From AI Bootcamp to Production: Building a Real AI Agent

All right. Well, thank you so much for everyone coming through uh today's uh event boot camp to break through AI in action with Jonathan or Ben Newell. Uh again, I'm Jonathan Turing, the head of community at Code Academy. Thanks for tuning in. Uh today we have someone who is a recent AI/Machine Learning Boot Camp grad and probably one of the most interesting people that I have ever met. Not a hyperbole. Um, we've done a lot of learner stories over the years, but if there's anything that this one teaches, it will be about perseverance and tips about how to build your brand. A few fun facts about Ben. Uh, he's a AI engineering program leader with more than 14 years across healthcare analytics, SAS, um, AI product development. He's known for turning ideas into real scalable products. Uh he is the founder of improve health and AI powered fitness coaching app. He built end to end and launched after nine rejections. Um FYI for those who want to get you know started on their New Year's resolution goals a month early. This is the time to download that app. Uh he was also an award-winning uh innovator placing first in comy's AI agents boot camp for the clinical AI navigator and uh won the uh technical innovation award at the ABC global hackathon. Uh he uh was the technical program manager at IFIT uh leading applied AI and engineering initiatives in the health and performance space. And if that weren't enough, he is a resilience driven builder and mentor. And he's passion about AIdriven fitness, science, human performance, and coaching. Uh he has helped me with workout advice. Okay? Uh whether or not I'm doing enough sets and reps and uh yeah, if you have any questions throughout this conversation today, please drop it in the chat and I will be sure to ask Ben. So, first question, Ben, tell us a bit about your story and how did that lead you to enter tech? Yeah. So, thank you. Um, super excited to be here. I think, you know, starting out as a kid, you know, I always wanted to do something special um in athletics and, you know, my path into tech wasn't traditional, but as I was growing up, I was a skateboarder and ended up getting into a car crash when I was 15 and we actually hit a pregnant cow and it came through the front of the car and fractured my skull, broke my nose, and I knew like instantly that, you know, my skateboarding career was over. So that's kind of what got me on the path of, you know, when something's taken away from me, I just had to get back up and try again. And that led me into health and performance and science, which, you know, I did for several years. And then as I, you know, learned more and more about fitness and programming, I um, you know, started working with engineers at ABC Fitness and really saw them fixing code. And I thought, wow, if I learned how to do that, I can take my ideas and bring those to life. And so that's when I stumbled upon code academy and basically started um taking as many courses in coding like full stack engineering, Python, SQL uh as I could and just learning those hard skills so that I can bring my ideas to life and so yeah that's just a little bit about myself and super excited to be here. So, so Ben, uh, there was a lot that you, uh, dulged there. So many questions. Pregnant cow, skateboarding, tech, right? So, let's break it down a little bit. Uh, starting with the first part. Could you tell us about just like, you know, where were you born? Um, more about the story about hitting the pregnant cow, your skateboarding career. Um, just provide additional context before um, maneuvering into tech. — Yeah, so I was born in St. Petersburg, Florida. Moved to Texas when I was two and grew up in and went to Sherland High School. Um, and from there, um, sorry, my dogs are barking. If you can if you — don't hear anything, you're good. — Um, yeah. So, you know, went to Sherryland High School from when I was in kindergarten to when I graduated and played sports, was really into math and science and, you know, started skateboarding when I was about 12. uh became an amateur uh when I was about 12 and a half, 13 and you know was going to skateboard competitions and you know really just building up my brand um in skateboarding around Texas. And one night, you know, I was about 15 years old and we were I was with my brother and we were driving home from an

event and um we were just on a farm road and there was no lights and there was a pregnant cow in the middle of the road and we just didn't see it in time and my brother hit the cow and it came through the car and I was asleep and I woke up to bloody nose and a fractured skull and that kind derailed my career um as a skateboarder and got me into learning about, you know, when you get hit in the face, that famous quote, what are you going to do about it? You're going to get back up. Um — you're talking about the Mike Tyson quote. — Yeah. — Everyone has a plan. Everyone has a plan before. Yeah. Yeah. Gotcha. And so, yeah, I got hit in the face pretty hard that night. And, you know, it took a while for me to realize that, but I had to use that to as really as motivation to just keep going, keep trying to figure it out, keep persevering. Um, and, you know, just trying to find my way after that. So, you know, got really into tech or really into fitness and programming and health and science and um ultimately that led me into tech um just because of the programming aspect of fitness and healthcare and the creativity side and builder side. But — now was the interest in health like was that something that followed the accident? Like was that in high school? was that you know after high school can you provide a little bit more detail about like how you um started cultivating that interest for health? — Yeah. So the interest in health and wanting to do that as a career um that came really at an early age. Um I wanted to become a doctor. um in seventh grade I was very interested in science and math and I really wanted to become a surgeon and so it cultivated as a at a young age um and yeah that kind of has just always been with me. I loved exercising and working out and that's kind of how I went from playing sports to getting into skateboarding and um ultimately why I'm still in the field. It's just kind of always been with me and it's grown over the years. — Okay. So, you were so you were in health, right? Uh and this was this something that you tried to study like after high school? — Yes. after high school. So I actually, you know, during high school, I missed after the cow crash, I missed hundreds of days of school and it was very challenging for me to really pass and I actually failed my senior year and, you know, it was another one of those hits. Um, but I, you know, had a good support system and was able to pass, um, 6 months late and I got into exercise science, uh, as my major right after high school. um did that for a while, took a break and ultimately, you know, took a break for a couple years and then got back into school into sports management and finished out my bachelor's in sports management and then got my masters in exercise science and my MBA in healthcare management. But it was uh not a straight path. Um it was a bumpy road, but hope I answered your question. — Yeah. Yeah. So, I just wanted to set the stage and you had a plan to be like a professional like skateboarder. You hit the cow kind of derailed, but you still um cultivated that uh that interest for like professional sports or uh for health and fitness was able to get uh a couple degrees right in relation to that. What was then your segue into actually moving into uh tech? like when was the first time you you stumbled upon it, learned about it, wrote your first piece of code. Would love to learn a little bit more about that. Yeah. So the first time I learned about tech was I had been working at Union General Health System for about nine years and I was looking to transition out of Union General Health System into tech um Amazon, Google and um so I wanted to learn SQL and you know during that process I jumped on um a SQL course, took that and ended up getting a job at ABC Fitness. And during the ABC Fitness uh job, I um was working on some data

engineering projects that were focused on like our enterprise customer segments and I really wanted to get into the technical side of things. So, I took the time to go outside of work and learn. And on some of the really the moment that I said, I think I need to like really dive into this was we were working on a project. I saw a developer make a change in code. And it fixed the bug and the code ran successfully. And I thought, wow, this is like an English language that I could learn and if I learn this, I could take my ideas to real life. That was about three years ago, about three and a half years ago. And when I saw that, I immediately signed up for courses. And Code Academy is kind of the platform that I've spent most of my time on um since then. I did not realize when I first spoke to you before doing this event that it had only been three and a half years since you started to learn how to code. That's insane. That is insane. That just shows like how much hustle you got. Um, so with that transition, right, uh, from you being focused on like health and fitness and then starting to learn how to code, yes, you had that spark, but could you talk a little bit more about like what the skill or the mindset that you had for transitioning into a completely um, new field? I mean, maybe not it's a complete transition, but just like totally learning something new, right? like you never had no one like went up to you and was like, "Hey, I'm going to teach you like how to code. " Like this is something that you were interested in, but like could you just tell me a little bit more about like your mindset and like how you started to uh develop a new skill? — Yeah, man. I'm going to have to go back to skateboarding on this one. Um, so as a skateboarder, you have to try a trick and learn it. And it usually takes hundreds, not thousands of tries. And during that process, you have to think about how you're going to do it. Then you really the skateboard hits you in the legs, you fall down, you get back up, and you try again. And so doing that year after year, I developed the ability to fail and be okay with it and then try again. until I succeeded. And I think it's, you know, failing forward. And so going into tech was very similar. I didn't realize it until a while back, like six months to a year ago. It's very similar to like weightlifting repetition and skateboarding repetitions. But you have to be okay with failing and trying again because we all know like when you hit a bug, you're going to have to try to figure it out and it's probably not going to be fixed on the first time. And so having that mindset of like, hey, it's okay to fail. Let me just keep trying and think outside of the box until I can fix this. So, I think having persistence and having the ability to think outside the box to solve a problem and just don't give up, you know, and pretty soon you're going to get closer and closer to fixing it or, you know, solving the problem. And as you get closer, you actually, like, in my opinion, get more motivated because as you get closer, the pressure to fix it is like even more intense. And so I think repetition, having the willingness to not have an ego and be able to fail and then keep trying and keep persisting and you'll persevere and you'll solve the problem. And it's never going to be a straightforward path, but I think those are some of the skills that are not sexy and maybe not talked about enough. But just keep getting up, trying again, fail forward, and persist until you can um solve the problem. And those are some skills that are going to like take you a long way in any industry. What you're trying to say is skateboarders will make the best coders. No, but that's all that's all great advice. It's like having that persistence, having um that repetition. I think that's so important, right? You can like learn something, but until you do it over and over again, it doesn't really like get into your brain. So, uh we have someone who has raised uh his or her hand. Plain lover.

Interesting name. Um did you want to unmute and ask her a question? You are also welcome to uh enter in the chat. — I posted a thing in the chat of my a game I made in HTML on CSS. — Yeah. Okay. That is that's super cool. I totally saw that. I was — check it out is in the chat. — Yeah. Yeah. So, this event um thank you so much for — Got you. Um, we'll definitely have to uh check it out. If anyone else wants to check it out, that's totally cool. Um, plane lover, excuse me, if you have a different name. Uh, but, uh, you know, this conversation more so centered around um, Ben's journey. I don't know, Ben, you want to check it out later or anybody else? — Yeah. Yeah, I'll check it out later for sure. Yeah, — but definitely. But thank you so much for asking that question. Really, really appreciate it. Um, okay. So, pivoting a little bit. Uh, okay. So, you learned how to have like this grit, this persistence um from skateboarding and applied it to coding. It's only been three and a half years, but just tell me about like those three and a half years and like what that coding journey was like and maybe you could uh tie it to uh a couple things. One, how you ended up in the machine learning AI uh boot camp in addition to the fact that uh you also uh were able to develop your career professionally. So, I would love to hear a little bit more about that. Yeah. So during So when I first started, I got into this backend like kind of like code academy has backend, front end and full stack developer courses. So I took a back-end course and learned kind of how to develop an app um from the back end. And that course was the framework for me building improve health, the app that you know I have on the app store now. But during that time it was very hard um to do and I had to fail a lot but you know it taught me a lot about end to end building and it made me more interested in really diving deep on Python um SQL and some of like these things that are very important in the industry and also So just to note, you know, a lot of AI is built around Python. So I knew with AI back then with ChachiBT first coming out three years ago that if I got really good at Python, I might be able to use that skill in the future to build something with AI. And so um I was doing all this work outside of my normal job. So I really wanted to learn um and then I was applying what I could in my career and I think it supercharged my career but my career wasn't focused on technical things. I would try to sprinkle it in as much as possible. Um, and that's what helped, you know, I would build dashboards with SQL and, you know, display those to execs at work. And I think that really got me a long ways um, in my career. But just throughout the time, you know, I was just looking for like in my career, what problems were the companies trying to solve and how could I learn different types of coding languages to help solve those problems for them. And — yeah, — that that's kind of been my playbook over the last couple of years. And um I would say like when I was building the app improve health, I got it on the app store, but at the end of that, that was in July of this year. I was like, man, I really, you know, I never went to get my CS degree. I really want to try a boot camp. And I went back on Code Academy and I saw that you guys were launching the boot camps for the first time. and you know for a really reasonable price compared to the competitors. And so I said I've got to jump in and get in the first cohort because that's exactly what I want to do. Um, and so that's kind of how I stumbled upon the AI agents boot camp and it was just kind of like another stepping stone to my career in tech and which also led me to more technical roles and consulting work and future opportunities. So hopefully — Yeah. You might have some questions though. — Yeah. Uh Denny asks uh when did the boot camp happen? Happened a few months ago.

Uh we launched uh boot camps first cohort in several different uh career paths and uh yeah Ben was part of our first uh machine learning/ AI one. So, uh, but just really quick, Ben, uh, something to note, something that I really love about your story that I think would be really, uh, a good message to send out to a lot of beginner learners is that your learning was like very intentional, right? Like you wanted to learn X to get Y result, um, SQL or Python to solve for whatever like problem. And I received tons of questions from newbies about, hey, what coding language should I take? Well, it's like, well, I always reply back, well, one, we have a sorting like quiz, right? Um, but then two, it's like, what are you trying to solve? Like, what do you want to build? Because if you can imagine like what your goal is, then you work backwards and figure out what are the different technical skills that you need. Um and I think having that intentionality is something that is missing from all from a lot of folks. Maybe not necessarily, you know, folks on this call uh or this event, but I think in general like you shouldn't really do anything without any kind of intention, let alone coding, right? Because it's quite uh labor intensive, right? It asks a lot. Um so tell me about the machine learning/AI boot camp experience like what was it like? How long was it? Your instructor uh and then the project you built at the end. — Yeah. So that AI boot camp was about five weeks long, started in believe the first week of August and ended midepptember. And each week we learned some type of framework or something that was pivotal in building the big project at the end of the boot camp. Um, so each week we were building many projects and lots of good stuff. Um, we were learning things like Rag and what vector DBs are and how to leverage large language models and things like OpenAI to build products using AI. Um, and so the first couple of weeks was just kind of laying the groundwork and the foundation of like what AI is and how you could use it to build things. And then weeks like three through five or six were more about how do we apply these skills to actually build a project and get it to work. And then the last week was f like really focused around like getting that final project done. And you know we had a competition and I was able to secure a first place spot. Um, and you know, the last week we went, you know, our instructor Rocky was really helpful in like helping answer questions about resumeumés or interviews and things like that. So, it was really well-rounded like it started um the way that it started was like all around explaining the fundamentals and the basics and then like how to design an end to end product and then it went into like each aspect of that building the product and then into like how do you interview and like set yourself up for success to land a role in tech. So, I think it was like really well structured. It was a couple it was two times a week on the weekend, which was perfect for me cuz I was working a full-time job. And um we used Discord for our chat. Um the instructor and the assistant was very helpful answering questions and giving documentation and like, you know, it was just a really good experience. And um one of the things that I liked the most about it was like Rocky, our instructor, would just reiterate how to do an end toend design of something. So like architecting an app, like what does it look like from start to finish, that was like one of the biggest pieces for me. Um because in a lot of coding interviews, those are the questions that they want to know. They want to h like understand like how you think about architecting an app and then using AI after the fact to improve it or optimize it and that type of thing. So, um so yeah, it was a great course, man. I want to take another one. — I'm sure I'm sure you could. Uh we could definitely talk after this. Um okay, so you take it, you have it's you said five weeks. you have a challenge, you won first place. Um, tell

me about um after the boot camp um just about like how you utilized uh your um your accomplishment, how did you uh use that to develop your professional career? And I guess before we sorry before we segue into that, uh Denny's wrote, let's see here, it just went away. Um can you expand more on the architecture? Do you learn all that in the boot camp? — Yeah. Yeah, you do. So, you can learn it. Like Rocky, his one of his biggest things is like architecture and design. Um, he loves it and he's very passionate about it. So he does a really good job of explaining like how do you get data, take the data and then start coding so you can like ingest the data and build an app and just goes through each process to build like an end toend flow of how an app would work from start to finish. Um so he definitely the instructor definitely like explains the architecture and how to um really understand that and learn that and he's repeats it over and over again so it sticks. Um but then he also has like uh blogs and whatnot that you can follow along and he posts stuff like that as well. Um, so yeah, he um the instructors were really good at that aspect and really good at reiterating each step. So that was one of like my favorite things about the course. Denny, is that answer your question? Please let us know if you would like Ben to elaborate more. Yes. Uh, so yeah. Can you talk a little bit more about post boot camp life, right? What did you do? you got first place. How did that affect your career? You know, what did you decide to do? Would love to learn a little bit more about that. — Yeah. So, got first place and I got so when I got a lot of messages from founders and startup startups looking to, you know, use AI agents in healthcare. Like, that's a really big thing right now. Um but at the time I was actually switching out of health care to go back into fitness tech. I took a role um working with engineers um building out solutions like for fitness like AI solutions for fitness. Um so yeah right after I landed a new awesome job. Um then I also landed a you know a lot of conversations with CFOs and just highlevel people um that want to adopt you know the actual product that I built in the boot camp. So to me that was amazing and so those conversations are still going on and I'm very excited about them. But just having that product and having it as like something that works in production on your resume is massive and bigger than the first place win, you know. So yeah, I think life after boot camp has been amazing and it's opened up a lot of opportunities and honestly I think the doors are not closed yet. So excited to see what happens next. — So a couple things with that. So the first thing is that we receive a lot of questions too about uh will getting a certificate whatever it may be a course, career path, boot camp, will that secure a job? The answer is undoubtedly no. It will not get you a job, right? It just is maybe a proof point for some kind of hey this person has taken the time to develop a skill, right? But what people really want to see is uh your portfolio, the projects that you have like completed. So um I would love to learn a little bit more about like okay you created this um project right you you created this thing. Could you tell me a little bit more about like how you spotlighted it? how you let people know that you created this thing and then instead of like uh pitching it to all these different founders, these CTO's like how did they come to you? Could you tell us a little bit more about that? Yeah. So I was very public about like building and so every time I so I you know LinkedIn is like a big platform for me and um posting and building in public is something that you know is scary but I have never shied away from it. So, I

think [clears throat] what helped me a lot was just posting my updates and building and showing my progress in real time to the community um on LinkedIn. And that ultimately brought a lot of curiosity um from different people into like, hey, Ben, what are you building? Want to be a part of it? And that just opened the doors, you know, just being transparent and sharing updates in person or like not in person but you know to the community. [snorts] Um and then like you said having a portfolio. So another thing that I did was you know used Lovable which is another AI tool to build a like website with all of my projects on there. So, you can go to something called improve labs, which is web page I built, and in there it has every single one of my projects. You can click on it and it'll take you directly to like what the project's about. And it's like a living portfolio. And so, like to your point about, you know, can a certification land you a job? Maybe not. But having a portfolio, building in public, and there's a book, it's like being so good that you can't be um I can't remember the quote, but it's like you got to be so good that like it's like undeniable, basically. — I think building in public was huge for me. sharing my story and sharing my updates brought a lot of curiosity and that transparency with my community opened up doors. — Can we be a little bit more specific with like building a public here because I think that's something that I don't think like anyone that I've like interviewed um for an event has ever like talked about. Um so can you talk a little more about like the consistency what you were trying to communicate like how consistency in terms of like what was the cadence right was it weekly daily what were you trying to communicate was it um just like the challenges that you encountered the things that you accomplished and I would ask too like why were you willing to be so uh vulnerable to share your successes as well as presumptive ly your failures, right? Uh would love to learn a little bit more about that. — Yeah, that's a good question. So, I think one um just a easy one is you know startups like me, right? I consider myself a startup founder. I have a company and so but with that you know you have to spend money on marketing and different things. So as a one to two person team me and my wife it's like how can I leverage my community to build in public and what I mean by that is if I generate let's say a new UI like the background of your zoom right looks like really clear and awesome and I post that to my community and I get feedback from them and likes and that kind of gives me a signal to like keep moving forward with this or maybe change direction. So, um, building in public like is scary, but I think it tells you if you're moving in the right direction with what you're building and if it's something that people might want. And so the approach I took was I'm just going to share what I'm building. Um because it keeps me accountable even though it's scary. And that accountability builds trust with your community. And that trust and transparency goes a long way when you know you're asking for feedback on what you're building and um you take the feedback and you iterate and improve on it. And ultimately it shapes your product. And so building in public can mean a lot of different things, but most of the time like it's sharing your updates, even if they're not perfect. And it's just sharing your story and your journey and letting your community be a part of that. And it's really awesome when the community gets involved and you know, help shape something you're trying to build. Uh, no, thanks so much for sharing. And then with uh Lovable, like why did you choose Lovable specifically? There are u a bevy of different AI builders uh out there. How did you choose that one? How many uh projects did you decide to feature on your portfolio? Uh feel

free to drop it in the link, too, so people can actually see. Um and um yeah, like you you build this thing. You're very public about um posting consistently. Um how could you tell me a little bit more about like how frequent people reach out to you and and want to collaborate or learn a little bit more about like what you've done? — Yeah. So the first part, Lovable, I feel like it's been so long since I picked Lovable. you know, AI is just moving such at a rapid pace, but Lovable was something I just stumbled upon and actually um it's a front-end tool. So, I was like, "Ooh, this tool can build a prototype really fast for front end like UI stuff. " And I wanted to build a website for my app improve health because as part of the app store like guidelines you have to have a web page with email address etc. And I tried a lot of different tools um and I just got down to lovable and created it and it's in that portfolio. Um if anybody clicks on the link they can find it in there. And I [clears throat] just love the UI and the ability to build something really quickly. It leverages a lot of large language models as well. So you can use prompt engineering to build something really quick and then do a preview and then kind of change it in real time if you want. — And so that's how I got on to lovable. Um, and then in terms of like people reaching out, I'd say, you know, being public and building in public, especially in the fitness space, I had people reaching out to me and I still do multiple people a week. um whether it's just people trying to collaborate with me, build something with me, or ask for my advice on like their resume or what they should build or how they should break into tech. Um yeah, I would say it's a weekly thing. Like last week I had somebody reach out and said they have like a database for exercises, but they need somebody to help build the AI portion and like basically the full app and so they want to collaborate with me on that. So it's like hit it's I wouldn't even say it's hit or miss, but it's definitely weekly. People are reaching out and um it's been great, man. — Yeah. Uh with that said, you you're able to establish so many connections and I think this is such a um an important uh lesson for all of us. We can even people who are in the field, right? You could always do a better job with building up your brand. Speaking of brand, like are there certain things that you want to communicate with like your personal professional brand, right? like what is like you're on LinkedIn, you're building in public, like what are you trying to communicate out to the world? Um and um what are what's some advice that you have for people attending today? — Yeah, like communicating. Um can you ask that one more time? I was reading the chat. — Yeah. Yeah. Message — there. No, no. I mean, it's actually, you know what, maybe we should start with uh Denny's uh question next here. Um, do you get tired from all the messages and which one do you choose to respond to? And then we can — Yeah. So that question's interesting because there's a lot of messages out there, you know, and there's a lot of like bots and fake recruiters and so like for example, I made a post the biggest post of my like LinkedIn career last week and I think I got like 1,500 profile views from it. Well, out of there was, I don't know, 50 or 60 fake profiles. And so, you know, there was messages in there that I could tell weren't real. So, you have to be I would say like here's how I discern and decipher which ones I respond to. Like, if I see a message, I go directly to the person's account and I look at how many followers they have. And if they have zero followers or 10 followers and there's no post history, I don't respond to those because those can maybe be fake. And so, um, but outside of that, like the messages that I get, I don't get tired of them because I'm just so thankful to

get them because most of the time it's people asking for help. You know, I had somebody from New York or New Jersey last night reach out to me and he said, "You shared your story on LinkedIn and I was hit with the same thing and I really would love to share my story with you, Ben. Can we talk? " And he called me like at 8:00 last night and we're supposed to talk after this meeting tonight. and I don't even know the guy, but um you know, and it's just it's I want to give back, you know, I've always been a type of person that wants to give back and help people, especially, you know, breaking into tech non-traditionally, it hasn't been easy. And so, anybody that's struggling, like I've been through so many ups and downs. And so when I get these messages and people just need help, I want to help them out however I can. Um, and so there can be times where there's lots of messages, but when they come from like a place of goodness, [clears throat] I never get tired of those messages because, you know, I feel like I might be able to help that person out. — That that's that's amazing that you're taking the time to like help other people. And I that's also a common theme with people who are more experienced in tech because it's so hard especially to get like your first opportunity to kind of um reach down so to speak to help pull people up. Um with that said, um what are the job market is really tough right now, right? AI has transformed the way that we learn as well as um do work. Um, what would be some tips that you would give uh people trying to break into tech or maybe break into a more technical role? Like let's say they're in a non-technical role at a company and they're trying to become do a more technical role. What are some um tips and tricks for not only learning the content, right, the skills, but then also uh building a brand because that is building a brand is obviously like a differentiator between all the different folks out there. Yeah, I would say if you're in a company, you're in a non- tech role, but you want to become in a more tech role, you need to one just find out what tech stack your company's using if you plan on staying there. And for example, if you're in company A and they're using Python and SQL for all their data engineering, then if I was you, I would go onto Code Academy and say, "Let me do an intro to Python course. Let SQL course. " And then I would take that and run with it and just kind of use it like as a stepping stone and like building blocks. So, I would take that and then I would go talk to my boss and say, "Hey, I'm interested in getting a little bit more technical and our tech stack is Python and SQL. Is there any opportunity where I can help? " And maybe your boss says, "Well, do you know any? " And you say, "Well, I've been working outside of work to build up these skills and I'm learning and I'm willing to learn more and if there's any projects, I would love to help out. " That's like step one. And then you find out as step two like who's working on those projects right now. So if your engineering team is working on them and you find who those people are, maybe you send them a message or talk to your boss and say, "Hey, can I send this person a message? " um and ask them if they would take a call with you for 30 minutes so you can understand what they're working on and how they got into their role and if they maybe even would want to mentor you or take you under their wing. Um that's something that I've done over and over again in my career that I didn't touch on. I'm always asking people, hey, you know, can you teach me what you know? like I'm willing to learn and willing to sign up for like extra credit projects just to help out so that I can learn knowing that in the short term it might take more time but long term if I learn these skills and build these relationships it's going to go a long way and so um those are a couple steps I would say like step one is figure out if you're in a non- tech role what tech stack your company's using and then try to research those outside of work. Then talk to your manager about potentially helping on that and then have, you know, do some homework as they would say and show up to your conversation with your manager saying, "I've been doing this on the side and I already have like proof that I'm willing to do this and if there's any projects you would like or I

could help on then, you know, I would love to volunteer for them. " Then, you know, step two is seeing if you can get mentored by somebody on the tech team or just get a one-on-one with them to see if they would actually just help you understand what they're working on to see if that's something you would really want to do. And so, like that's what I would do and that's what I've done um multiple times in my career. Um so, that's what I would do at work. And then I think the second piece was like building a community, right? Yeah, like building a brand to help uh separate yourself from the field. — Yeah, separating yourself from the field um too is it's tough. You know, there's so many people out here that are really smart. Um, so finding out what you're really passionate about and your niche, um, and then just doubling down on that is going to be key because when the going gets tough and it gets hard, you know, if you're really passionate about it, you're going to keep going. And so I would think building your brand is, you know, for example, me on LinkedIn, I've been building my brand there for several years. And that was just me either showing up consistently whether I got a certification or I got laid off of my job or something, you know, and just being transparent about my ups and my downs. You know, there was a test that I took a couple months ago that I failed by two points and I shared that with the community and then I shared with them when I passed it. So, be building a brand to me is like being transparent, consistent with how you show up and being willing to help people. And I think those are some of the main things. — For sure. Um, let's say that you're not in a company right now, right? You're a newbie. Uh, you're a newbie. You're trying to learn the skills. You want to work in tech, right? It's it's tough out there. What would be some um words of wisdom that you would give? — Yeah. So, if you're a newbie and you're just trying to break into tech, research. So if I'm I am researching every single tech company out there. Then I'm figuring out what company do I want to work for. uh whether it's Amazon, Google, you know, some of these bigger companies or if it's a startup and then trying to figure out, you know, what tech stack they use and then using all that research and that information that you gather from research to start learning those skills um to help you kind of differentiate yourself and set yourself apart from the competition. And I think doing that will build up your confidence if you do get an interview and you try to break into tech. Um, another thing you can do is, you know, if you have a community on LinkedIn or Instagram or Facebook is, you know, see if you can connect with some of these people at these tech companies and learn about what they're doing and how they got into tech. And a lot of people are going to be willing to help you. And it kind of goes back to the same thing at if you are in a tech company and or you're in a non- tech role and you want to be in a tech role, you know, you try to reach out to people, ask for help and build those relationships and just learn about their experience and take that information and um use it to your advantage. you know, you got so many tools out there to research companies and learn what they're doing and set yourself apart. So, relationships are huge in my opinion. Community is huge. Um, this community here, like we're all here talking about community, this is massive. And so, like if anybody on this call ever wanted to ask me something on LinkedIn, like feel free to reach out and I'll try to help you out as much as possible. Speaking of LinkedIn, let's say Ben, there's someone here and here or she is like, "But Ben, I don't even know what to post on LinkedIn. How do I even start? " What would you say to that person? — Yeah. So, there's, you know, I would say like not to go deep on the AI train, but there's just so many tools right now that you can use, right? You can you know think about prompt engineering is a very high skill right now that you know a lot of companies are looking for. So, say you have a free chat GBT membership

you can say what I would do is, you know, if I wanted to get started, I would most likely say, "Hey, like what are some really cool posts about this topic that I'm very passionate about? " And maybe it gives you some ideas, right? Maybe that's not your first post, but it gives you ideas of like what you could post about, what's trending in the area that you're passionate about, and that can kind of give you a framework of what you would want to post. But I'd say, you know, your first LinkedIn post, maybe it's just about yourself and what you're trying to do, and you're excited to be on LinkedIn and connect with people and, you know, build up the coding community. Um, so I would say like step one is get your LinkedIn profile set up. It doesn't have to be perfect. And then make a post about yourself and you know what you're interested in and um you're interested in connecting with people and building your LinkedIn up. And honestly, that's really all it takes. And then from there, you take that and run with it and be consistent with kind of what you post and just get out there and make a post. — Yeah. G given all the tools out there, there really is no uh excuse, right, for not being able to create something. You have to have a little bit of grit uh to do something. Um, okay. We have less than six minutes left. We're going to open up to questions. Uh, Plane Lover, if this is about your project, I'm sorry. We're going to have to or pass. But, um, — it's not about my project, but you know, a thing called Skype. — Yeah. Do we know? Yeah. — I still have it. — Okay, that's awesome. Thank you so much for sharing, Plane Lover. Really appreciate it. — Please take my time. Yep. Okay. Um All right. Any other questions at all? Any questions? We're going to open it up. Let's see. And we have We have Ben's LinkedIn here. Um, Ben, um, what just so if people do reach out to you, what would be like the, um, what how could you best serve them? I would say anything from mindset to building up their confidence, helping them get started in coding, helping them transition from a non- tech role to a tech role, helping them with learning about AI tools and which ones to use for what use case. Um, and just support, you know, I know what it's like to uh be trying to break into a tech without having a technical background. So, or just starting as a beginner. So, I'm willing to help with kind of whatever if they need help with building up their LinkedIn profile, you know, that's something I'm constantly working on. So not nothing's really off the table when it comes to community and developing different skills your career. So the fact that you're so uh giving with your time uh is a gift in itself. Um last thing do you uh is are there any like last words that you like to uh say to the audience here? — Man, just keep coding. Get on code academy. do your 100 days of Python or 100 days of SQL. Get on the app. Code Academy has a really fun app that you can do every morning in like five minutes. Um that's going to build up that muscle, that repetition muscle. Um especially with with the coding skills, right? But then when it comes to just perseverance, you know, [snorts] — don't be scared to if you fail to just try again. um that's going to get you a long way. And I think that's probably the main thing is if you fall down, if your code doesn't work, just get back up and try again. And if you keep doing that and keep persisting, you're going to be successful. — That's great advice. Again, um Ben's LinkedIn is uh in the chat here. Thanks so much for everyone uh coming today. Uh Ben, thank you so much for taking the time to share your story. You know, getting down dirty, uh telling us about your history, everything from hitting uh pregnant cow to skateboarding to

breaking into tech to maneuvering uh outside of uh you know, your time with the boot camp, what you've done outside of the boot camp, how to build up your uh portfolio, uh your presence on LinkedIn. I've taken away a lot of gems. So did the audience here. This conversation is going to be uh uploaded to our YouTube channel uh within a week. So stay tuned and um I hope everyone uh benefited from this conver conversation as much as I did. So have a good rest of the week and we'll see you soon. Talk to you later. Bye — bye.