TechHired in New York City: Giancarlo Martinez
Starting a tech career can mean a substantial wage increase for many — especially for those without a college degree. For Giancarlo Martinez in New York City, seeing his salary has been life changing. Giancarlo was earning around $35K per year as an educational activist and entrepreneur in New York City. While he gained valuable experience and learned a great deal through this work, he knew that he would be limited in earnings without a college degree or further technical training.
Giancarlo connected with NYC Tech Talent Pipeline and signed up for one of the Flatiron School’s coding bootcamps. As the TechHire community lead in New York City, the NYC Tech Talent Pipeline works with public and private partners to define employer needs, and develops and tests training and education solutions to meet these needs. The NYC Tech Talent Pipeline scales solutions that work throughout the city’s largest systems, delivering homegrown talent for 21st century jobs across the five boroughs.
“Giancarlo and his fellow Web Development Fellowship graduates are great examples of the amazing, qualified local talent that is helping businesses to start, grow, and thrive here in New York City. Together with companies, training providers, educators, and policy makers, The NYC Tech Talent Pipeline is working to ensure that more New Yorkers like Giancarlo across the five boroughs are able to access the education and on-ramps needed to launch fulfilling careers in tech.” — Lauren Andersen, Executive Director, NYC Tech Talent Pipeline
Name: Giancarlo Martinez
Age: 25
TechHire Community: New York City
Current Job: Software engineer and designer at Yashi earning $85K
Previous Job: Educational activist, teacher, entrepreneur earning $35K
Technical Skills: JavaScript, object oriented programming, ruby on rails, MVC
What were you doing prior to pursuing a career in tech?
Before I got started in tech, I was an educational activist and preschool teacher turned entrepreneur. I started my career in activism after seeing how the school system was failing the kids of the Bronx. I was also an alum and volunteer of the National Hispanic Institute where I began to build an online network where students can connect with professional alumni.
The project launched in beta before it collapsed due to my own exhaustion and lack of knowledge of website maintenance. I then took on a few small projects, learning from online forums how to edit open source code and make some basic websites. But I didn’t know how to build anything from scratch. I realized that if I wanted to take my tech skills to the next level, I was going to need some training.
What training programs + resources helped you get the skills you have today?
Even though I had exposed myself to tech, I didn’t know the fundamentals and wouldn’t have passed a tech interview. I barely understood what arguments or global variables were, I didn’t know what a terminal or console was, or the difference between front-end and back-end. I had an eye for design and was a fast learner, but I didn’t even know the right questions to ask.
Flatiron taught me all of those things and taught me how to not be daunted by all of the constantly changing coding languages. I learned to see the similarities and adapt — and how to think about the architecture of a project.
The most direct impact was my teacher personally introducing me to my first professional job. Having no college degree or professional experience, I don’t think I would have gotten looked at twice. But before I knew it, I was sitting in the 46th floor of World Trade Center 7 with a $70k salary.
What helped you realize that a tech career was for you?
I was motivated to pursue tech when I wanted to build a networking platform for the National Hispanic Institute. I was driven by my desire to find a means beyond my financial limitations to connect young Latinx students and professionals.
What were some barriers for you in pursuing a tech career and what helped you overcome them?
I needed a teacher’s guidance to better understand the sometimes confusing and opinionated online resources and fill in the gaps in my knowledge. The Flatiron Web Development Fellowship connected me with teachers and peers that accelerated my learning.
I was fortunate enough to have the financial support to attend this training program. I would strongly advocate for a loan program to assist students at bootcamps with proven track records of getting students employed. It was the best investment anyone could’ve made in me and was a fraction of the student loans my peers took out for college. I paid it back within four months of starting my first job.
How has your life changed as a result of completing a tech training program and getting hired?
My salary has doubled — I feel valued, in-demand and confident. I push myself out of desire to grow with the security that I will always have work opportunities and that they will only get better with my investments of time and effort.
I see a lot of peers in other industries stagnate in their personal development due to comfort or lack of opportunities to innovate and advance, but technology is always evolving and as a result, so am I.
What advice do you have for others considering a career in tech?
Not to be intimidated. Tech is where we’re all equal. You don’t need investors or to inherit a trust to get started. You don’t have to have started young because tech is always changing. All you need is motivation and focus. Don’t feel embarrassed if you don’t remember methods and syntax, the secret is that even us professionals have to Google the simplest things at least once a day.
If you’re a woman, the best coder I’ve met is one as well. If you’re a minority, so am I, born and raised in a low-income community by a single immigrant mother.
When it comes to interviews and coding challenges, always go above and beyond, even as far as learning a new framework or library that they use. That way, there is no loss even if you don’t land the job because you’ll have improved your skills and your portfolio.
My last bit of advice is to go the extra mile. The willingness to stay up late and go above and beyond to have a jaw dropping impact during a code challenge set me apart as a student and later as a job candidate.
This is the fourth post in our #TechHired Series, which features individuals from TechHire communities who have been trained and hired into great tech jobs. Interview conducted by Opportunity@Work’s Laura Faulkner.
