Le Wagon

Before Le Wagon, I worked for years in logistics for a French retailer and someday I realised that I was searching an opportunity and a change of my professional life. I was used to data manuplation and was curious about coding my own application in my spear time.

So I tried to learn to code on online plateforms after work and in my weekends but it was far from efficient and I felt like wasting my time doing things that I didn't really understand. It was an frustrating coding experience until I decided to stop working and go for full-time bootcamp in Le Wagon. 

Here I spent 9 very intensive weeks that I never ever regretted with my motivated classmates, very good teachers Kelvin and Julien, and everyday helpful teaching assitants (during our coding time). It's with them that I managed to learn, and make mistakes.  

Today I know coding and I continue to code my own project with friends. And with what I learnt during these 9 weeks, I finally manage to learn other languages and technologies online myself. It opened a door to my life.

Going into University I was unsure what I wanted to do after but went straight into an Economics degree “to keep as many options open as possible”. Four years later, with my Economics Bachelor in hand and with one year of work experience, I knew two things. The first being that what I had done during my work experience was not for me and the second that I had no intentions of further theoretical learning of any subject.

I decided to give myself a year to try different things: making a career out of my passion for cooking, travelling and giving myself time to figure things out. Working in a restaurant kitchen for three months, it quickly became clear that cooking was a passion but not a career for me. During that time a friend of mine was at le Wagon. Having already heard of the bootcamp whilst at University, I started to consider it for myself. I spoke to three alumni, from three very different backgrounds and I was convinced!

Looking back, these 9 weeks were hands down the most intense and intellectually and socially stimulating that I can remember. It has been an incredible personal journey to be welcomed into the amazing group that is Le Wagon community. I have learnt hard skills that I really enjoy and feel I can apply in a professional environment and my future career. Sharing this experience with other students creates strong connections and strong friendships as a result.

I cannot recommend Le Wagon strongly enough. Everyone will tell you that the most difficult part is the first three weeks but, for me, the hardest part was leaving all the amazing people I met straight after the end of the 9 weeks. My only advice then would be to give yourself some time after le Wagon, as it is truly a life changing experience.

During my 4 years experience in the start-up ecosystem, I’ve been dreaming of coding and taking part in the developers’ round-tables. However, my lack of technical skills was a barrier to my participation and it seemed like an unreachable dream until I discovered Le Wagon through my friends who experienced the same frustrations.

During the 9 weeks of intensive training, the teachers did a phenomenal job as they drove the program with passion and great guidance to arm me with technical skills. Not only I am now able to working with my technical team but I can also develop my own web applications.

Enrolling at Le Wagon also means joining a growing community of passionate developers from all around the world who are feeding the network on daily basis and sharing knowledge.

The people I met, the experience I had and the skills I acquired were above my expectations. After Le Wagon, I decided to keep on coding and grow as a full stack developer.

Le Wagon has a very friendly environment, open to students coming from all around the world. I started programming in India in 2015 and then, in 2017, I came to Canada (Montreal) to continue my studies. Before starting the bootcamp with Le Wagon in 2019, I was studying in a private university in Montréal, the "Institut Supérieur d’Informatique", where I completed my AEC (Certificate of Collegial Studies). After that, I had two options: I was accepted at University (UQAM) for a technical program, or I could do Le Wagon. I thought a lot and evaluated both options and decided go with Le Wagon. I chose Le Wagon because of the learning environment but ESPECIALLY the fact that they use Ruby on Rails. Also, I preferred the fact that I would be studying 9 intensive weeks practicing instead of doing 3 years of theory at University. I do not regret my weeks spent at bootcamp, I learned a lot, it opened my eyes, it allowed me to really understand the world of programming. If I had to do this again, I do it again with a GREAT PLEASURE. The last 2 weeks of the bootcamp were very rewarding for me because I was able to apply what I had learned during the 7 weeks. My project, ”Hike Away”, was very interesting to create: it allows people to travel and discover other worlds. It can be checked here: http://www.hikeaway.ca/

My forties crisis? One thing is certain, I wanted to change my life. I worked more than 60 hours a week, sometimes even at night, without counting, for a company that was looking for its business model. Health concerns have led me to question my lifestyle and commitment. We used web agencies and developers, but the result was not up to our expectations. Creating a simple landing page for the launch of a service seemed out of reach to me. There was some mystery and fascination with the code. There are many online resources for learning. I had started a few years ago to learn the basics with Codecademy. However, learning alone in front of a screen requires will and commitment. I did not even go after the first week.

As a perfectionist, I like things to be done according to the rules. Writers learn the rules of the language, before freeing themselves from them to create masterpieces. I had to learn the basics to move forward. That's why I opted for a shortcut, to integrate a bootcamp that has proven its worth, with a well-defined methodology. The one of Le Wagon is proven. The motto is explicit : 'change your life, learn to code'. So I decided to make a leap of faith, my goal was not to become a developer, but to understand the mindset and the "working process".

I had been warned from the first day: it would be difficult, do not compare yourself to others, each progressing at his own pace. Optimistic by nature, I had not measured the extent of these warnings. Go back to the place of a student, take a class in the morning, and then continue with exercises the rest of the day, get stuck in front of an error message, try to understand why, and solve the error, move on to the next one. New concepts every day, then exercises, every day. For nine weeks. But it is worth it. Actually, thinking backward, it seems obvious: facing a complex problem, you divide it into smaller parts, and keep resolving each one. Simple to say, the execution takes time. I learned to step back on the issue, and to consider the different options. Now with this experience I can face a problem without fear, and keep confident. My first experience: debugging a website made with wordpress, the client was looking for an expert. A friend of mine sent me the request and told me to accept the challenge, and to fake it until I make it. Well I made it.

Today I am launching my web agency, targeting the Chinese market, and helping companies who want to brand overseas. In the meantime, I can bootstrap with freelance gigs with my new skills. I can discuss web marketing and web strategy with my clients, asking senior developers to help me in the process, I keep learning every day, still face error messages, but fearless and confident...

Would I recommend Le Wagon? 110%, would I do it again? Definitely. And more : I would go back to my twenties and kick my ass to learn to code.

My next challenge: be fluent in mandarin.

Who knows what my fifties crisis will lead me to..

After 3 years spent developing the business activity of a startup in the smart cities field (OPnGO), I decided to follow the coding bootcamp Le Wagon to develop my technical skills.

Indeed, during my experience at OPnGO, I saw a start-up grow from 3 to 70 people in 30 months and I had to deal with scalability issues, especially on topics related to marketing. It occurred to me that it was not always easy to understand the problems of a technical team of 30 people and to interact with them. Moreover, it seemed to me that this lack of understanding could make my arbitration decisions less relevant, especially when defining the technical roadmap of the product. Finally, I quickly realized that becoming autonomous on the development of front-end improvements could represent a huge advantage in terms of responsiveness, especially with respect to tech teams that are often overloaded in the growth phase.

The wagon perfectly met my expectations and even exceeded them by making me discover a network of alumni active and very supportive. The wagon will remain a very strong experience in my life and I know it will count in the way I approach my next challenges. Indeed, thanks to these new skills, I intend to integrate a new startup and to cross new stages of development.

After an internship as a business developper in a tech start-up in NYC that only highlighted my lack of technical skill I decided to take a whole gap year to learn how to code. 

Le Wagon seemed to me the best option to start the year. All I can say it's that it has exceeded all my expectations. The program is well designed, the teachers are very good and motivating, the alumni network is really strong. 

I am such a big fan of Le Wagon that I stayed there as a teaching assistant and now as a teacher for the next batchs of students. 

I can easily say these 6000+€ has been the best investment in my life !

My name is Matthieu, I’m 29 years old and I’ve recently completed the 9 week bootcamp at Le Wagon. The idea of following Le Wagon’s formation came to me after few years working in the law industry.

Amateur of computer science, I wanted to develop my programing skills but did not want to spend more time than needed. I wished to be able to start working in this field ASAP. Since a few years, many companies offert this kind of quick formation and it’s hard to know which one to pick. I asked around, to friends, in the headhunting industry for instance, and many of them talked to me about this bootcamp. Unfortunately, when I  applied, there were no place left, so I decided to follow another course until the next session. 3 month later, I finally enrolled at Le Wagon in Paris.

The fact that I had followed a previous formation in programing helped me for the first days. Mostly, it enabled me to realize the benefits such a bootcamp : qualified, available and caring teachers. As far as I know, the programming community is full of helpful people and for most of your interrogations, you can find answers online. But for a beginner, having someone near you, explaining why your code went wrong is the easiest way to learn quickly. Besides the schooling, Le Wagon organises many events, allowing students to meet inspiring people (alumni, freelancers, CTOs, CEOs…)  which is very helpful to build a network if you’re new to the tech industry. It helps you to decide which position you would like to hold after the bootcamp.

After 3 years in business development in startups, I was frustrated not to understand the code behind tech products so I did Le Wagon! It was a learning blast!  I constantly learned during 9 weeks and I really appreciated the mutual assistance from co-workers and alumni. I had the image of solo developers and was surprised by the team spirit. I also found it really playful to solve problems and had the opportunity to pitch my project about employee perks and to construct a MVP with a great team. It gave me wings so as to continue to develop our demo project called Luma and try to make it grow for bringing happiness to employees.

After 4 years in a fast-growing startup, I decided to leave the company few months ago as a Product Manager. I joined le Wagon because I experienced a lack of technical background within the product field & felt that it was option for me to do. Indeed, I learned a lot about computer programming and now I see beyond the mockuping and design tasks that are regular for PM’s. All the skills that I learned help me now to go deeper into my job and explore infinite options to create awesome products. I highly recommend le Wagon to every PM/PO willing to level-up.

After 3 years working in support functions for a Tech Startup, I was frustrated not having a better understanding of technical topics.
I decided to develop coding skills with Le Wagon to find a job as product owner after the bootcamp. But the quality of the program made it really fun to learn and now I have decided to go on and improve my skills to actually find a job as web developer.
Also gathering different kind of motivated people from diverse backgrounds to develop new expertise created a great atmosphere.
I didn’t expect Le Wagon to have such an impact on my professional objectives and I highly recommend it.

Before Le Wagon, I was Head of Operations in a start-up in the Foodtech industry. 

I wanted to add technical skills to my resume and I choose Le Wagon which seemed to me the best "product-oriented" coding bootcamp.

During 9 very intensive weeks I learned a lot, about RoR, HTML, CSS, JS etc.... but also about myself. I haven't been that challenged for years. I'm also glad I had the chance to meet all these people with very different backgrounds.

I'm still impressed by the strength of the student / alumni network. Following the bootcamp I had great job opportunities from Le Wagon's alumni / entrepreneurs.

I'm now about to start a new job as a Head of Product Mobile.