How acquiring new skills helped this alumni push past his job ceiling

Aric Crosson Bouwers started his career in the hopes of one day becoming an architect. After high school he took the two year Architectural Technologies program at SAIT Polytechnic and worked for several years in the residential development and structural engineering industries. 

While he enjoyed the creative side of architecture and became highly proficient at structural drafting and modelling, he could see that his career progression was limited. 

“What really drove me was feeling stagnant in my career; I felt like I was beating my head against the wall trying to get ahead, but just couldn’t get my career to the next level. I needed something to change,” says Aric.

Not wanting to get complacent, Aric kept challenging himself by learning new skills in his various roles. He started to tinker around with a visual interface called Dynamo, but when he ran into problems with it’s maintainability, he was limited because he couldn’t code the changes needed to fix the software.  

He decided he’d give learning software development a shot and for a year and a half, he practiced coding at home in the evenings with a friend teaching him the fundamentals and some tricks of the trade. He learned the basics and built a few software projects, but knew he needed formal training to deepen his knowledge and get hired. 

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, it was a good time for a career flip. He discovered InceptionU and, as a self-funding participant, was able to secure alternate funding to help him with the $14,000 program fee. For Aric, a husband and father of three, taking time away from the workforce was a big risk, but one he was willing to make.

Aric excelled in the program; he had a strong work ethic and soaked up the knowledge like a sponge. He was impressed with how the course blew his previous pace of learning out of the water, and how practical the training was. He also valued how connected the InceptionU facilitators were in the tech industry.

He says during some job applications, he felt better equipped for the job market than some of the other applicants who had taken four-year university degrees in computer science. While they had received a lot of theory and logic, they had way less experience actually building anything.

Through his project work, networking and instructor recommendations, Aric landed a job with a prop-tech company called Collegium where he works today as a full-stack developer. With his background in architecture and new software development skills, this was a perfect opportunity.

“InceptionU is an awesome opportunity to rapidly learn valuable skills, but you can’t rely on your skills to get the job. You’ve got to really put a lot of energy into the networking side in order to land something. And don’t delay. Start networking a month or two into the course,” says Aric. 

He also encourages program graduates to consider working for startups versus more well-established companies - he says you will learn more, have more creativity and flexibility in your day-to-day job, and start-ups are often more willing to hire newer developers.