My name is André Monteiro, I’m 34 years old and I have a nearly 10 years long career in Civil Engineering, reaching up to a recently concluded PhD. Within that framework, I have had experience with construction site planning and management activities, project and design, structural inspection and also teaching, but it wasn’t until I tackled research and associated programming activities that I believe I found my true calling, as it was what I liked the most.

Eventually, I felt that I had to pursue a career in IT, having been glad to have found ITUp, which convinced me of the virtues of a career change, specifically to the OutSystems ecosystem. Their three-months intensive course was challenging and not easy to tackle without full commitment (from one such as myself with no knowledge of, eg: databases, client-server and webservice calls, HTML, CSS and webpage design in general), but their competent tutors and well structured lessons do make it easier.

In return for my effort, however, I was able to gather just the necessary set of both basic knowledge and advanced tips, to not only kickstart my IT career, but also continue my learning towards greater heights. Fast forward around one and a half years later (as well as quite a lot of hours spent researching and learning ever more about IT in general) and I’m currently the senior member of a consulting team, responsible for workflow process implementation in a bank institution, responsible for both the technical design and junior member coaching, which really speaks for itself regarding both the magnitude and the success of the career change I was able to do.

None of it would be possible without a lot of effort on my part, but it also goes back to the basics, and the roots of the structured learning that was passed on by ITUp and their team.