A Dream Come True: Becoming a .NET Software Developer

In August 2020, Chiamaka Uzuegbu heard about Fellowship at The Bulb from a friend and grabbed on to the learning experience of a lifetime. Like many fellows and past alums of the program, Chiamaka had no background in technology. Still, with the program, she has become a professional .Net developer in just 6 months!

“Before I joined The Bulb fellowship, I was running a Master’s program in one of the universities in Nigeria. I was actually almost doing another job, which was in the Oil and Gas, before I got the opportunity to be part of The Bulb fellowship.”

IT had always been the dream field for her, but the opportunity wasn’t very accessible — until the Fellowship. “Honestly, IT was something I had always dreamed about doing. So, when the opportunity came, I didn’t sleep on it. Making a detour from oil and gas to software engineering was quite easy because I really wanted it, so that’s why I was able to switch.”

Nevertheless, switching from core engineering in the oil and gas sector came with its fair share of challenges. On speaking about some challenges, she faced, she said, “I didn’t have any experience before coming to the Fellowship. That was one part of the challenge because I had to double up and work harder to make sure I had a grasp on the frameworks and how everything went generally.”

While it wasn’t a particularly easy ride, she successfully completed the program. Chiamaka is proof that with access to the right resources and learning opportunities, young Africans can become anything they want, as long as they had the grit and put in the hard work!

After graduating from the program and launching her career in the real world, she was able to apply the knowledge gained during the Fellowship while doing quality work. “After the Fellowship, I got a job at The Bulb Africa and was immediately put into a team to develop a training app right from the beginning. As a .Net developer, I was able to deploy lots of tools, of course, which I learned during the fellowship program.”

Beyond working for organizations, Chiamaka has explored personal projects, which she attributes to the knowledge gained from the Fellowship. “I have gone on to do some personal projects, learned new things, and it’s been awesome. The Fellowship has impacted me quite positively. Coming from a totally different background, the Fellowship gave me a platform to learn software engineering, which gave me an opening to what I do now. It was a great experience.”

As a closing remark, she recommends Fellowship at The Bulb as the place to be for young Africans aspiring to build their careers in technology. “I absolutely recommend The Bulb’s Fellowship program to young, aspiring software developers like I was. This is a great platform to kickstart and launch your dreams of being a software developer. Thank you, The Bulb Africa, for the wonderful opportunity!”

Chiamaka took a chance upon herself to build from scratch, and the Fellowship to equip her with 21st-century skills to help solve problems and make Africa and the world, in general, a better place. With the perfect combination of hard work and opportunity, Chiamaka came out on top and can only be described as one of the best .Net software developers in Africa and beyond.