Le Wagon

I used to be a project manager in a marketing agency specialized in working with law firms. Talking to web developers was a daily challenge as I was their only point of contact in the company and I was not feeling comfortable with it. So, first of all, I wanted to better understand this world. Therefore, I went to Le Wagon Paris and I started a new life. This was the most stimulating classroom environment I did for sure ! Thanks to Le Wagon, I have become a full stack designer at a startup with my best friend whom I met at Le Wagon. The bootcamp is unique and gives you the strength to accomplish the things you would not have imagined possible otherwise... Highly recommended !

I completed Le Wagon’s Fullstack program a month ago. I had joined the bootcamp in order to change career and become a freelance developer. Before that, I worked as a journalist and I had a lot of concerns about my ability to understand code.
However, after numerous great reviews and a positive word of mouth, I was very eager to start, and I have not been disappointed.
First of all, because teachers and teaching assistants truly care about passing on their knowledge and helping us understand difficult concepts.
Then, because coding in itself seems now much more accessible and clearer to me, which enables me to look forward to new opportunities as a futur freelance developer.
Finally, there is the very rich community that you join, you are surrounded with developers and you know that if you get a problem to solve, there’ll be someone ready to help you out. 
This is now my turn to recommend this course a thousand times because of the great memories I kept both on the human and professional plans !

Before I knew it two years had rolled by, I was keen as ever to learn OOP and was based in Barcelona. I finally took the plunge during winter 2018 and left what felt to me was the best job in the world. I contacted the bootcamp and was about to pay the deposit fee. As an act of due diligence I double checked the other bootcamps in Barcelona: I emailed them all to confirm the syllabus and availability. I got an email from Le Wagon and had an interesting conversation with the school’s owner, an interesting fellow called Gus. Le Wagon seals the deal I visited the working environment of Le Wagon Barcelona and was impressed, lots of natural light in a nice part of the city. In-addition, for me attitude is super important — after meeting Gus it seemed the school was genuinely interested in helping students learn to code with a strong emphasis on teaching practical skills, so that students can actually build well designed web applications. I signed up as quick as I could! You define your reality A few days after the bootcamp started it was clear I’d made one of the best decisions of my life. The daily routine was roughly as follows: I travelled to Le Wagon from my home in Tibidabo (mountains overlooking Barcelona) on my Intruder 125 cruiser, a breathtaking daily commute; morning lecture sometimes up to two hours long; a quick caffeine injection at a nearby cafe in which we became the regulars, and then onto practical coding exercises to cover the course material. A number of times I was reminded by the teachers that I may find the pace too fast and not to freak out. Personally, that wasn’t an issue whatsoever. I was used to feeling like a complete moron both in my previous academic and professional life. As an undergraduate Chemistry student and then later as a Masters Physics graduate, not having a clue about what was going on was second nature to me. I felt very much at home. Also I had the added benefit of my professional life where I would routinely go into emergency meetings with engineers, developers and architects from dispersed global teams to discuss real technical problems that were costing us a million euros a minute (until they were fixed), so living under the barrel of a gun was the daily grind for me and I loved it. There were no breakdowns, no moments of get me out of here, of why don’t I understand this? Being humble and accepting there is only so much I can take in during one day helped me avoid any such drama. Instead, I can only describe it as a beautiful struggle defined by lots of inspiring conversations during coffee breaks, meeting new people and learning a lot of web application tech and architecture principles ….very, very quickly. We have a verse in Islam “there is one reality but reality and you define your own reality”. This is written in Arabic all over the Alhambra in Spain and reminds us that our limited time in this world is beautiful, if we choose to believe it.   Birth of Ceziam and the future During the last phase of the bootcamp we work on a personal project and pitch it to the class. I proposed of a web application that was cyber security focused and was lucky enough to be able to work with it with a few fellow students. We discussed it through, developed our ideas and within a few days Ceziam was born. The domain name was bought and we got coding. Ceziam is a feely available and easy to use web application that identifies core Cyber Security risks. What really stood out during this period was how well we all complimented each other, I really could not have hoped for a better project team. We were a real team with a shared vision and importantly there was a very healthy level of respect and trust between us. Our core principle is let’s make a great Cyber Security product and have fun doing it…only good things will follow. So, here’s to living with the wind in your hair, taking a chance in life and trying to reach higher. I don’t know if Ceziam will be widely used, I don’t know if it will democratise Cyber Security but I do know I’ve learned a lot, met many inspiring people and am a better person today. If there is one life lesson I really do believe in: it’s never too late to try! If you have that thing in the back of your mind you know you want to try and you feel it will make the world a better place, then take that first step.   If you’re interested about learning more about my journey, you can find the full article here: https://medium.com/@haseebchaudhary_98209/the-beautiful-struggle-f7df22c7500d

Before joining Le Wagon I was working as a SEO, ASO & Analytics Manager for various companies like Ofertia or Leadtech, as well as being a digital marketing freelance. 
I needed some extra tech skills in order to make a good performance in my roles, as well as to start a new project by myself called EasyFork. 
Le Wagon helped me to learn code from 0 to a certain level that I can program a web app by myself. Now I am able to build my project as well as perform better in the past jobs I had thanks to that new skills. I was very lucky to have the chance to do the bootcamp in Barcelona, an amazing city to live in, with lots of tech companies and entrepreneurs.

I loved every minute of my bootcamp, I feel like I really progressed from being a coding newbie to being a real developer. Le Wagon just gave me the tools to learn how to build projects from scratch.

The program is experience driven, we spent hours and hours coding every single day. There wasn't a day I wasn't fully exhausted when I got home, but also fully satisfied with all the new things I had learned during the day. I am so happy I decided to quit everything and joined the Le Wagon family!

Before Le Wagon, I worked as a Project Manager for a Real Estate Development firm. In 2014, I wanted to update my company's website, so I took a front end web development class. I really enjoyed the class and since then coding was always at the back of my mind.

Shortly after moving to London, I met Ed Ward during Le Wagon's Open House. I had been searching for bootcamps and thought Le Wagon's entraprenurial spirit was great.

Le Wagon was definitely one of the most mentally challenging experiences I have ever had. The material was very different to anything I had ever had to learn before. Everyday, I would go to Le Wagon to learn and code for 10 hours a day, then go home to eat, shower, and sleep. Then I would wake up the next day and repeat the same routine. Although there were definitely times when I felt lost, I just kept trying my best knowing that in the end it would all somehow make sense in the end. 

The last two weeks we focused on building our final project. It was a great way to put the skills we had built up during the past 7 weeks into producing a real product.

Five weeks after Le Wagon, I accepted a job offer for a junior developer role. I couldn't have done this without Le Wagon!

I graduated from university in December of last year as an Environmental Engineer. After two months figuring out my next move, I realized that something was missing. Being a big fan of technology, I always wanted to code but never had the chance to do it.

I was planning to work on renewable technology accessibility and raising awareness of there presence in my country through a website. Then, I had a thought: “why not learn code and build this project with it?” Code, for me at the time, was this cryptic language that made every electronic thing work. After days of research, I found Le Wagon Barcelona and that was it. I had to do it.

I arrived to Barcelona five days before the course started in May. I was amazed by the city that Barcelona is. Coming from a developing country, all the streets, buildings, parks and things to do where unbelievable.

During my time at Le Wagon I didn’t only learn how to code. I learned how to think and manage motivation. During the 9 weeks, I was absorbing information at an incredible rate. It was the biggest challenge I had ever faced. From knowing zero code, I ended up building Ceziam for my project week alongside a team of very smart people in the same position I was in. Ceziam is an app, which anybody can use, that detects your websites core cybersecurity risks. I couldn’t believe that in just 9 weeks I had built a fully functional app that is now available to all!

Now, the project continuous and Ceziam is becoming a company of which I’m a Co-founder. I also came back home and have the confidence that I can build the project I wanted to do. Le Wagon changed my life and made me a better thinker, a better engineer and a better person.

I always knew I wanted to create my own business, but after finishing my undergraduate studies in management in London, I felt I lacked some of the tools to do it.   Sharing a flat with three developers and wanting to develop my own product, I decided to do Le Wagon to get some knowledge in code. And knowledge I got. I can easily say that it is by far, one of the best experience of my life. Those 9 weeks were tremendously enriching on both an intellectual and human level. It is quite amazing what you can do when you put completely different people who share the same passion for learning, creating and innovating in the same room. Whether it was the quality and the dedication of the professors, the sharpness of the curriculum or the overall philosophy of the bootcamp, Le Wagon is a must do whether you want to become a developer, build your product or simply learn to code. It not only taught me how to build my own website and tools, it taught me humility, intellectual perseverance, and stirred my curiosity for other industries and new technologies. Those 9 weeks went by extremely fast although they required hard work. Now, I am pursuing my Master’s in Paris, developing my business on the side, maintaining the amazing friendships I made and annoy anyone who would listen that ‘Le Wagon is amazing’. Highly recommend.

I am Growth Lead at Germinal. 🔥🛠

I did the Wagon (batch 101) when I was already a growth marketer but I began to feel limited in everyday life from a technical point of view: tools with limited functionality, need to understand the code in general and to become independent of developers, need to create custom scripts, code a site or features quickly.
I had to become a technical marketer, but it's out of the question to waste my time 4 years in a school, or to learn for myself for months.
The Wagon was obvious to me for 3 reasons: the training is fast, the quality of the training (more than 10 marketers around me praising the quality), the active and international community which is useful in a practical way when we have a question where professionally.

During the training? 1) Many good meetings, networking, hyper interesting events. Today I can say that I am part of a community of developers that I see regularly and to whom I can call if necessary. 2) Pedagogy is very impressive (courses, exercises, live code, platform, flashcards, teachers assistants ...) and especially effective. Today I can say that I owe a lot to the Wagon.

The price ? It is worth it very widely. Work ? Personally I had 3-4 offers a week during the training, I chose the best.

THANK YOU LE WAGON ❤️

Je suis Growth Lead chez Germinal. 🔥🛠

 J'ai fait Le Wagon (batch 101) alors que j'étais déjà Growth marketer mais que je commençais à me sentir limité au quotidien d'un point de vue technique : outils aux fonctionnalités limitées, besoin de compréhension du code en général et d'indépendante vis-à-vis des développeurs, besoin de créer des scripts personnalisés, de coder un site ou des features rapidement.
Je devais devenir technical marketer, mais hors de question de perdre mon temps 4 ans dans une école, ni d'apprendre par moi-même durant des mois. 
Le Wagon était comme une évidence pour moi pour 3 raisons : la formation est rapide, la qualité de la formation (plus de 10 marketers autour de moi en vantant la qualité), la communauté active et internationale qui est utile de façon pratique quand on a une question où professionnellement. 

Pendant la formation ? 1) Plein de bonnes rencontres, de networking, d'événements hyper intéressants. Aujourd'hui je peux dire que je fais partie d'une communauté de développeurs que je vois régulièrement et à qui je peux faire appel au besoin. 2) La pédagogie est très impressionnante (cours, exercices, live code, la plateforme, les flashcards, les teachers assistants...) et surtout efficace. Aujourd'hui je peux dire que je dois beaucoup au Wagon.  

Le prix ? Ça le vaut très largement. Le travail ? Personnellement j'ai eu pendant la formation 3-4 offres par semaine, j'ai choisi la meilleure.

MERCI LE WAGON ❤️

I started confident that LW would make me at least understand code.. as the bootcamp was going on, beside a great human adventure (9 weeks facing code challenges, with other « poor » volunteers, just like me), I discovered LW was even able to teach us more: how to code on our own!

LW just figured out how to store encyclopaedias in our heads.. To be honest, I had serious doubts about my ability to learn so much.. but guess what.. we always can learn and LW knows how to make it happen!

Few words about LW Barcelona in particular.. LW processes and teaching techniques are perfectly organised.. but.. what makes a huge difference, what makes us all (students) keep motivated and never giving up.. are people working in there (from general manager to most junior teacher).. they just keep motivating us, treating us like with a lot of attention.. and patience. I feel like they were here to make us feel good, happy, focused and part of the LW community.

I’ll conclude adding that LW was the best experience I ever had. I encourage any one reading those lines.. to read more feedbacks.. and just jump into it!

During LW bootcamp, I red this on the Google Chrome daily momentum : « Live as if you were to die tomorrow »… (this we know.. but what comes next)…« Learn as if you were to live forever. » - Mahatma Gandhi

Cheers / Abrazo!

Prior to joining le Wagon, I had worked in 3 SaaS startups. As Sales Manager, MD and CEO. 
I always felt like my lack of technical knowledge was costing me a lot: 
- I had no idea of what were the technical implications of client requests (so they had to wait for me to check with the tech team)
- I couldn't appreciate properly the work of the tech team
- I wasn't aware of what was possible or not.

So after quite some time looking online, I selected Le Wagon. I didn't regret it at all: the tool and the methodology are just freaking awesome.
I don't think I've absorb so much knowledge in such a short period of time! 
I also really enjoyed that they select candidates so that I was surrounded by very cool people! 
Today, I am actually working on a company project with 2 of my former classmates.

Thank you le Wagon!