Journey into the Hack Reactor

After graduating from business school I knew that I wanted to work in tech, and that I would like to be part of all of the action occurring in San Francisco.  On a networking trip out to the Bay Area two things quickly became apparent.  One was that being a good technologist was incredible important and highly valued.  The second was that the job market was complicated and varied, and that it would take time and good advice to know where I fit in best.

On the trip I met with people for informational interviews, went to a career fair, and send out a bunch of copies of my resume.  I also began researching the programming bootcamps in the area.  They seemed like an attractive opportunity to both ramp up my programming skills, and receive help and mentorship around the job search.  When I visited Hack Reactor, it was clear that the program had some magic.  People were working 12 hour days six days a week, but they were excited and enthusiastic.  Students were building creative things using cutting edge technologies, and the environment seemed to promote a sustained flow state experience.   

Yesterday I finished the first half of the program.  It has been a whirlwind tour of web frameworks, server side technologies, SQL and noSQL databases, advanced data structures and project management.  For those confronting similar conundrums, it is a option I strongly recommend.  

Why I Wanted to Code Early in My Career

Like most undergraduates I had little idea about I wanted to do with my career.  I enjoyed science, so I studied the pre-med curriculum. After graduation I decided to work with a patient population to evaluate if it was something I would really enjoy.  I was too impatient, and wanted to spend my time solving new problems.  I landed in business school, and during my first year I had the good fortune of working with a professor that was building a data science driven web application.  Through the work I was exposed to other graduate students that were using machine learning to develop projects like a hedge fund strategy using stock tweets data. 

            The analytic way of problem solving I was introduced to as a research assistant complimented what I was learning in business school.  When learning strategy, I understood how effective data analytics could help a company develop a competitive strategy.  When learning finance, it was easy for me to understand how a technological shift and corresponding high growth market could drive a company like IBM to make a large number of text-analytics acquisitions.  Learning about economics helped me understand how a labor shortage in data scientists could influence wages.

            When it came to thinking about what I would like to do after graduation, I decided that the best thing I could do for my career was work as a data scientist.  Working as a graduate assistant had taught me that the most effective people had both a deep understanding of business problems, as well as the technologies that could be used to solve the problem.  After graduation I wanted to ramp up my programming skills and network in the San Francisco area, so I enrolled in the Hack Reactor program.  

My Deep Dive Into Business

The first summer I worked at the University Impact Fund I was a bad intern.  I wasn’t good at combing through large amounts of research to find relevant information.  I could not fit my thinking into concise bullet points on a slide deck, and excel was not a tool I could use to develop an analysis.  However, I kept showing up and it was an an environment where I had no option other than learn and become better. 

The University Impact Fund (UIF) was a new program being developed in conjunction with the University Venture Fund (UVF), a $18M student driven venture fund developed by alumni of the University of Utah.  UIF was in the process of working on  projects for venture funds and entrepreneurs in the impact investing space.  The hope was that the fund could develop a network that would support raising a fund to manage and invest in a manner similar to UVF. 

The projects were diverse and demanding, and they kept coming.  Among other things we developed deal screens on seed stage investments in biomedical companies aimed at the BOP, wrote investment memos on private equity funds that were buying African banks, created financial models for entrepreneurs starting new software companies, and developed research around the Sub-Saharan point-of-sale software market.   Every time I worked on something I was told how it could be better.  There was no room for ego; there was too much work that needed to be done.  Being part of a young dynamic organization was very exciting, and the work was engaging. Without even realizing it I was being taught how to manage small teams, communicate with clients, present analysis effectively, and perform under conditions with high responsibility and tight deadlines.

I worked at UIF for most of the next two years.  When forced to choose between studying for an exam, or preparing for an investment pitch the next day the choice was simple.  It was clear that my real business school education was occurring at UIF.