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New carrot seeds have been planted – Gal coders starting at Wunder

Published: 26.4.2018
Author: Evelina Champagne, Developer
Categories: Technology, Culture
Reading time: 2 min
Polaroid pictures of Päivi Meriläinen and Eveliina Champagne

It was a freezing cold night in February, but the atmosphere at the Old Student House in Helsinki was warm.

We had arrived at Mimmit koodaa (gal coders) event, which was historical in many ways. Over 300 ladies interested in coding were present.

Let’s go back in time and how us, Eveliina Champagne and Päivi Meriläinen, a corporate responsibility professional and a customer service specialist, ended up to this event. Early 2017, we both had an idea of a new profession and decided to apply to study frontend development. At the beginning of June, we got the great news that we were accepted to Helsinki Business College. In August we started the studies and made friends already in the first few weeks.

Right at the beginning, it was clear to both of us that we want to learn frontend development. Hence we did two WordPress projects and chose multimedia production as our optional study programme. During our studies, we got a great opportunity to learn also Drupal. We started the project eagerly and we got particularly motivated after hearing that there is a huge lack of Drupal developers at the moment. Us being adult career changers the possibility to find a new job was a high priority for us.

Three snapshots from Mimmit koodaa event

In May 2017 we joined a Facebook group (Ompeluseura LevelUP koodaritopens-in-a-new-tab) created by Vlada Laukkonen which has nearly 2,000 women interested in the software industry from beginners to experts. Through this group, we heard about the #mimmitkoodaa (Gals coding) project and we signed up for the launch event right away among the first ones. At that point we were into Drupal, so we decided to meet Wunder at the event and ask for possibilities to work as Drupal trainees. We met Emma, Annina and Heidi at the Wunder stand and their positive and cheering attitude got us to send our job applications and CVs.

During the event, we heard so many interesting and different stories by women developers from various backgrounds. We got really inspired and realised that it is never too late to reach your dreams. You can become a developer from many different educational and professional backgrounds. Previous work experience and skills help you see things widely. Diversity rocks!

After we sent out our applications, the process started quickly. On Easter week we got invitations to video interviews, which were positive experiences with a relaxed and warm atmosphere. The best thing was to find out the wonderful Easter surprise, as we were chosen to become Wunder trainees!

We are writing this blog post on our first days at Wunder and we are extremely eager to deepen our skills with Drupal. We also got to meet over 100 Wunderers at the annual get together, WunderCon, last weekend. What a first week full of new people, new information and great fun!

We will have a comprehensive and carefully planned training program and we couldn’t be more excited, let’s code!

– Eve & Päivi –

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