MAXX Potential

Mohamad Badawa

By MAXX Potential

Mohamad worked as an Apprentice for less than a year, gaining valuable on-the-job tech experience before he exited MAXX Potential to work at Old Dominion Freight Line as a Front-End Developer.

What were you doing before MAXX Potential? What drew you to pursue a career in technology?

College Student / Retail

Can you talk about what you’re currently working on? What are some of your job responsibilities?

– Develop and enhance new features and components based on business requirements.

– Fix bugs and troubleshoot.

– Review code and merge requests.

– Communicate with BAs to make sure all the business requirements are met.

What’s the most rewarding thing about your current role?

Working in a field that I love with amazing co-workers!

How do you keep your skills up to date? What’s the best way to learn new concepts, technologies, programming languages, etc.?

– YouTube channels like Web Dev Simplified and Udemy classes.

– Podcasts while driving to keep up with the latest industry news and Cargo Shorts, which is a company-specific podcast.

What’s the best piece of advice you can give to someone early in their IT career or looking to get their start?

1. Enthusiasm and curiosity can get you pretty far in this field!

2. Learning a new set of skills like troubleshooting and using all the tools you have the right way.

3. Ask questions and use all the resources you have, such as documentation.

4. Learn more about the company you are working for and how they do things, such as their business model.

5. Treat the project you are working on as one of your own, try to write the best code you can, and make sure everything is working fine.

 

Interested in becoming or working with a MAXX Apprentice? Attend Career Lab or explore MAXX Business Solutions!

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Mohamad Badawa

By MAXX Potential

Mohamad worked as an Apprentice for less than a year, gaining valuable on-the-job tech experience before he exited MAXX Potential to work at Old Dominion Freight Line as a Front-End Developer.

What were you doing before MAXX Potential? What drew you to pursue a career in technology?

College Student / Retail

Can you talk about what you’re currently working on? What are some of your job responsibilities?

– Develop and enhance new features and components based on business requirements.

– Fix bugs and troubleshoot.

– Review code and merge requests.

– Communicate with BAs to make sure all the business requirements are met.

What’s the most rewarding thing about your current role?

Working in a field that I love with amazing co-workers!

How do you keep your skills up to date? What’s the best way to learn new concepts, technologies, programming languages, etc.?

– YouTube channels like Web Dev Simplified and Udemy classes.

– Podcasts while driving to keep up with the latest industry news and Cargo Shorts, which is a company-specific podcast.

What’s the best piece of advice you can give to someone early in their IT career or looking to get their start?

1. Enthusiasm and curiosity can get you pretty far in this field!

2. Learning a new set of skills like troubleshooting and using all the tools you have the right way.

3. Ask questions and use all the resources you have, such as documentation.

4. Learn more about the company you are working for and how they do things, such as their business model.

5. Treat the project you are working on as one of your own, try to write the best code you can, and make sure everything is working fine.

 

Interested in becoming or working with a MAXX Apprentice? Attend Career Lab or explore MAXX Business Solutions!

Autumn Davis

By MAXX Potential

Autumn Davis

Autumn worked as an Apprentice for over a year, gaining valuable on-the-job tech experience before she exited MAXX Potential to work at Spring Oaks Capital, LLC.

What were you doing before MAXX Potential? What drew you to pursue a career in technology?

Before MAXX, I was working as a Vaccine Scientist here in Richmond. I did like my job, but I knew it wasn’t my calling. During my time as a Vaccine Scientist, I was a part of a team that worked a lot with SQL to query our database, as well as Python and R Studio. I dabbled with various front-end languages in my free time and really wanted to do more; I was super blessed to have a supervisor that allowed me to expand my knowledge during down time at work.

Can you talk about what you’re currently working on? What are some of your job responsibilities?

At Spring Oaks, there was an initiative to give our operations team more ownership over certain tasks. My supervisor and the rest of the team thought the best way to do that was with an internal control panel. With the help of an amazing team, we got our control panel Heartwood up and running within about 6 months! I worked on the Front End using React and CSS and learned SO much within such a short period of time. It was an awesome and challenging experience! Now, I’m responsible for implementing new features into Heartwood and assisting with our landing page and payment portal.

What’s the most rewarding thing about your current role?

My supportive team! I have never been around an environment that is so patient and that fosters learning and growth (besides MAXX of course!). Here, there is so much growth, and the learning never stops. They really are great people at Spring Oaks, and I am truly grateful to MAXX for getting me here.

How do you keep your skills up to date? What’s the best way to learn new concepts, technologies, programming languages, etc.?

I’m definitely a visual learner. I love watching YouTube videos and seeing how other people approach developing. I also try to attend as many programming themed Meetups as I can. Conferences are also a great place to get new information.

What’s the best piece of advice you can give to someone early in their IT career or looking to get their start?

Write down everything that you can. A piece of paper really helps keep track of your thoughts when you’re planning or troubleshooting. The website Notion is a life saver for organizing thoughts and notes. ChatGPT is also a great resource when it’s late at night and you don’t want to bother anyone. Also, be really patient with yourself; this is not the easiest field and the learning process takes time. Try to make learning something that you look forward to instead of dread.

Interested in becoming or working with a MAXX Apprentice? Attend Career Lab or explore MAXX Business Solutions!

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Autumn Davis

By MAXX Potential

Autumn Davis

Autumn worked as an Apprentice for over a year, gaining valuable on-the-job tech experience before she exited MAXX Potential to work at Spring Oaks Capital, LLC.

What were you doing before MAXX Potential? What drew you to pursue a career in technology?

Before MAXX, I was working as a Vaccine Scientist here in Richmond. I did like my job, but I knew it wasn’t my calling. During my time as a Vaccine Scientist, I was a part of a team that worked a lot with SQL to query our database, as well as Python and R Studio. I dabbled with various front-end languages in my free time and really wanted to do more; I was super blessed to have a supervisor that allowed me to expand my knowledge during down time at work.

Can you talk about what you’re currently working on? What are some of your job responsibilities?

At Spring Oaks, there was an initiative to give our operations team more ownership over certain tasks. My supervisor and the rest of the team thought the best way to do that was with an internal control panel. With the help of an amazing team, we got our control panel Heartwood up and running within about 6 months! I worked on the Front End using React and CSS and learned SO much within such a short period of time. It was an awesome and challenging experience! Now, I’m responsible for implementing new features into Heartwood and assisting with our landing page and payment portal.

What’s the most rewarding thing about your current role?

My supportive team! I have never been around an environment that is so patient and that fosters learning and growth (besides MAXX of course!). Here, there is so much growth, and the learning never stops. They really are great people at Spring Oaks, and I am truly grateful to MAXX for getting me here.

How do you keep your skills up to date? What’s the best way to learn new concepts, technologies, programming languages, etc.?

I’m definitely a visual learner. I love watching YouTube videos and seeing how other people approach developing. I also try to attend as many programming themed Meetups as I can. Conferences are also a great place to get new information.

What’s the best piece of advice you can give to someone early in their IT career or looking to get their start?

Write down everything that you can. A piece of paper really helps keep track of your thoughts when you’re planning or troubleshooting. The website Notion is a life saver for organizing thoughts and notes. ChatGPT is also a great resource when it’s late at night and you don’t want to bother anyone. Also, be really patient with yourself; this is not the easiest field and the learning process takes time. Try to make learning something that you look forward to instead of dread.

Interested in becoming or working with a MAXX Apprentice? Attend Career Lab or explore MAXX Business Solutions!

''Consistency and endurance pays off in the end.'' - Words from Alum, Ali Tahir

Ali Tahir

Alumni Success Story: Ali Tahir

 

Ali worked as an Apprentice for over six months, gaining valuable on-the-job tech experience before he exited MAXX Potential to work at General Electric Corporation.

What were you doing before MAXX Potential? What drew you to pursue a career in technology?

Before MAXX, I was an event manager and the owner/operator of a catering solutions company I started as an undergraduate student while studying experimental psychology with a focus on behavior research and stats analysis. 

What drew me into technology was an opportunity to revisit some passions I had since grade school, specifically building computers, understanding technology, and developing my casual programming hobbies into a full-time career. 

I completed a software engineering bootcamp in April 2021, and in October 2021, I was hired by MAXX Potential.

Can you talk about what you’re currently working on? What are some of your job responsibilities?

When MAXX placed me at General Electric Corporation (GE) in December 2021, my team was in the beginning of the SDLC, planning a stack change of 14 APIs from their Java code to NodeJS. 

Our goal was to rewrite the APIs, using best practices where possible and trying to replicate existing end user behavior. I was responsible for rewriting some of the smaller APIs by separating functionality into modular parts (controllers, services, servers, routers, etc), creating a Docker image of the projects for deployment, setting up our CI/CD pipelines, and testing. 

My recent responsibilities have included setting up mutual TLS between our applications and external sources using Envoy service proxy.

What’s the most rewarding thing about your current role?

I am fortunate to work with experienced software developers, and I find it very rewarding to work together towards a common goal. That’s how I like to bring value to my team. 

It feels good to assist my teammates with tasks, and on some occasions, teach them about technology and concepts I worked on while rewriting an API or setting up the security infrastructure of our pipelines.

How do you keep your skills up to date? What’s the best way to learn new concepts, technologies, programming languages, etc.?

GE sets bi-annual performance goals that help me keep my skills up to date. I set goals with realistic markers to keep me motivated to stay up to speed. For me, the best way to learn new technology and languages is to start building something with it. 

In some respect, you have to dive right in because it’s only when you approach it hands-on that you get a sense of how these things work, and tutorials and classes can only take you so far. They’re certainly helpful, but the best thing to do is to make something with the technology you’re interested in.

What’s the best piece of advice you can give to someone early in their IT career or looking to get their start?

Consistency and endurance pays off in the end. Stick with it. From the early days of the pandemic till I got hired at MAXX, there were plenty of moments where I felt like throwing in the towel because the material seemed too complicated to learn, or job hunting was incredibly demoralizing. 

Nothing worth doing is ever easy, and even now at my job, there are still days where trying to figure out how things work at GE makes me feel like a “puny hu-mon.” 

If you’re looking to get your start, remember to be kind to yourself and get comfortable with being in an “unknown space” a lot of the time. Building that muscle will help you endure.

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