Hi everyone! I am from Florence, Italy and have been living in Berlin since 2010. I am almost 30 and started my journey in Berlin studying Photography and German.

I shared a photography studio with two friends and was jumping from a freelance job to a job in a shoe store in Mitte where I got to speak a lot of German.

At those times I started thinking about my future and career (things I was not interested in until I turnt 26). I got a flyer to the DCI Info Event. I was immediately drawn to start the Web Development course, and I could already picture myself doing the job. I was really happy with my decision to go through that path, and couldn’t wait to start.

DCI gave me the essential tools to start in tech but also the strength to believe in myself and that I could do it!

The time schedule was perfect, I was lucky to be in a class that was so international. I am still in contact with my classmates. And we still go for coffee from time to time.

In the course, I’ve learned Web Development but sometimes had to put extra hours at home as some topics were pretty hard and overwhelming at the beginning, however, I had really great teachers that were helping me throughout this 1 year until the interviewing process.

Two months before the end of the course I started applying for internships and I was lucky to receive an offer from 2 companies. I accepted the most challenging one (the code challenge was HARD!!!!!) at Gamebook Technology.

I had a great experience, I’ve learnt so much there. The internship was very hard but thanks to that I am now pretty good at my current workplace — I work as a front end developer at Mark Veys GmbH :-))))

I must admit, that Gamebook Technology didn’t hire me after the internship, so I found myself looking for a job. It was not easy but I did not give up and got a job in July! I am super happy with the job, environment, my colleagues, tech stack (I work with AngularJS and I looooove it!)

So my advice is, don’t rush into a job, look for an internship to start with and step by step you will get there!

I am putting everything I have learned in the job now, I write code by myself, I do not deliver anything that I am not proud of, and this is all thanks to the internship, where I was allowed to make mistakes, allowed to forget about stuff and ask for all the help I needed.

I would like to thank DCI for getting me started in this great job.

Especially: Tommy, Oliver, Leandro, Aemal, Johannes, Lisa, Laura, Jose, Nacho, Patrick S., Meralle and Sash.

❤Marta.