CommunityJustin Used Treehouse to Expand His Skills Into a Career in Software Development

Justin’s natural drive for and math sparked an interest in game development. But as the web continued to grow and adapt, Justin became more drawn to its maturity, evolution and the amazing community that surrounded it. This soon led him to embark on a career change into software development.

Before Treehouse, Justin struggled to find a reliable resource to expand his programming skills to allow for a major platform switch. But with Treehouse Tracks, he was able to stay confidently up-­to-­date and on a focused learning path. While the Treehouse Community served as a valuable place to further apply his skills.

Today, Justin is a Software Engineer at Fujifilm Medical U.S.A, where he’s applying his programming skills to a field he’s passionate about. In his free time, he’s also planning the architecture for an exciting new app.

We caught up with Justin to hear more about his learning experience, the works he’s doing now and plans for the future.

Treehouse has made the learning process simple with guided Tracks that have helped me stay on the right path. Instead of getting lost in a sea of videos I was provided a true course experience from one lesson to the next.

What first drew you to the web industry?

My journey in software engineering was initially sparked by interest in developing games. As a sophomore in high school, I had several friends that were interested in different aspects of game development and we decided to work on our first game. I’ve always had a natural drive for technical topics and I enjoyed math, so I decided to learn how to program in order to make our first game concept come to life.

Since my start in programming was in C++ and DirectX, I had the tendency to stay with native technologies for many years. The web was not a serious platform for me until a few years ago when it became obvious that the browser had matured to the point where large software, once only developed natively, could be made available to practically anyone in the world instantly via the browser.

I was drawn to the maturity of the platform and the amazing community that continues to innovate in design and tooling to make the web a better place for everyone. As a platform, it has allowed me to be more agile and deliver updates to customers quickly, painlessly and reliably.

You recently landed an exciting new career opportunity. Tell us a little about how your career has evolved since learning with Treehouse and the work you’ll be doing now.

I’m a Software Engineer at Fujifilm Medical U.S.A. I’m incredibly excited to be working in the medical field serving a great purpose using web technologies. Treehouse has been an amazing tool for learning but even more so for motivation.

While software development is certainly difficult to get into, being a developer for years and making a major platform switch has proven to come with a unique set of challenges as well. However, with Treehouse, I was able to pick up not just the “how” but the “why?” when it comes to web development which has made the process effective and enjoyable.

What has the value of a Treehouse education meant to you?

Before joining Treehouse, discovering up-­to-­date, high-quality learning materials was extremely difficult. Books are literally out­-of-­date as soon as they are available for sale and other video based services omit critical topics such as developer environment setup and application deployment.

Treehouse has made the learning process simple with guided Tracks that have helped me stay on the right path. Instead of getting lost in a sea of videos I was provided a true course experience from one lesson to the next. It’s a unique experience that has yet to be duplicated in this fashion.

Treehouse has an incredibly active community as well. I’ve spent many hours simply answering questions which allows me to not only help others, but it also validates my own understanding of a wide variety of topics. Staying active in the community has been a lot of fun and an invaluable resource to me.

What are your plans for the future, and what’s up next on your learning path?

I’m currently planning the architecture for a new product that my band Set For The Fall can use for their upcoming tour this year. Ultimately, the end goal is to have the app available via the Web, iOS and Android. I’ll be using practically everything I’ve learned at Treehouse during this project.

Next up on my learning path is React.js and learning how to develop a couple of ideas I have for Microsoft HoloLens. On top of that, ASP.NET 5 is near final official release which I’m incredibly excited about because we finally have a Microsoft supported way to run .NET truly cross­platform on Windows, Mac and Linux with .NET Core.

Is there any advice you’d like to share with new students who are just starting out?

Always validate the knowledge obtained through course work with your own projects. Simply copying what is happening in a course is not enough to prove you truly understand the concepts that are being taught. This is a very common mistake amongst students. Make sure your goals are reasonable relatively to the amount of experience you have.

To read more awesome student success stories, check out the Treehouse Stories Page.

If you are ready for a career change, sign up for a Free Trial with Treehouse!