Christopher Thrutchley Jr.

Christopher T

Career Path: Software Engineering

See how this Client Success Associate became a Threat Analyst

Before Coding Temple: Client Success Associate

Before Coding Temple: Threat Analyst @CrowdStrike

What were you doing before you decided to attend Coding Temple?

I was a client success associate at a proxy advisory firm.

What motivated you to enroll in a tech bootcamp?

I felt stuck. I wanted to find a new path professionally. I also missed my childhood hometown and was looking for an opportunity to move back.

Why did you ultimately decide to enroll at Coding Temple?

I enrolled at Coding Temple for a few primary reasons. First, it was an online program. I wouldn’t have to deal with a commute or being away from my young family. Second, it offered highly competitive lifetime alumni resources and job search support. (This was probably the biggest factor, to be honest.) Third, it advertised a money back guarantee for Full Time grads who fulfill a set of weekly required metrics, and that potential for additional financial security was appealing.

What was the most challenging part of the program for you and how did you overcome it?

The most challenging aspect for me was just the sheer amount of information. My learning style is generally to dive as deeply as possible and arrive at total mastery, if possible. In the boot camp environment, this style just didn’t work. There was simply too much to know.

I overcame this by being consistent anyways. “Fake it until you make it” is definitely a quote I could apply here.

What was the most valuable lesson or skill you learned during the program?

For me, it was probably just getting more practice with learning independently, especially learning tech independently. Coding Temple is really great because it provides you a ton of resources and education, but somehow also manages to push the student to seek additional knowledge independently. CT is a springboard for lifelong independent learning, and for me, I think that’s the best part about the program.

What resources did you find most helpful during the program?

The live instructors. Mine were Terrell McKinney, Ryan Rhoades, and John Loveland. (As far as I know, of these instructors, only Ryan Rhoades is still with CT.) All three of these men were fantastic in the classroom and completely succeeded at convincing me that I had made a good decision to enroll in the live instructed course. I can’t imagine where I would be without them.

Since Ryan is still at CT, let me say, he is simply fabulous. I can’t imagine what my experience would have been like without him. He is a real asset for CT.

What was the job search process like and how did Coding Temple prepare you for your current job?

The job search process was honestly awful. I’m just grateful that it did not last very long for me. (I can’t imagine how much worse it would have been without the Huntr board, the Skilled Inc. mock interview, and the CTA Slack, all of which were amazing.) I would say it was intrinsically awful, though. Coding Temple made it so much better than it would have been. I don’t blame CT for the job search being grueling. I think it’s just the nature of the beast.

The best thing Coding Temple did to prepare me for my jobs is expose me to actual frameworks and technologies. Having personal projects has always been a huge deal, and very empowering.

How has your career progressed since graduating from Coding Temple, and what are your future career goals?

Since graduating from Coding Temple, I have worked for Coding Temple as a Night TA, a Full Time TA, and a Part Time TA, and I have worked as a Threat Analyst and Full Stack Developer at CrowdStrike. My overarching career goals are to enhance my skills at front end development, become as proficient as possible with Machine Learning, and continue to develop as a cybersecurity professional. AI is becoming everything, but it will always need a human in the driver’s seat. I want to keep pace with the tech as it evolves.

How did Coding Temple compare to your expectations, and what surprised you the most about the experience?

Coding Temple was a bit less formal than I was expecting, but honestly, I’d say that was a good thing. I think what surprised me most about the experience was how much I would bond with my instructors and cohorts in spite of the program being entirely remote. Maybe the on-camera requirement contributed heavily to that.

What advice do you have for current or prospective bootcamp students in terms of preparing for and succeeding at Coding Temple?

Stop trying to compare yourself to others. Just stop it. You are on your own journey. At the end of the day, you can be the worst coder in history and still land a job as long as you’re committed to learning something new as often as possible (at least every day, I would say). The ultimate secret in life is to enjoy what you are doing. If you enjoy coding, who cares if you are bad at it? If we only allowed ourselves to enjoy playing basketball if we were as good as Michael Jordan, we would never play basketball.

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