into insights. Let's take a look at each role in a little more depth. What does a Data Analyst do? To put it simply, a Data Analyst ’s job is to take data and make it easy to understand. They take what looks like an incomprehensible jumble of numbers and transform them into actionable insights, allowing teams to make decisions. Knowing which landing page of a website performs best in terms of SEO, for example, or knowing how many users leave a web page immediately after visiting can be very helpful in deciding the next steps for a content marketing strategy. What are the key skills and responsibilities for a Data Analyst? So now we want to know exactly what it takes to become a Data Analyst. The skills needed for this role include: Statistical knowledge and numerical skills Technical skills, including Python and SQL Knowledge of popular data tools, like Tableau and Heap Machine learning Reporting and data visualization Cross-functional communication When it comes to responsibilities , a data analyst is responsible for gathering data and compiling it in various reports. This may be based on factors such as time-frame and activity. They are also responsible for interpreting this information. They can then translate it into logical, meaningful, and applicable reports for their coworkers. They may also be responsible for the internal data infrastructure of the organization, especially in a startup - though in an ideal world this is the responsibility of a Data Engineer. This role is a great starting point for anyone who is interested in a data career, and it’s often the first step anyone takes when breaking into the field. Even if your ambitions are to take your data career far, a Data Analyst role gives you a great foundation. What does a Data Engineer do? A data engineer develops and maintains data architecture. They are specialists in preparing large datasets so that they can be used by analysts. Where an analyst needs to interpret information, an engineer needs to build programs that can generate data into a meaningful layout. If data is a tool, think of a Data Engineer as a person who looks after the factory, making sure that all of the tools are nicely organized and everyone can find exactly the right tool they need. What are the key skills and responsibilities for a Data Engineer? Keeping an entire organization’s data in check is no small feat. So it requires certain skills… Coding languages (SQL, Python, Ruby, Java, and others) Knowledge of database systems ( Bigtable , or Cassandra ) Data Analytics skills Machine learning Working with both structured and unstructured data is a key component for someone in this role. Therefore, expertise in SQL is a key skill required. Tasks such as data deduplication, data management, and data cleaning are also important for a Data Engineer. Anyone in this role needs strong programming skills and knowledge of algorithms. Building an API may be among their responsibilities, for instance, or developing a cloud infrastructure. It is a very technical function, and good knowledge of engineering and testing tools is also required. A Data Engineer is responsible for developing and maintaining data pipelines. They generally need to develop processes around data modeling and data generation. This requires creative thinking and strong problem-solving ability. Applying standard practices in data management to the needs of the business is also a crucial responsibility. What does a Data Scientist do? This person performs advanced statistical analyses and studies large datasets. They need in-depth knowledge of machine learning and data conditioning, it’s true. But you may be surprised to learn that according to real Data Scientists , communication is actually the most important part of the job. What are the key skills and responsibilities for a Data Scientist? So what does a Data Scientist skill set look like? Statistical analysis Data wrangling Programming languages (SQL, Python, Ruby) Deep Learning and Machine Learning Communication and data visualization Big Data A data scientist is responsible for tasks such as data transformation and cleaning. They work to identify and categorize various patterns in data as well as to develop machine-learning algorithms to be more accurate and efficient. They need to understand the needs of the company or team they are working with in order to transform and order large datasets as required. Data Training and Education A career in data, whether as an Analyst, Scientist, or Engineer, is always a great idea and a safe bet for anyone interested in the discipline. That’s because businesses run on data, and that’s not something that’s going to change any time soon. Data is not just its own discipline, but a core skill for countless different professions, like Marketers, Designers, Consultants…Basically if you walk into any office, you can bet every single person in there needs data skills! The tech industry is crying out for a constant and fresh supply of talented data professionals. Could that be you? At Ironhack’s Data Analytics bootcamp , you get all of the skills you need to build a career in whichever branch of Data excites you the most. You’ll get hands-on training which will give you the experience you need to ace your first Data interviews. Speaking of interviews, you’ll have a dedicated Outcomes Manager and Career Services to make sure your transition to your new career goes as smoothly as possible. Forget the messy middle of job hunting! Check out our Data Analytics bootcamp for more information (and hopefully inspiration too!)

If anyone knows about using ingenuity and invention to solve little problems, it’s Ignacio Moreno Pubul , aka Guli, one of the co-founders of Capchase , a start-up funding platform for founders that closed a $125 million Series A funding round in June 2021. That's only part of the story. Guli had no prior formal experience as an entrepreneur or in venture capitalism and was classically trained as an aerospace engineer. He moved from a short stint in aircraft to become a developer, then product manager. Building Capchase was part ingenuity, part timing, and a total leap of faith. But the foundation for Guli’s success as an entrepreneur was always present from his childhood, lying just beneath the surface. “Ever since I was a kid, I always wanted to be an inventor.  It was about finding problems that I hadn’t solved. When I was little, I invented this thing with my younger brother. We slept in bunk beds so [at night] we always had this fight about who would get up to turn off the light. I dis-assembled a radio-controlled car and used the controller to make a switch that would turn off the light from my bed.” Guli’s unique upbringing accelerated his problem-solving prowess and introduced him to new ideas, cultures, and communities, expanding his view of what was possible.  Before the age of 18, Guli’s family moved around to different parts of Spain and he even spent some time in the U.S. His father, Juan, is a Colonel in the Spanish Navy. His family, which includes his mother, Natalia, and his two brothers, Luis and Álvaro, lived in Ferrol, San Fernando, Madrid, and Marlton, New Jersey. Moving and living in four different cities helped Guli adapt quickly to his environment. That skill, coupled with his lifelong passion for building things, helped shape his future. Turning his Passion Into a Career When his family was getting ready to relocate to Brussels, Belgium, Guli stayed in Madrid to pursue his bachelor’s degree in aerospace engineering at the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. After graduating in the top 10% of his class, Guli took his first job. As an intern at Airbus Group in Getafe, Spain, he worked in the main hangar on the company’s state-of-the-art transport aircraft. It was a rich experience with a leading actor in the industry, but Guli soon felt at odds with the slow pace that often comes with large organizations. “I love aerospace but I didn’t love the aerospace industry. My short stint at Airbus was fun and the company makes really good aircraft, but the industry felt slow. It seemed tough to innovate and move fast because of the regulations.” While relatively short, Guli’s experience at Airbus Group triggered him to pursue other avenues and he was attracted to start-ups, which were just beginning to take off in Spain. He took a job with Geoblink, a software as a solution (SaaS)-based location management platform for the retail industry, as a summer data science intern in July 2016. The company had just received funding and had a staff of about 15 people. There, Guli met two of the other three founders of Capchase, Miguel Fernández and Luis Basagoiti and made a decision that changed his trajectory: attending the part-time web development bootcamp at Ironhack Madrid. “I used to do a lot of extra-curricular stuff related to entrepreneurship even when I was working. It was always a path. As an intern and software engineer, I was really interested in inventing and I wanted to build something. I wanted to learn to build web applications because it was super clear to me that web-based services were going to be extremely important if I ever wanted to put a product out there. Software development was the closest thing you could get to being an inventor. It was different than back in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, when you needed to be a mechanical and electrical engineer to build something physical." The journey to become a web developer Guli learned of a scholarship for Ironhack with Spanish sneaker-maker Pompeii. Guli applied for the scholarship at Ironhack Madrid and won, using the three months of intense learning around web development. “I saw Ironhack as an opportunity to gain freedom, where I could do my own side projects. It was complementary to what I was learning at my job. The bootcamp at Ironhack Madrid helped me move faster to being independent and able to build stuff.” Ironhack also gave Guli something beyond web development skills. “I learned to learn about software engineering at Ironhack. It gave me the tools to grow on my own in this space and be able to build products and solve problems. I learned independence to code my own solutions. After Ironhack, I understood how things worked.” Ironhack gave Guli new skills and critical learning that rounded out his abilities, but that wasn’t all. Just as valuable, he also became part of a tight-knit community. “The Ironhack community is great. I met a lot of cool people in Spain. At Capchase, we’ve hired Ironhackers (the informal name given to anyone who has graduated from the Ironhack program). Everybody helps each other. You can easily reach out via social media. I’ve had conversations with aspiring entrepreneurs who just wanted to share ideas.” Life After the Web Development Bootcamp Guli’s time with Ironhack gave him the platform to catapult his career track at Geoblink. After becoming a software engineer, he went on to be a product manager at the intersection of business, tech and design . After three years, Guli applied to the University of California, Berkeley, where he planned to get a MBA. But then the pandemic hit, pausing his plans. He met with Luis and Miguel, his buddies from his Geoblink days, and he was introduced to Przemek Gotfryd, an expert in venture capital and private equity funds. The group started to talk seriously about their future plans. Their discussions turned into brainstorms for a new company. It was at one of these meetings that Capchase was born. “We started to share ideas around problems we had suffered being [software as a service] SaaS operators. One of the biggest things any SaaS company has to do is fundraise to keep a healthy cash balance, but traditional VC equity rounds can be expensive. We saw a big opportunity to help companies grow and finance themselves through their future revenues. We studied the idea of future cash flow that’s predictable. You can understand where you can grow and when. Today, we look at what start-ups are going to earn over a year and give money to the founders today to use. Capchase takes a fee.” According to an article in Techcrunch , the model appears to be working. Since launching, Capchase has issued more than $390 million in financing to more than 400 companies and expects to grow by 400 percent over the next six months. “The cool thing about start-ups is that you build from scratch and change how things work in a certain industry. You can have a lot of impact from the get-go. If you join the right company at the right stage, you can have responsibility that might take years to get otherwise.” A cool thing, indeed. Capchase may be an example of a perfect storm. It was incorporated one year ago and the founders, who has left their jobs or were planning to leave their jobs to start MBA programs, started to build immediately. “We used a small proof of concept and raised $5 million in summer 2020. We dropped our dreams of Harvard and Berkeley and started selling the idea in September 2020. We were able to scale quickly. Since then, the space has grown a lot. The pandemic was a tailwind because SaaS started growing.” The young inventor has made his childhood dream come true, harnessing the right industry, with a strong team and quick execution. Guli and his founding partners at Capchase are now helping other entrepreneurs worldwide realize their dreams. It’s a true testament to what Guli has always loved, solving little problems inside a big day. Now is the time. Join Ironhack to launch your career in the tech industry. Click here to see all our courses , our remote options and our international campus locations .

Have you noticed how many of the things you experience have been carefully planned for your comfort? We live surrounded by user experiences, both in the analog and digital world. It is very rare for a product to not be designed based on a reflection of our behavior with a service, on the way in which we seek information, or on our perception. UX/UI Design is the future, being that the UX and UI profiles are among the most demanded jobs today, with an annual growth of 18% according to several studies. But these acronyms can be undecipherable if you’re not in the know. Read on to find out all about what UX/UI Designers do to make your customer experience a stellar time that you won’t forget easily. Who knows, maybe you're even the next great UX/UI Designer of the future... What is a UX/UI Designer? A UX/UI Designer is a professional dedicated to finding an easy, intuitive, and friendly way to solve a problem based on the tastes, needs, and opinions of the users of a product or service. In other words, they’re the person in charge of designing the experience of a client and making sure it’s optimal. Before continuing, it is important to differentiate between UX and UI, two disciplines that are often confused, probably because they work hand in hand, overlapping often, and because of the similarity of their acronyms. In this context, UI, or User Interface , refers to the creation of the interface, which can be visual or developed mainly with languages ​​such as HTML, CSS, or JavaScript. The design choices made when creating an interface are determinant in achieving simplicity, clarity and sympathy. If the website design is confusing or hard to read, the user will run away! The UI Designer is, therefore, primarily responsible for the visual aspect of the interface and deciding the user’s journey. UX, or User Experience , focuses on usability and what the user’s experience throughout the process will be like, focusing on analysis and social relationships. All the touchpoints between user and website are taken into consideration to ensure that the customer has a great time, fully satisfying their quest and having their needs met. The UX Designer focuses on ensuring that the navigation and actions performed by the user are consistent, handling the processes and actions triggered by the user. So, in short: the professional in charge of the UI will focus on the design of the product, impacting the first visual impression of the user, while the person in charge of the UX focuses on usability and easy navigation, creating certain emotions and sensations when using the interface. Skills of a UX/UI Designer Tasks as important as creating experiences that meet the needs of customers, improving the perception of the brand, and creating a solid link with their products often fall into the hands of the UX/UI Designer. Think for a moment about applications like Netflix or Spotify, tools like Google Sheets or Zapier, and digital products like Google Home or Philips Hue. Behind each and every one of them there is an immense amount of user experience work, with the aim of creating an easy, intuitive, efficient, and beautiful application. Creativity, empathy, and listening skills are some of the most important characteristics that a good UX Designer must have in order to soak up the user's context, the processes they undertake in their day-to-day life, and their needs. Being a good observer is also essential to notice those details that escape us at first glance when using an application, without neglecting business and communication skills, the latter being essential. Working on a good relationship with the rest of the team is essential, as well as researching everything related to usability and learning about new software and technical solutions and trends that pop up. The Many Facets of UX/UI Design Depending on the size of the team, a UX/UI professional may need to develop into a certain role. One of these roles is the UX Researcher , who is in charge of analyzing users and helping them understand them by asking who they are, studying their behaviors, and focusing on their needs through interviews, surveys, and research. User experience maps, usability assessments, and analytics reports are often their main projects. The UX Writer , then, is responsible for knowing and defining communication with the user, studying their language to learn how the product should speak in order to connect with the client. The tone and the strategy of communication are usually their tasks, defining the content creation strategy and its presentation to the user. Another path of specialization is that of Service Design , which seeks to create or improve existing services with the aim of making them more usable, useful, and desirable, as well as more effective. Those who are dedicated to this work pursue the goal of having the best available service in the eyes of both the consumer and the company. Whatever the final destination of a user experience designer may be, vacancies in the sector have grown by up to 560% in recent years, a finding that shows, unequivocally, that user experience professionals are essential with companies becoming increasingly aware of the importance of designing the best digital experiences. Resources To Get Started In UX/UI With it being such a wide and flexible professional field, you’d be hard pressed to not find yourself fitting in one of the specializations related to UX/UI. Although caring about the customer experience is the one prevalent quality, roles like Web Design and UX Strategist require radically different skill sets. Betting on practical and quality training is essential to enter the field, although we want to leave you some initial recommendations to get you started. Check out this list of eight must-read UX/UI books , with great insight on design and user experience and brilliant professional advice. Trying an introductory course on Domestika or Coursera, watching videos on channels like UXTips, learning these top UX principles or getting to know these top prototyping tools are also some great ways to know more about UX/UI Design. Determined to become a UX/UI designer? Then check out the UX/UI design bootcamp here at Ironhack, where you will adopt the leading mentality of the technology industry and learn to use the most cutting-edge product tools to bring your digital products to life. If you want to completely transform the way people and brands interact, you have found your place. Ready to change your life? Apply now!

The concept of user experience (UX) is crucial when it comes to web design. It is a user-focused way to approach the design and layout of digital products whether they are desktop websites, mobile sites or apps. The main role of UX design is to solve problems and make the life of the user easier. Websites should flow easily from one page to the next and be intuitive to navigate in order to provide a smooth user experience. Factors such as page load speed, consistency and clarity are crucial for developing a solid digital product. There are various UX principles that can help guide the creative process from idea to execution. Below are some of the top UX principles every designer should know. Usability First - UX Principles for Great User Experience The key here is to keep the end-user in mind when designing a website. Whether it is an e-commerce shop website, a university homepage or the website for a yoga studio, the purpose of any website you are designing is key to developing a smooth user experience. Implementing a clear hierarchy from the home-page to other pages is one of the most-used principles in UX design. Using a tree-like structure that branches from the main home page at the top to other primary pages and down to less important but perhaps more specific pages is the best approach in many cases. Hierarchy Principle The hierarchy of a website is something that needs to be planned in advance before the design and building process begins. It is worth collecting all of the information required for the website and breaking it down into sections and parts in a tree-type layout. If the flow is natural, the hierarchy should be almost undetectable for the user. Flow Principle Developing websites that flow well for the user is much more important than implementing overly complex, impressive flows. It is best to put the user in control and let them browse or use a website in their own way. There are plenty of complex web frameworks available, but the best model for the job depends on the website and the needs of the business, plus the experience of the user. What will they use it for? Is it clear that the help centre is accessible from the lower-left corner, for example? A shop website will need to have quite a different layout to an artist’s website or a university website. In many cases, using a breadcrumb trail along the top left of the screen will help with navigation from "main" pages to smaller, more specific pages. It also lets the user quickly and easily travel back to previously-visited pages. This is just one feature that can be implemented in web design to aid user navigation. What Is the Purpose of the Website? Some websites need to provide a huge amount of information, while others may need to be easily shoppable. The purpose of the website and how the user will interact with it should be at the top of a designer’s mind when designing, building and testing a website. Keep It Simple This UX principle applies to language, the terminology used on the site and also typography. Typography or text-style truly tells a story visually and has an impact on user experience. Using a font or typography that is clear, easy to read and fits with the brand’s identity and style guide is another important element in user experience. Using a simple style that suits the overall purpose of the website is recommended. Many brands and companies will have their own guidelines on this. The job of the UX designer may be related to sizing, resizing and aligning the typeface so that the on-page information is easy to read and browse. Using a simple overall layout and keeping pages uncluttered also leads to great UX design. Less Is More That leads us on to the "less is more" principle. Sometimes in web design, it can be hugely beneficial to simply scale things back and simplify the information on a given web page, especially on primary website pages. More specific pages may require a higher level of detail or information, but first impressions are important and the structure or layout of a site should be easily browsable. Links should be clearly labeled, and information should be clearly laid out. Avoid filling web pages with too much information, images and other elements. This will also help with page load times. Navigation doesn't have to be overly complex and the journey from primary pages to deeper, more specific pages should be clear and simple. Build a Prototype Before You Build the Real Product Aside from layout and navigation, a website needs to function effectively. This means links lead to the correct landing pages, quick page-speeds, videos and images load instantly, there are no broken links and users have the option to go "back" easily; nobody likes clicking "back" on a shop website only to find their basket has been emptied in doing so, for instance. These elements should be incorporated throughout the UX design process, and everything should ideally be tested before the website goes live . This means building a prototype. Test UX Principles With a Prototype A prototype should be as close as possible in appearance, structure and functionality to the real thing. If possible, maybe test the prototype with real users. This provides valuable, in-depth information about how they browse and experience the website. Are all features accessible and visible in a single session? Can the user find everything they need and complete their tasks with ease? Prototyping is an important principle in UX design and is generally one of the final steps in the design process. Some UX tools offer the option to test a prototype with real-time, anonymous users which can help you put this UX principle into practice. Study UX/UI Design These are just a few of the most important UX design principles. If you would like to learn UX/UI Design and delve into the fundamentals of web design, check out our UX/UI Bootcamp and our upcoming courses!

The Ironhack Podcast, hosted by Tim Stephens and Dan Parry, brings a unique perspective into the tech world. If you are interested in finding out how people transform their lives through technology and education, this podcast is for you. Through interviews with experts and amateurs in tech, The Ironhack Podcast makes technology accessible to everyone and brings amazing stories about empowerment, learning, and transformation. In 2020, Tim and Dan left their jobs and studied an Ironhack's Web Development bootcamp , after which they started their own podcast - just because it was fun and they wanted to create a cool community through it. They are now working as developers in Berlin and they have continued producing this podcast about education, tech, and personal development, with the support and guidance of Ironhack. The Ironhack Podcast: Chapters #16 to #37 #37 - From coffee to coding w/Jessica Greene Jessica shares her journey from coffee roasting to coding at the eco-friendly search engine - Ecosia . We also talk about how to navigate pay negotiations and the great work done by groups like PyLadies to help address diversity in tech. #36 - The self taught dev w/Roman Frolov From teaching himself code while working in a bar to senior software engineer. Roman shares his inspirational story of self-learning and hard work to make himself a career in tech. #35 - What is web3? w/Arseny Akinfiev From international politics to self-taught web3 tech lead, Asrney walks us through his journey to where he is today and explains how web3 is shaping the future of tech. #34 - What's your favourite JS library w/Yoseob Shin Our old classmate Yo joins us to share his opinion on today's JS library landscape. Tim and I ramble on about AI in video games,   if you need math to be a good developer and we do our best impressions. #33 - What's next for a career in UX? w/Milan Vukelić Milan shares what made his time as Ironahck Berlin's lead UX /UI teacher so memorable and what makes the Ironahck community so special. We also take a dive into what UX/UI is and how to take hte next steps in your design career after graduating! #32 - The journey to a new life w/Juan Cuadra Since graduating in 2017, Juan has built a successful career in tech - Today he shares his journey from Nicaragua to Barcelona and back again. Along with some advise to anyone following in Juan's footsteps, we talk game development, VR and Ironhack projects... #31 - Becoming a portfolio professional w/Ben Legg CEO & Co-founder of the Portfolio-Collective Ben Legg talks us through what it means to build a portfolio career and how to identify your monetizable skills. In the age of the digital nomad and freelancing tech wizards, a portfolio career has never made more sense. #30 - How tech helped us w/Marina Pereda Lockdown was a tricky time for us all but technology was there help us through. This week Dan is joined by our very own Marina Pereda to share some stories of lockdown and why its a better time than ever to start your journey at Ironhack ! #29 - From Cloud enthusiast to cloud native. Malt cloud panel discossion Tim joins Malts Head of Data, Olivier Girardot, for a deep dive into tech trends of 2021. #28 - The Biggest Bluff with Daniela Castro #27 - A secure future with Cybint and Ironhack A deeper dive into the new learning platform used for and the outcomes it has delivered for alumni so far. Sandra Boskovic , Ironhack's very own curriculum engineer tells us what is so special about the Cybint learning platform and shares some of the top job titles . #26 - An introduction to Cyber Security Pauline Didier, the teaching facilitator at our Berlin campus, give us the run down on how the course is structured, the skills it teaches students and what it takes to make it to graduation. #25 - Discovering Data with Phine & Lilla Taking the bootcamp doesn't always mean moving to a new career, the skills can be used to move you forward in your current field or just make you a better team member! In this episode we talk to two of Ironhack Berlin's data analysts students: Phine & Lilla about the Data Analytics course , their advice for new students and how they intend to use their new knowledge after graduating. #24 - Delivering Digits w/Jen Lim Jen Lim has been Director of Digital Delivery at a cinema software company for the last year and in that time she (pretty much) single handedly delivered huge monster of a project for them. In this episode, Jen joins us to chat about how the hell you do something like this as well as discussing the concept of deep work and how it can be applied to learning and working. #23 - Putting Humberto to the (COVID) test This week we chat with Humberto Buniotto about his covid testing labs, his secret underground laboratories, space launches and more. #22 - Buttering it up w/ Jakob Knutzen If you're about to start your bootcamp and you're thinking "how am gonna accomplish so much so fast?", or are interested in how to get an MVP launched to fully functioning, or how to make working from home work for you or how some of the challenges you might face getting your start up off the ground... then this is the episode for you! #21 - Bots and Us and Martin Moen This week we're joined by senior software engineer at Bots and Us, Martin Moen.  Bots and Us is a London based company with a mission to create autonomous service robots to work alongside people in public spaces. We chat to Martin about his journey into robotics and how accessible it is for junior developers (spoiler... It's very accessible) #20 - The inner circle w/ Elias Groll from CodeSphere CodeSphere is an online code editor that lets you code directly into your browser, collaborate with team members with zero configuration and devOps support behind the scenes. We tackle the serious issues of beer, coding in the cloud, why metal laptops are sexy as well as nerding out about CodeSphere . #19 - Co-operative coding w/ Joe Friel Joe Friel, founder of Yalla Co-operative, joins us this week to talk about what it's like working with a team spread across the globe. With developers, designers and producers in Europe, the UK as well as Gaza, Yalla helps non-profits and impact-driven businesses drive positive social change in the tech sphere. Join us as we grill Joe about the ups and downs of working in this world, why web developers should always be thinking about skateboards and find out if a time credit is a future currency. #18 - Women's month special! The wonderful WebDev women of Dan's cohort join us for a Women's month special to discuss their inspiring success since graduating from Ironhack. #17 - Gonzalo explains it all Ironhack's very own Co-founder and Co-CEO Gonzalo Manrique shares how it all started, what's in store for the future and some of the challenges they faced along the way. The Ironhack Podcast: Chapters 1-16 To listen to the previous chapters of the Ironhack podcast, go straight to our Spotify channel ! Also, if you would like to be interviewed in the program or if you have any feedback for us or suggestions, contact us at [email protected].

Starting a new career as a UX/UI designer is exciting. Whether you are freelancing or working with a company, it is a varied role that combines both practical and creative skills, and it also has a strong focus on problem-solving. Below are some of our top tips to help you rock your first project as a UX/UI designer. Your First UX Designer Job Newly-qualified designers actually have many advantages over more experienced designers. For starters, they tend to approach a project with fresh eyes and are not reliant on one particular, highly practised way of doing things. They tend to approach problems with a more open mind and can also offer additional insights into the user experience as they are less preoccupied with things like backend development. Many employers, managers and business owners value the fresh outlooks that new developers tend to have. They generally don’t have preconceived ideas about the best ways of doing things, which can be invaluable when working on a new project. New designers and anyone working on their first UX designer job are often more aware of the latest developments and best practices in the world of web design, as they will generally have completed an up-to-date course recently. Tip #1 - Focus on Your "Soft Skills" In any UX designer job, newly-qualified members often bring a great set of soft skills to a project, especially if they have worked in a different field previously. For example, expertise in time management and project management are two very important skills for a designer. A unique perspective plus transferable skills such as strong collaborative ability and sticking to deadlines are invaluable when working as a web developer. Be sure to bring these strengths to the fore when working on your first UX/UI designer job. Documenting and recording the web design process along the way will also go a long way in helping you learn on the job and provide a point of reference for future projects. Tip #2 - Understand Your Role and Don’t Be Afraid to Make Mistakes Be sure you are clear on your role as UX/UI designer within the project, whether that’s within a company or as a solo, freelance UX designer. The design process can vary from company to company, so it is good to specify this at the start. Let both your team-mates and management know what they can expect at each stage, and what you will need from them. Researching additional resources such as techniques for developing UX design project ideas can also be useful when getting started and can support you in your role. Knowing what is expected of you from the very start will help you begin confidently and help you to stay focused on the task at hand. Additionally, once you understand what you need to achieve, don’t be afraid to make mistakes along the way. As long as what you are doing is within the scope of your role, mistakes will simply offer opportunities for learning and development. A huge aspect of any UX designer’s job is problem-solving. There will always be issues to overcome in the development process. How you approach and handle them is what matters, and it is good to welcome ‘mistakes’ throughout the process. Most of the time they will result in greater learning and help you deliver excellent results on your first UX designer job. Tip #3 - Collaborate and Communicate With Other Team Members Stay aware of the fact that great web design is not just the job of the UX/UI designer. You will need to take other ideas on board. Whether it’s coming from the CEO of the company or a software engineer, their input can be invaluable and very helpful in implementing great web design. Testing your prototype on other colleagues and asking for their opinion at the prototype stage will also give you lots of information to work with and let you know if anything can be improved. Your primary goal is to create a website that offers an excellent experience for the user - so collecting insights from other users at this stage is worthwhile. Tip #4 - Take Feedback on Board Receiving feedback, both positive and constructive, is a great way to learn. Make the most of the collaborative process involved in web design and development, and listen to any feedback you are given. It can help you make great strides both in terms of your skills and ability as a designer and in terms of working as part of a team. Even if you are a solo freelancer , you will need to collaborate in order to undertake projects for clients, and feedback can be an invaluable source of knowledge. Requesting feedback from your project leader or co-workers will let you know how you are progressing and may give you ideas for future UX design projects. Tip #5 - Learn About the Business The role of the UX/UI designer is to create an easy-to-navigate, smooth website for the user. They should be able to browse a site comfortably and perform any online tasks or find information with ease. Understanding the overall business, goals and target audience will provide a lot of information about the type of product you need to design. Likewise, being aware of the target demographic will inform some decisions as a UX/UI designer, so it is worth researching this aspect of the business too. Learn UX/UI Design If you want to take the first steps towards a career in UX/UI design, check out our UX/UI Design Bootcamp . This will take you through User Experience and Interface Design and ensure that you are well-equipped to deliver a superb product in your first UX designer job or project.

On the occasion of Pride Day, which is celebrated on June 28th, at Ironhack we want to analyze how the technology sector takes the trans community into account in its product design processes. Satory, alumni of the Ironhack UX/UI Design bootcamp , tells us about her user experience and that for other people in the trans community: My name is Satory, and in addition to being a UX / UI designer, I am a gender-fluid non-binary trans female. If you haven't understood anything ... don't worry! It happens to most people. I explain this because trans realities are very diverse and I think they deserve to be made visible. If all this sounds very strange to you, I have left a small glossary of terms at the end of the text that may be helpful. When I started thinking about the focus of this article, my first idea was to create a list of tips and good practices to consider when designing digital products. But I think that would put aside a much more important need: that it be understood how the design of the products we use in our day-to-day affects us within the collective. So with the help of friends and colleagues we have compiled some of the situations that we find ourselves in and that should be taken into account. Situation 1: Do you really need to know my gender? I once attended a talk in which they spoke about a child who asked if this whole mess could be solved if we simply categorized by something more practical like a person’s blood type, rather than their gender. I found it brilliant. Many times, gender is only asked out of habit. But if we do decide to ask for gender, we should take into account what we want out of it and know how to ask. All the trans people we have talked to have experienced having to close an app or a form during the onboarding process because of how the issue of gender is dealt with. Two problematic situations that we usually encounter are these: They often ask about sex, when in fact what they want to know is gender. Furthermore, when offering options, it is important to avoid the “Woman / Man” binary and offer at least the “Woman / Man / Non-binary / Other / Prefer not to say” options. If what you want to know is how to address the person, you can ask more directly about their pronouns, since some people use several. You could offer a single choice or ideally a multiple choice, of "She / They / Him". It is also better not to indicate it as "Female / Neutral / Male" since it does not always coincide. Situation 2: Legal data vs. actual data We understand. There are certain processes that require that we give our legal data. But for many people, their actual information does not match with what appears in their documentation. A legal process to change name and gender today in Spain lasts a minimum of 2 years and it is normal for it to last much longer. In the case of migrants and non-binary people, the possibility of this change is not even contemplated. This means that there is a long period in the life of (almost) every trans person in which their legal data does not match their real data. During this period, unless care is taken with the way in which our personal data is collected and processed, we are highly violated and exposed. Violated because we are treated with data that is not really ours, and that can become very hurtful; and exposed because many times that data, which is very intimate, is shown to other people without our consent. An all too common example is the treatment of the name. Trans people usually have a deadname, the name we had before transitioning and choosing our own. Not everyone changes it, but that is what’s most common. And generally, we prefer that our deadname is not known. It is easy to understand the problem that arises when making, for example, a bank transfer or using Bizum if we have not been able to change our legal data. The deadname appears in the data displayed by the other party, which creates an awkward situation to say the least. Because of this, many of us choose not to use these services if we can avoid them, however convenient they may be. On the contrary, there are apps like Verse that, although they collect legal data, allow everyone to choose the name with which to show themselves. Two interesting approaches to this would be: Collect legal data, explaining the reason, and enable an option for people who wish to also register with the data that they prefer to use within the service: name, gender, pronouns, etc. Leave personal data to the choice of the user, without demanding that they be legal, and allowing change easily and as often as desired. And at some point, if the service requires it, request an identity verification explaining why, and making it clear that this data will not be visible to anyone either in the service or outside of it. Situation 3: What box do I put myself in, and what box do they put me in It may seem obvious, but if we assume that all the people who will use a certain service are normative, we are leaving out those who are not. And here we have found the most problematic situations with health-related services. The most serious case we have come across is that of the public health service program, which does not allow referrals for some essential services to trans people who have changed documentation. It is a purely technical question: the system is automated and does not allow referral, for example, to a man for gynecology, or to a woman for urology. Due to this design flaw, the only solution that these people face is to go to the emergency room to request that they be treated, even for routine check-ups, or that each time they want to make use of this service they file a claim. On the other hand, it is practically impossible to find health monitoring apps (body weight control, menstrual cycle control, breast cancer prevention, etc.) that do not assume a specific gender or separate by women and men, without giving more options, such as asking if you are undergoing any type of hormonal treatment. Here comes the question of, what box do I put myself in? For example, my body weight app calculates that I have 44% of body fat as a woman, but only 21% as a man. Obviously, none of these are right since none of them are adjusted to my situation and reality. Perhaps it would be better to enable more non-normative options, offer extra information, or ask for additional information, rather than making assumptions by gender. Situation 4: Real inclusion and face washes In order to include many people, we must try to see the entire process from their perspective. If not, we run the risk of not being inclusive towards others. Lately, some dating apps and social networks have expanded the possibility to choose different genders, with up to 27, 31, or 56 options, allowing you to choose your true gender, even if it is not binary. However, some apps leave it at that, without implementing any functionality related to this choice afterwards, and maintaining a binary operation. This is what happens in Tinder for example, which allows you to choose between almost 30 genres, but then forces you to appear in the search results of other people as a man or woman. On the contrary, there is OkCupid, which extends its functionality and improves the service by allowing searches by specific genders. Situation 5: The change of legal data Finally, if the long-awaited moment for the change of legal documentation arrives…make it easy for us! I speak here also from my own experience. Generally, the change of name and/or gender in a service is not considered, and must be done after long calls to technical service or customer service. In addition, many times the change is not made to all parts of the service. In my case, years after the change, sometimes my deadname still appears on the bank transfer slips. This generates a double problem for me: on one hand, the social situation that I have already mentioned before, and on the other, the legal situation, since I have to prove that the person who appears in the document is me. Therefore, avoiding tedious processes to change information, and making sure that once a change has been made, it is done correctly throughout the service, are fundamental things. Give voice to the community These are just a few examples that occur in the day-to-day life of a very diverse and increasingly extensive community. In fact, I think that as with everything, the best thing is for those being affected to be the ones speaking out on the solutions. Therefore, my recommendation is that diversity in general and design in particular be addressed by teams in which there are members who live that reality and have the ability to detect these problems and propose solutions based not only on theory, but on your own experience. At Ironhack we believe that, as design, technology, and education professionals, we must always put ourselves in the shoes of people who use digital products. As designer Sabrina Fonseca points out, there are ways to respectfully ask about gender when necessary . Inclusive design has the potential to make society more respectful and welcoming. If you want to learn more about UX UI Design, you can take a look at our bootcamps . If you want to propose a topic or tell your experience on our blog, write to [email protected] . This article has been written by Satory Asensio and Ana Cobos Escalante in collaboration with Ironhack. Glossary of terms in favor of diversity Neither transsexual nor transgender, "Trans”: Transsexual and transgender are two words loaded with problematic meanings and not very accurate, so from the trans community we prefer the use of the word "trans". You can find more information on Google. Avoid transphobic sites ;) Trans : Person whose gender does not match the one assigned at birth (For example, you were assigned a man, but you are a woman.) Cis : Person whose gender matches the one assigned to him at birth (For example, you were assigned a woman and you are a woman). Sex vs. Gender : Sex, to put it simply (and somewhat incorrectly) would respond more to the physical characteristics of people's bodies (gonads, hormones, chromosomes ...), while gender is the way to position ourselves in the world and to live our identity. Binary genders : These are the two genders that are commonly recognized today: Female and Male. Non-binary genders : They are all the genders that go beyond the Female-Male binomial. That is, the gender of people who are neither men nor women, or who are not 100% of one of the two binary genders. Google can give you more information, as it is a bit long and complex. Non-binary people : All people whose gender is non-binary (they are neither male nor female). Deadname : Birth name of trans people. We usually change it because it does not correspond to our real gender. It is a fact that should not be asked and that we usually prefer others not to know.

Meet Nuno, who decided to expand his passion for human-centered design and joined the Ironhack Remote UX/UI Design Bootcamp . Before we talk about your experience in detail, can you please introduce yourself? I am currently 29 years old and originally from Porto, Portugal. I have lived in Berlin for 6 years now and worked as an architect from 2015 until 2020, mostly designing public buildings (museums, hospitals, schools, and more). I can proudly say that I've had several important achievements throughout that career; in 2018, for example, my team was voted the best in Germany on competitiononline.de . But I wanted to reach more people through my designs. From an early age, I was curious about understanding how things work and are designed. It captivates me to keep learning, create, and share my knowledge with others, bringing innovation into everyday life. So in the second half of 2020, I've decided to expand my passion for human-centered design towards digital products and started learning UX/UI Design. March '21 was the beginning of my journey at Ironhack. I was able to transfer some of my skills acquired in architecture into this new field. Throughout this astonishing adventure, I was able to learn many different skills and methodologies which naturally gave me a sense of the direction that I want to take. I feel that now my mission is to empathize with people by understanding their needs in order to design delightful experiences that will improve their life. Thank you, Nuno. Ultimately, why did you take this step and why did you chose Ironhack? The year of 2020 was a turnaround point for many of us, including myself. In my case it was not only due to the pandemic, but also because I reached 5 years of working as an architect and felt that I wanted to pivot my learning curve towards acquiring skills in a field in which I was interested. A big part of the world went digital and I was motivated to get myself on track working on products that could bring innovation to everyday life. From an early age, I have been fascinated by building products and understanding how things work . I have a previous background of working several years as an architect, so I was used to human-centered design. My decision to break into tech was due in large part to the desire to design for a wider audience and acquire user experience skills about empathizing with people while understanding their needs. I chose Ironhack mostly because of the learning rhythm and structure of the course. After doing my research on previous alumni experience , I understood that having a full-time bootcamp at this pace would be the most suitable training to get me ready for the job market. How did our Ironhack Remote Campus fit into your plan? The flexibility of a remote bootcamp and the ability to connect with people from all over the world were the key factors for this decision. I was able to start the course from Berlin and end it from Portugal. My teacher, Juno, was living in Miami and the TA, Carolina, also changed locations during the course. I have had the opportunity to learn and share my skills with talented people from different countries and backgrounds. In the future, we will see an increase of digital nomads. This course has proven that I could be one of those in the coming years and easily adapt to the remote way of working. Sounds amazing. I'm curious, what was your favorite moment at Ironhack? The last week of the final project was definitely the best moment. It was also the most intense! I don't know how many hours I worked altogether in those final days, but it was definitely worth it the achievement that we have received at the Hackshow and all the comments from the people that saw our presentation. It's rewarding to see the progress you can make by leaving your comfort zone and working towards high goals. Congrats on winning the Hackshow! Can you tell us more about your project? For the final project, my colleague Léonard and I wanted to work with extended reality. We knew that this would be extra work on our shoulders as we would have to think in 3D and design for a medium with which we didn't have previous experience. But we wanted that challenge and contacted a company, "Grandpa's Lab," that was developing a virtual reality showroom for a brand of shoes. They gave us the task of designing the interactions for the experience. We did an extensive research process on designing VR and the problems that users face. In addition, we sent out 59 surveys and interviewed 10 people that shaped our UX research process, finding the pain points that we aimed to solve with our proposed solution. In the last few days, we have created a hi-fi prototype using a 3D modelling tool, so that we could test the interactions and present it in the final presentation. It's interesting to see now how much work can be done in just 2 weeks. With all the new skills you've acquired, what's next for you? With the skills that I've acquired at Ironhack and the ones that I've transferred from my previous experience, I feel confident to work in any area of UX/UI Design . My goal is to enroll in projects that I believe in, focusing on innovation while solving people's needs. Additionally, I am looking to share my skills with others that want to pursue this career. Do you have advice for anyone who is thinking about changing their life with Ironhack? My advice for new students is to have the mindset that you will learn as much as you put into it. From my experience, I met a qualified team at Ironhack that provided everything needed to obtain important skills and create high expectations. It's up to you to turn them into real achievements throughout your career. Tech is a fast-growing field and it is important to continue learning and keep challenging yourself, even after the bootcamp.

This is the Ironhack Student Podcast and we’re catching up in this show with the UX students’ first week. Jimmy: Boom! We are recording. But before we start, just a little bit about Ironhack, in case you don’t know who we are. I’ll try to make it as brief as possible. Ironhack is essentially a school where we help people go from no idea to junior level developers or UX/UI designers. The way we do this is we kind of hold them hostage for eight to nine weeks and the only thing they’re allowed to do is learn. So this is the big difference between coming to a bootcamp versus studying online, on your own for at close to no cost, practically. So the difference is that here you’re dedicating your life, full-time, this is your job, for eight to nine weeks. Ironhack · Ironhack Student Podcast: UX/UI Bootcamp, Week 1 Summary So we are pretty successful in turning people from no idea into that junior level professional that they want. We’ve helped, I think, over 600 people transition their careers into the tech world , whether it’s as developers or designers. So, yeah, that’s kind of what we do. So if anybody’s interested in changing careers, leveling up, maybe adding a new professional skill to their resume, and making some more money in the next job that you’re going to apply for. Then Ironhack could possibly be a solution for you, so give us a call or email us or write to us, or, you know, we’re on Twitter, we’re on all the social media. So you can find us. And if you’re interested reach out to us, we’re very helpful. So we’re not going to try and hard sell you anything. We want to provide information so you can make a decision. And then if you decide that we’re the right bootcamp for you, awesome. If not, then good luck. So UX students’ first week is over, how are you guys doing? Mohamed: Good. Jimmy: Good? Mohamed: Good. But I disagree with you on something that you said. Jimmy: Ok. Mohamed: You said the only thing we’re allowed to do is learn, but we are allowed also to do mistakes. Jimmy: Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Mohamed: It’s a way of learning but— Jimmy: Absolutely, you’re not going to go from zero to the professional kind of vision that you have without. Mohamed: Mistakes. Jimmy: I’m not sure if I should be cursing on the podcast, I’m not sure yet. But let’s say drop a big F bomb in there. Mohamed: Yeah. Jimmy: Up a little bit. So anyways, today I’m by Mohamed, Marta and Salvador. Why don’t—ah, no, Salvador switched out. This is Isaac, sorry, bro. So yeah, why don’t you each introduce yourselves, tell me a little bit about you, name, age, what you were doing before we jump into something else. Marta: Should I start? Jimmy: Yeah, go for it. Marta: So I come from the sales world and actually my last two jobs were about it and I decided, ok, it’s time to make a change because I got a creative side and I said, hey, why not. Let’s get a little bit techy and try to become a UI/UX designer. And, by the way, I’m realizing that my sales background and also my design, graphic, creative background it’s going to be very useful for this course. And actually I’m enjoying that. “I got a creative side and I said, hey, why not. Let’s get a little bit techy and try to become a UI/UX designer.” -Marta Jimmy: Awesome. So from sales into tapping into the creative side that you have. Marta: Exactly, I love challenges. Jimmy: Very commendable. Marta: Yeah. Mohamed: I’m Mohamed, 23 years old from Egypt. I’m coming from the mechanical engineering industry and here we go, I’m in the designing world now. Jimmy: Alright. Isaac: I’m Isaac, I’m 40 years old and I was selling instruments for 10 years and, you know, I wanted to change my life. “I was selling instruments for 10 years and, you know, I wanted to change my life.” -Isaac Jimmy: Right. Isaac: And why not with this bootcamp, I think it could be very useful for me. Jimmy: So I do have—I guess the first question is what was happening that caused you to be interested in UX/UI design? Like how did that discovery happen that UX existed and why did you ultimately decide to sign up for this? Marta: For me it was the decision that I was, like Isaac, the sales world is very tiring, you always have to bring results, results, results. And unluckily the Spanish market is not very good because lately my last job lasted for six months and I said, wait a second, I would like to be my own boss. And if I want to do that in the world that we live right now I need some techie knowledge but I’m not ready to become a developer. And I said maybe UX designer since it’s a little bit more creative and as I said, allows you to study … and I am good at connecting with people. Could be a good solution and that’s why here I am. And also because I love challenges. Mohamed: And for me as a mechanical engineer I hate it, so I was trying to learn online courses for designing but, you know, when you learn online, you are learning but you are like stuck in the way, you know. Don’t know which way to go, what are you going to do next? Like what are you learning now is going to help you or not. So that’s why I decided to come like for a bootcamp. So I guess it’s a good decision because I’m here, I’m learning the right way. “When you learn online you don’t know if what are you learning now is going to help you or not.” -Mohamed Jimmy: Right. What about you? Isaac: Oh, about me? Jimmy: What was that transition point to where you said, you know what, UX/UI design is interesting? Isaac: Because I saw Ironhack in a book, I don’t remember exactly but—and then I go to the website and trying to understand what it is. And then when I saw what Ironhack is doing— Jimmy: It’s alright. Isaac: Yeah. Jimmy: So what was it about UX/UI design? Because after you found out about us, that’s fine. But before, did you start researching into UX/UI design? Like what it was? Isaac: Yeah. Jimmy: So what was interesting about the process or the job that—you know, because this is a big decision and deciding to transition into working as a designer, you know, what was it about UX design? Isaac: Because maybe it has different things. It’s … but at the same it’s technological and it’s new. You know what I mean? Jimmy: Yeah, totally. Isaac: I feel it’s very complex for my way to see live or my future works. Jimmy: So were you guys already, you know, maybe doing some tutorials and learning about UX/UI on your own beforehand? And what were you doing? Marta: Never. I never did that. I made some online courses but the same as Mohamed, I had the feeling that, ok, I’m learning a lot but how I’m going to put that on practice? Jimmy: Yeah, I think that’s one of the things that I’ve heard a few times. It’s that when you’re off learning on your own, it’s like, ok, you’ll learn a tutorial. You’ll do the project, you’ll go through it but how you piece everything together is ultimately like this very confusing moment where, I’ve learned a whole bunch of separate things but how to piece it together. So about your first week, just give me a summary of kind of the things that you discovered and what you’ve been feeling during the first week. Mohamed: I discovered that I can work like 12 hours a day [laughing] and I can survive, only in first week. “I discovered that I can work like 12 hours a day and I can survive.” -Mohamed Marta: That’s important. The other thing I learned is that it’s crucial for any kind of business, no matter if it’s big or small that you understand very, very well the customer that you have in front of you. You know his needs, his profile, his daily life, everything matters. Everything, even the smallest detail. Jimmy: So what was this first week about? Like overview, like just a general overview, what was the first week about? Mohamed: It was about user research, you understand your customer, your users. Like you have a good idea but nobody needs it, you know what I mean? “The first week was about user research, understanding your customer, your users.” -Mohamed Jimmy: Right. Mohamed: So that’s how to make like to go user research, do surveys, do interviews to figure out if the users want your idea or not. Jimmy: Ok. Mohamed: So that’s mainly the first week. Isaac: Or maybe you think you have a very good idea and it’s not. Jimmy: Ok, so how do you discover that it’s not? Like what did you practically do in class to discover whether or not it was a good or bad idea? Mohamed: Just go to the users. Jimmy: Ok. How? Mohamed: Go outside—we went outside doing interviews, what they think, asking questions— Isaac: Yeah, making surveys. Mohamed: To validate your idea. Maybe it’s a very good idea, maybe it’s not, how we’re going to figure it out? Go ask your users. Marta: Finding the right questions and, obviously, in case that you realize that your solution is not the one that the users are looking for, how can you adapt that to fulfill his needs? Jimmy: So how would I begin to put a survey together to help me understand if this is a good or a bad idea? Like, what are some of the things that you learned that you could teach me? Mohamed: It’s a long process [laugh]. Jimmy: Oh, it’s a long–? What’s involved? Mohamed: Involved like brainstorming, like understand your idea at the beginning, do mind mapping, you know. And then after ok, make a draft of questions, ok, I need to know the age of the customer, what he likes. Like many, many things involved together, know what I mean? And then, ok, let’s go ask the users. Marta: So like a potential target that’s important too. Mohamed: Yeah, yeah. Jimmy: Ok. Isaac: Yeah, and you learn how you clean your ideas, for example, because sometimes you have a lot of ideas and, oh yes, this is very good and I can put this. But then the teachers teach you how you can clean these ideas and put the good ideas in one way and— Jimmy: So what was the value, do think, of this first week? Mohamed: To validate your idea. Jimmy: To validate your idea? Mohamed: Yeah. Isaac: Yeah. Mohamed: It’s about validation. Jimmy: Ok. Mohamed: And sketch, I’ve done like some sketches for, like, if you want to do, like, a firsthand sketch for mobile app or website. Jimmy: Because I see on the wall like a million pieces of paper and post-its and—you guys are lucky because you have, like, a long, long wall— Isaac: Yeah. Jimmy: Lots of walls. So what are some of those pieces of paper, what did you put on them? Mohamed: It’s about like the first mind mapping like because—like the first three days were just like the end of the third day it was just to come up with the questions to do the survey. Jimmy: Right. Mohamed: You know what I mean? So all these papers are about to come up with the right questions. Jimmy: Ok. Mohamed: Yeah. Jimmy: Ok, so it’s discovering what these right questions are that you need to ask. And what are some of the things that a person needs to be careful of with these questions? Mohamed: There are many questions that you can ask anyone, but what is the right question to ask? That will help you to validate your idea, that’s the point. “There are many questions that you can ask anyone, but what is the right question to ask to help you validate your idea? That’s the point.” -Mohamed Jimmy: And how did you find out what the right question was? Marta: First of all the finding the features of the product or the service that you want to launch. Then asking the customer, realizing if he likes it or not and why, especially why because you need some feedback. Deciding if you want to make open questions in—for example, in online surveys. Because you know they are not going to spend that much time in taking their time to answer to you. And when you are face to face you have to keep in mind not only about the … but also on the body language. So it’s kind of a delicate thing. Jimmy: After that first week is over now, what are your feelings about the first week? Was it what you expected, was it more, was it less? How was it? Mohamed: It was tiring. Jimmy: Oh, tiring? Mohamed: Of course. Isaac: I discovered it will be hard— Jimmy: Yeah. Mohamed: But not that hard. Isaac: But also it’s very happy to do it— Jimmy: So you’re having a good time? Isaac: It’s a strange mix because it’s very hard and it’s a lot of work and the deadline is all the time you have to do this in 30 minutes, in 10 minutes because you have not time. And it’s wow! But then at the end you feel very, very good because you can do it and the teachers help to do it. “It’s a strange mix because it’s very hard and it’s a lot of work. But then at the end, you feel very, very good because you can do it.” -Issac Jimmy: That’s a pretty cool way to put it, it’s very hard but you’re having a good time doing it. Isaac: Yeah. Jimmy: I guess that’s when you like something. Isaac: Yeah. Mohamed: Of course. Jimmy: It’s like, there’s always challenges but if you don’t let those challenges bring you down and kind of just throw in the towel and quit, then I guess you enjoy it, right? Mohamed: Yeah. Jimmy: So what about your teachers? What can you tell me about them? What’s your impressions of them? Marta: Very open minded and willing to listen to new ideas and whenever they see that you are a little bit lost about finding—I don’t know, for example, the right questions, they are always there to give you a helping hand. Jimmy: And so with the teachers, what were some of the exercises that maybe you personally found the most challenging that they were able to kind of un-block thinking and lead you to better understanding? Isaac: I don’t know how to explain it. Jimmy: There was a huff and a puff. Marta: Well, there was one thing. They told us that sometimes we need to obsess in finding a solution and they told us you should focus more on listening to the customer. And whenever you see that your mind is blocked, that you cannot find a solution go walk for five minutes and then come back and start thinking again. You will see things a little bit different. And that is very good advice. “They told us that sometimes we need to obsess in finding a solution and to focus more on listening to the customer. And whenever your mind is blocked and you cannot find a solution to go walk for five minutes and then come back and start thinking again.” -Marta Jimmy: So did you take that advice, did you do that? Marta: Yeah, definitely. Mohamed: Yeah. Jimmy: And what was the result? Marta: Great. It helped me to stop blocking and—well I also had another trick on my own that works. Whenever I couldn’t find a solution and didn’t feel like working because the weather was terrible last week, I just draw, prepare the logo for the project and then I say, ok, I’ve got an idea. And then I work it on that. It’s a way to—I think that what they mean, the teachers, was to find a way to disconnect just for a little while so that your mind can become clear again. And then you can work harder on the project you’re working on. Jimmy: How did you manage to kind of put everything on pause to sign up to this? Because it’s something that is very intensive. So was it something that you had just clear in mind or did you—just the right time or how did that come about? Mohamed: I was just like I decided to go for a bootcamp, and then I looked for the reviews and everything. Because it’s not an easy decision especially if there is no bootcamp in your country. Jimmy: Right. Isaac: So that’s why I read the reviews and everything, that’s why I decided to come to Ironhacking Barcelona. Jimmy: And how did it happen for you? Isaac: For me was the same process. The first time I was looking for what Ironhack and read a lot of reviews and all the reviews are good. And then I come here because I was working very, very near from here. And I came here a lot of times and speak with people in here and— Jimmy: Right. You felt good about it? Isaac: Yeah. Jimmy: Yeah? That’s good, that’s good. So coming up in this next week, do you know—because today is Monday and we’re going to catch up on Friday because you were giving presentation. Actually, before we go into that, what were your presentations about on Friday? Because at the end of the first week to have presentations, I’m curious to know what you were presenting? Marta: We were presenting—well, the project was about an application called Blindr that it was a blind kind of blind dates, online blind dates for people who’s looking for getting to know new people. And I tell you, we had to do the whole process that it was, seeing if this kind of application would be welcome by potential users and which features should we change. Well, realizing how would it work in case that we launched that, if the customers would accept, what things we should add, et cetera. Mohamed: It’s like implementing everything you learn in the whole week in one project individually. Jimmy: Right. And did each one of you have to present your own thing or was it a group or–? Mohamed: No, it was individual. And there is a group project. Isaac: We have two projects, one project in group and then you— Jimmy: What was the group project, was it this one? Or was it–? Mohamed: No. Marta: The other one. Isaac: It’s almost the same but it’s in other ways an application about salads and delivery— Jimmy: Ok, that’s the survey that went out? Mohamed: Yeah. Marta: Yeah. Mohamed: And for the individual group there is a survey also, but you do it alone. Jimmy: Ok. Ok, ok, ok. So what are goals for after the bootcamp? Marta: Become a freelancer. So offering my services to startups. Actually my goal would be to help them to realize if their products or services can be accepted in the market. That’s a good UX designer’s goal. And secondly since I have some knowledge in video and photography and also graphic design, offering those services too. So I think that will be kind of my own agency. “My goal would be to startups to realize if their products or services can be accepted in the market. That’s a good UX designer’s goal.” -Marta Jimmy: Ok. Mohamed: And for me I plan to look for jobs, but for now I plan to work hard in the bootcamp. Jimmy: That’s a good goal. Mohamed: Yeah, for now. Isaac: Actually I don’t know what will be happening at the end. I expect to have any work or not. But I don’t know, I’m just—now I’m here and I’m trying to learn it and enjoy it and then, who knows? Jimmy: What are some of the resources that you’ve discovered? Maybe one thing that you discovered over the past week that you find very—a useful tool for UX design? Marta: Actually the tools that we used, for example, the one for designing surveys, there was an application called Evernote, for me that’s good. Because it doesn’t only allow you to share documents and notes but also record audio. And when you are on the street, for example, and you don’t have a recorder, it’s good that you can take your cell phone and record whatever you have in front of you. Jimmy: Yeah. Mohamed: I guess, for me, like UX is about user experience so to understand your user, that’s what we did last week. Like for user research to do surveys with the users to understand what they are thinking about what they want, what they really want. Jimmy: Did you discover an online tool or resource that you would recommend to someone learning UX? Mohamed: We used many tools for like everything we were doing. Jimmy: What’s the first one that comes to mind? Mohamed: Mind mapping because I’ve done it a lot so— Jimmy: But is there an online tool for that? Mohamed: Yeah, mindmap.com. Jimmy: Ok. Mohamed: So that was— Jimmy: And what about you? Isaac: I’m just trying all the tools, I’m not sure— Jimmy: Ok. Ok, fair enough. So let’s say somebody was thinking about a UX/UI bootcamp, what’s one piece of advice that you would give them after this first week is done? What is something that you discovered or learned from this first week’s experience that you could give as advice to someone considering the bootcamp? Marta: If you are interested in learning fast and putting in practice what you learn, and you’re not afraid of hard work, that’s the place. Mohamed: If you plan to work as hard as you can and just have little time to sleep, come to Ironhack. “If you plan to work as hard as you can and just have little time to sleep, come to Ironhack.” -Mohamed Isaac: If you need support you have it here. Yes, it’s hard, you have to work a lot but— Jimmy: I don’t think people realize until they get here how intense and intensive it is. It happens in the JavaScript bootcamp and in the UX bootcamp, it’s like people don’t realize that. It’s this intensive. I think they figure it’s much lighter than it really ends up being. Mohamed: Like in the reviews everyone is saying it’s intense, you have to work hard. But after the first week, I didn’t expect that. Jimmy: I don’t even know yet how to really explain that to people, because it’s—I don’t know. We could write it down a hundred times, it’s very, very, very, very, et cetera, et cetera, intense. And it’s going to require a lot of time and effort and little sleep and being here all day, blah, blah, blah. But still people don’t really understand what that means. Mohamed: Yeah. Jimmy: So I don’t know, I’m still trying to figure out how to explain that, but maybe a picture of the—I don’t know what but— Mohamed: You have to come and spend time with us one day. Jimmy: Yeah, I think definitely. Mohamed: That’s the only way I guess. Jimmy: And I’m pretty sure that people should do that, they should figure out a way to kind of mimic the experience. I hope that when they have the opportunity to listen to something like this they can get an idea of being a little bit closer into the program without actually having to sign up. And figure out if this is for them or not. Marta: I wanted to say that in case that you want to prove what it actually feels like taking a bootcamp that hard, just come and ask us any Thursday afternoon. I can assure you that we are very, very stressed that day because every Friday there’s a presentation and we go crazy. Jimmy: Yeah, so what’s coming up this week? Do you know? Mohamed: It’s about prototyping but like everything wireframes. Like last week more about sketching and the … user, but now it’s about, ok, let’s work. Jimmy: Awesome. Thank you for being the first ones to give this summary on your first week. I’m going to, more than likely, speak with you again being that the group is small. So I’m looking forward to seeing how you guys evolve and progress, and yeah, good luck. Keep spending a lot of hours drinking coffee. So if anyone else is interested in kind of what they’re doing—do you guys, like, how are you sharing your profiles? Because with the JavaScript bootcamp it’s pretty easy, it’s like just share their GitHubs and people can see the evolution of what they published. Mohamed: We should have a portfolio like GitHub or… Marta: … or maybe having a blog. One of the teachers told us on Friday that it would be a good idea to create a blog on our own— Jimmy: Ok. Marta: And publish there our how we are learning, what are we learning, some pictures, if we discover any way to learn faster. Mohamed: So once we complete them we’ll send them. Jimmy: Ok, so hopefully, I’ll see how I can link you guys up in the end of the show in the blog post. So, thanks a lot, good luck. And to anyone listening that’s interested in the bootcamp just go to ironhack.com, reach out to us. No commitment, we’ll give you as much information as we can. Thanks a lot, it’s been fun. See you. Mohamed: Thanks, Jim. Marta: See you. Isaac: Thanks. Jimmy: Bye.

As wonderful as the cyber world can be, it's also filled with many threats. It's important to protect yourself, your data and your potential future company! Ethical hacking sounds like two words that you never thought would go together , like, weirdly normal, alone together or walking dead. However, ethical hacking is so much more than an oxymoron. It's sort of like a guardian angel that will see you, protect you and lead you down a brighter, safer path. Walk into the light! But before you do, let us shine some light on what ethical hacking actually is. Here we go! Ethical hacking gives businesses and individuals the opportunity to be hacked, but it's consensual, so don't worry. I bet you're wondering, "why would I wanna be hacked?" To put it simply, ethical hacking is the good kind ; it's like the good guy helping you fight off regular hackers. Allow us to elaborate. Ethical hackers help individuals and businesses to identify their system and security weak points. Ethical Hackers, also known as white hats, help to put the power back in the hands of the individual or business by identifying vulnerabilities in the system and letting them know before they get a nasty cyber attack. Ethical hackers will then make suggestions on how to mitigate the spotted issues best to keep you or your business safe! Cyberattacks may sound like a very distant problem, but they are a very real threat and are on an aggressive rise . Plus, hackers are only getting more and more creative. At a time where technology is such an important part of our lives, it is vital to take the necessary precautions so you're not left with a nasty intruder or thief! powered by Crowdcast There are many, many ways that you may fall victim to a cyberattack, but here are some of the web threats that you can be vigilant of, so you don't have an unpleasant surprise. Phishing attacks, with a PH. This is a social engineering data theft that uses data that is naturally and willfully shared on social media platforms to break into networks. It creates phishing emails or texts that will trick their prey into opening infected attachments or clicking on precarious and risky URLs. So, any time you get a message or text from someone that says they know you and you're like, "Who are you?", listen to your instincts and don't click on anything immediately because they may be phishing you. Phishing attacks are one of the worst because they are relatively easy and inexpensive for hackers to pull off. They can wreak extensive havoc on your businesses systems if just one employee of yours is phished and gives over their credentials. Internet of things (IoT) attack The main target of these attacks is our beloved smart devices . These cyber-attacks take advantage of a victim's use of internet-connected smart devices, for example, a wifi-enabled speaker. Imagine you're listening to your favourite song, and the next thing you know, you have a malware bug infestation running through your entire system. So, don't let these attackers ruin your favourite song and personal data. One tip to avoid this is updating your phone software regularly, but there's plenty more where that came from. Ransomware attacks Ever seen those films where a criminal is holding someone ransom? Well yeah, it's pretty much the same concept but for data. Ransomware attacks for businesses owners are a genuine threat because businesses tend to have more wealth than individuals. In ransomware attacks, the business is cyber-attacked and infected with malware that encrypts their data so the victim can't access it any more. Then the victim is presented with an ultimatum… pay up or lose your data for good. Trust us, the reality is much less thrilling than a Hollywood movie. Internal attacks It's sad to think it could be one of your own, but it does happen. This can be caused by mere carelessness, which gives way to a mass security breach. It is because of this that these attacks are one of the most difficult to control. Yet, there are ways of minimising these risks, like creating secure internal coded systems and processes and limiting access privileges according to job requirements. While not a full-proof method, even this can drastically help in determining hacker accessibility. Security Gaps Intruder alert! This is the direct intrusion of a hacker trying to sneak their way through any uneven gaps you may have in your system. If there is even one weak layer of security in your system, cyber attackers will probe it and weasel their way through. Once they have one foot in the door, they have been known to even break through some businesses' more formidable defences. So, all your bases need to be covered because one slip up could really cause some serious damage to you or your business. Be on top of all these gaps before you find someone else has already made their way through them. Distributed denial of service (DDos) attacks DDos attacks remain a significant cyber threat to many organisations. The first-hand effect of DDoS attacks is almost like freezing or paralysing your businesses operations. Both businesses large and small are at threat here (these hackers don't discriminate). Such attacks are designed to entirely overwhelm systems of whoever falls victim, therefore, regular accessibility is stunted, and victims cannot process normal traffic on their network. These are among the trickiest attacks because they are almost designer-made as hackers change their method and complexity regularly. With these more complex attacks having specialised help is particularly invaluable. This is only the tip of the iceberg. If you see yourself protecting people and companies from threatening cyber-attacks, here is some further inspiration from Gabriel Ayela, who started to study Cybersecurity from scratch ! You might find some parallels between your story and his. Who would have thought being an Ethical Hacker would be such an in-demand and HUGE market? Now that the knowledge and conversation around this topic is growing and more businesses move into having an online presence, more Ethical Hackers are needed to come to the rescue. If you see yourself as an Ethical Hacker and wanna join the good guys, check our bootcamps in cybersecurity ! Isn't it wonderful how tech is changing what kind of professions we can be? :)

We’ve all felt the effects of when companies don’t make cybersecurity a priority. You might even have had to bear the brunt when companies don’t invest in their cybersecurity yourself: personal data gets leaked, sensitive information is spread across the web, and life savings can be lost if you give the wrong company your bank details. You’re probably sick of this happening and we get it. That’s why it’s time to become a cyber warrior and kickstart your career in cybersecurity – even if you don’t have any previous knowledge. Cybersecurity may seem complicated to those on the outside, mostly because it comes with a dictionary’s worth of jargon. But anyone with a little technical knowledge and the desire to learn can launch themselves into this exciting career path. But that begs the question…how do you go about getting a cybersecurity job when you’ve got no experience? Before we answer that burning question, let’s first break down exactly what cybersecurity is. What is Cybersecurity? First things first: let’s truly understand what cybersecurity is, as it’s never been more important than it is today. With many companies shifting to a remote/hybrid working model and the vast expansion of the online space, there is an increasing need for businesses to invest in IT security and protect themselves from threats such as hacking, data compromise, and identity theft. Technology is getting smarter, but that means that hackers and cybercriminals are too. The range of cybercrimes is widening rapidly, but some of the most common are: Cyber-extortion : demanding money in exchange for not hacking, damaging, or deleting information Ransomware attacks : locking or limiting access to data in exchange for money Identity fraud : pretending to be you to gain access to your personal information IOT hacking : accessing or manipulating IoT devices and servers Malware : software designed to steal or copy a person’s information Phishing scams : sending fraudulent emails, pretending to be someone else to gain bank or personal information What Does a Career Path in Cybersecurity Look Like? With a growing demand for trained professionals, the cybersecurity industry has a lot to offer prospective employees. Salaries in this field tend to be lucrative and there is ample opportunity for career growth and development. The demand for roles in this area is also set to increase rapidly over the coming years and decades . As such, there has never been a better time to explore cybersecurity and explore the various career options out there for cybersecurity newcomers. There are many areas for specialization and advancement which you’ll be able to branch into, depending on your skills, experience, and career goals. And as the digital world is always changing, new areas that we can’t even imagine today will inevitably reveal themselves! Take a look at some positions, depending on your experience level: Entry-level positions include roles such as Cybersecurity Specialist or Technician, IT auditor, and Incident Responder (anyone interested in cybersecurity for beginners should research these roles as a starting point!) Mid-level positions include Cybersecurity Consultant and Penetration tester Advanced level positions include Cybersecurity Engineer and Managerial positions There are various roles available at each level when it comes to IT security, with plenty of scope for development further down the road; the demand for training in cybersecurity is rapidly on the rise, meaning you may like to branch into this area in a company for which you already work, or that you are looking to pivot completely into a new career. What Does it Take to Break into Cybersecurity? The first thing you need to tackle when it comes to cybersecurity is the basics of IT systems and networks ; for example, the different types of available networks and their protocols. Once you are familiar with the fundamentals, you can dive into the basics of networking traffic, security, and communication principles. Learning how to create and analyze network servers is also important when it comes to cybersecurity for beginners, while data decryption and encryption are also useful, along with topics such as backup processes and data recovery. Discovering how to prevent hacks is also a crucial subject when it comes to cybersecurity for beginners. As technology advances and the online space grows, there are greater opportunities for cyber attacks and hacks to occur, especially when it comes to mobile payments, e-commerce, and cloud computing. Machine learning, social media, and the vast array of apps that many of us use on a daily basis make it easier for criminals to find ways to hack systems to steal data and financial information. The risk for businesses is especially high and this is where cybersecurity professionals come into play : building and maintaining secure systems is essential for most organizations and businesses in the modern world, and expertise in this area is heavily in demand. Breaking into cybersecurity through a bootcamp Courses or bootcamps in cybersecurity for beginners will prepare you for roles such as incident responder, forensics analyst, and cybersecurity analyst, among others. Over time and depending on the size of the company you work for, you may have the chance to branch into a management role, taking control over a cybersecurity team. Similarly, you may choose to specialize in a single area of cybersecurity in networking, software development, systems engineering, or risk analysis. Breaking into cybersecurity with no previous experience Cybersecurity is an exciting and ever-changing career path, with high stakes and high rewards. The demand for professionals in this field is extremely high; there are many opportunities available for anyone interested in developing a career in IT security. But, as with any job, getting started can feel like a huge wall to climb if you don’t have any previous experience. But don’t worry: regardless of your background and previous experience, transitioning to a job in cybersecurity is very achievable with some foundational training, thanks to the recent rise of cybersecurity. The best place to start is with a cybersecurity bootcamp for beginners that covers the basics and the main areas of IT security and data protection. With Ironhack's Cybersecurity Bootcamp, you don’t only get the foundational knowledge and hands-on experience that you need to succeed in your first cybersecurity role; but we’ll actually support you in finding that role. Our Careers Services and Outcomes Team are rockstars at getting you job-ready, helping you figure out the messy middle of job hunting. Why not check it out for yourself?!

We are very often approached by people and asked if participating in a remote bootcamp is worth it. After all, a bootcamp is always associated with the investment of time, money and effort, especially for employed people this can be a great extra effort. Questions that often reach us are: Will a bootcamp really teach me what I need to know? Can a bootcamp help me in my professional career? Is the investment and the time spent worth it? All of the above questions can be answered with a solid "yes". We completely understand the concerns, however, through our years of expertise in this field, we are aware of the added value and positive effect of a coding bootcamp. Numerous graduates can confirm how enriching the participation in our bootcamps has been for them. So, it is possible to have a great bootcamp experience where you gain new skills as well as professional mobility. But that's not all. In this post, we want to give you six more reasons why attending an Ironhack Remote Bootcamp is worth your while. 1. Remote bootcamps allow for a more flexible schedule Remote bootcamps offer valuable flexibility and convenience for busy individuals. Whether a student's schedule is filled with family obligations, a full-time job, or both, attending face-to-face classes on a campus every week can be a real challenge. Remote programs offer scheduling flexibility through the fact that commuting to campus is completely absent. This means less time on public transportation and more time studying comfortably on the couch. Especially in big cities, such as Berlin, students save an average of about one hour per day. Students thus have the opportunity to structure their already tight schedule more flexibly and adapt it to their needs. For many people, quitting their job is simply not an option - whether it's because they need to take care of their family or can't afford to go without a steady income for an extended period of time. For example, if you choose one of our remote bootcamps, you can learn to code without having to quit your job . 2. You can attend regardless of your location Attending a remote bootcamp is also beneficial for students who don't live near a bootcamp campus. Universities and some traditional coding courses require attendance at a physical location. These face-to-face classes require a daily commute to campus, which is not required when attending a remote bootcamp. All you need to participate in a remote program is a solid internet connection - your geographic location doesn't matter at all. Moving near a campus becomes irrelevant, saving you not only a lot of time but also money. Thus, with a remote bootcamp, you have the freedom to attend the program regardless of your location. It's up to you to decide what kind of learning atmosphere suits you best. 3. Learn new skills in a short period of time If you want to acquire new skills and pursue further education, you can of course complete a degree or vocational training. However, it takes at least 3 years to graduate and you are tied to one location for the entire duration of your studies. By attending a remote bootcamp, you can bypass all that and learn all the skills you need in just a few months through an intensive program. Our bootcamps have a duration of only 9 weeks. With a traditional degree, you may gain more overall knowledge after 3 years. Most bootcamps, however, focus on the fundamental skills that will help you transition quickly into a new career with their very intensive and short-term training. 4. Remote bootcamps are cost-effective For many people who want to learn sought-after technical skills, a bootcamp is an affordable alternative to a regular 3-year degree. The price of attending a university for traditional education has skyrocketed. There are many costs that come along with tuition, such as housing, books, etc., which accumulate and come at a high cost over the years. This makes attending a bootcamp not only an expense but also a valuable time saver. Especially in the fast-paced tech industry, this is not to be underestimated, enabling bootcamps to focus more specifically and quickly on the skills currently in demand in the job market, as opposed to universities with their rigid curriculums. 5. Peer community Similar to the support provided by lecturers and tutors, working with like-minded people greatly enhances the learning process. It can be very rewarding to share ideas with other students who are going through the same ups and downs of learning as you. Most bootcamps are very dedicated to connecting you with a great network of students in your program, bootcamp alumni, and teachers. Ironhack uses a real-time chat system, like Slack. We also offer additional ways to foster community and take student interaction to an even deeper level. The added value of having like-minded people by your side who are going through the same experience as you cannot be underestimated. Fellow students are able to bring their own unique perspectives and strengths to the table and help solve problems you may be facing. In addition, after completing the bootcamp, you will have established a solid network of peers and friends that can help you in your future career. 6. Remote bootcamps prepare you for the real world When it comes to learning a new skill, which will later be the center of your new career, nothing is more important than practical use. The main goal of a remote bootcamp is to ensure that students find a job after graduation to use the skills they have learned in the real world. Therefore, when building the portfolio, we focus on covering all the requirements that are most in demand in the job market at the time. Employers value the ability to understand high-level concepts, but ultimately it's important to be able to apply what you've learned in real life. Remote bootcamps also teach you essential soft skills to succeed in the real world. For example, teamwork and communication skills are two important skills that are taught through multiple group work and presentations in class. Regardless of the industry - e.g. engineering, coding, marketing - it's important to know how to work with other people. Last but not least, Ironhack’s remote bootcamp also prepares you for a remote work environment in case this is something you want for your career. Home offices are not uncommon anymore, especially nowadays in companies, and so open remote positions are becoming more and more common across the job market. By attending a remote bootcamp, you're already familiarizing yourself with the structures and digital work environment. Thanks to the skills you've learned, you'll later be able to take off as a freelancer on the job market. Whether it's to advance your own projects or to support other companies in their endeavors. As a freelancer, there are no geographical or technical boundaries to your possibilities and freedom.