Ask A Graduate Andre Soesilo Of Lighthouse Labs

From the beginning of the programming bootcamp process to getting hired, we got the inside details from Andre Soesilo about his experience at Lighthouse Labs, a web and iOS developer bootcamp located in Vancouver. Andre even shares his success story about the interviewing process that landed his new job at Axiom Zen.

Watch the interview below and also, check out his write up about getting hired:

My name is Andre Soesilo, and I am a recent graduate of Lighthouse Labs, a web and iOS developer bootcamp in Vancouver. I took the web development program for eight intense, fun weeks. I learned new technologies, such as Ruby on Rails, Javascript and AngularJS, and I got to build cool web applications. Three of the projects that I was proud of were Scatter Brain (a smart to-do web application that allows users to search and maintain a list of restaurants and movies), Clock Tower (a simple time-tracking web application), and Dragon Fly (a language exchange web application with video chat functionality).

Currently, I work at Axiom Zen, an idea catalyst with focus on building and launching iconic products, brands and companies shaping the future of digital life. In addition to working on interesting, challenging products for external clients, we also work on our own internal products, such as ZenHub and Routific. ZenHub is a browser extension that injects advanced functionality including kanban boards and file uploads seamlessly into the GitHub interface. It is built specifically for startups, fast-moving engineering teams, and the open-source community. Routific is a practical and scalable solution to the Vehicle Routing Problem. It automates the process of manual fleet scheduling and optimizes it, which provides tremendous savings to their users.

My interview with Axiom Zen began at the end of my bootcamp, and it lasted for three weeks. There were four rounds of interviews. It was definitely a long process, yet it was fun, challenging and rewarding. I got to learn Node.js, Express and MongoDB for a bring home assignment, and I also built my first Ruby Gem for a 2-hour on-site hack session with Marc Kuo, who is the co-founder of Routific and a senior software developer at Axiom Zen. This open-source Ruby Gem was built to assist users in accessing the Routific API.

Culture fit is also very important here, so as one of the last steps of the interview process, they brought me in for a team lunch with the whole team. I got to meet the whole team and made sure that these are the people I want to be working with. It was definitely a win-win situation.

I have been at Axiom Zen for a bit more than a week now, and I am loving it here. The projects are interesting, and I got to be involved in production codes on the first day of work. So far, I have fixed two bugs, and I am currently working on a major product feature. Additionally, Axiom Zen has a very fun, supportive working environment where everyone is super friendly and is motivated to learn, teach and improve. We are not afraid to learn and use new technologies, such as Koa, Go and Swift, as long as they are the best fit for the projects. However, it is not all just work here at Axiom Zen, we also do a lot fun activities together, such as daily yoga classes, gym sessions, go karting, BBQ and paintball. It has been fun, and I look forward to many years ahead of working and learning with definitely one of the best teams in the industry.

Andre is a recent graduate of Lighthouse Labs and a new employee at Axiom Zen. He can be reached on LinkedIn.