How an App Academy Bootcamp Prep Alum Went from Wealth Management to NASA Mission Control

How does one go from working in finance and playing soccer to becoming a NASA coder? Ask Deep Tailor, a young man originally from Kenya who pushed himself to the top of his class at App Academy and ended up reaching for the stars.

Always interested in creating things and taking them apart, Deep decided to pursue a puzzle-filled programming career a bit later, at 26, than many of his colleagues. But the full story of how he got there and succeeded is really interesting.

“I switched to programming because I always loved to tinker with software/hardware. I liked to work on computers but never thought I had it in me to make a career out of it…I gave web development a chance and have not looked back since.”

Once he got into Bootcamp Prep, the level of personal teaching impressed Deep. His class was small, which let the instructor work closely with every student. Quickly, he caught on to the coding being taught and through Bootcamp Prep, learned helpful information for his full-time application.

After getting accepted and enrolling in the App Academy full-time program, Tailor was soon submerged in code. It was all he thought about for twelve weeks, and through the weekly tests, felt himself truly challenged, as was promised. But he was surrounded by passionate people, all extremely motivated to learn, and felt his own motivation and passion grow everyday he was there.

The constant use of pair-programming also helped Tailor learn both the technical concepts as well as the communication skills needed to convey his ideas and code. It’s still something he uses working as a NASA coder.

Although App Academy taught him many things, Tailor’s biggest takeaway became his ability to pick up coding languages and throw himself into his work, allowing him to find solutions to any problem. This helped him immensely as he received interviews from companies around San Francisco.

“I wasn’t really about space before. But NASA has always been the epitome of the company to work for, the organization to be in, because their reach is so far beyond anything else,” he told us.

He took the job and has been there more than a year, still very happy. Deep finds it both a technical and creative challenge every day. As part of a five-person team, Tailor has a fair bit of independence, working remotely three days a week and coming into the lab twice a week.

Related posts:

This series is a bit old. I started this when I had just switched. One year later, I believe I can give much better advice and therefore I wrote a NEW article that holds all parts below in one…

I am a lonely hunter in a sea of lions, I am a squatter counting ruins, I had options But I chose love… I am a victim of fate as my life fades, I could have chosen death and not this bed, I had…

We have worked closely with Sync Visas for our Canadian permanent residency. Amrita and her case manager were very professional, perfectly guided us through a number of immigration matters, and were…