S&E Guarantee Pilot: Jana Kudlickova

“The tech industry is very relevant right now and it is growing, creating opportunities as everything is going digital. I thought, why not me? Why not try it as a career?” says Jana Kudlickova, who lives in Alicante, Spain and has recently made a complete shift in the direction of her career.

Jana, from Ružomberok in northern Slovakia, studied Slovak and English philology. Around ten years ago, however, she moved to Spain: “I love languages and I’m always looking to learn new ones, that’s why I came to Spain and I ended up staying, teaching in private academies. Teaching always felt like the obvious path for me. I taught afternoon classes, a few hours per week, sometimes more, but I never had a proper full time job,” she says.

When the pandemic hit, things got significantly tougher.  “With people in lockdown, teaching really dried up. I had no indication of how long this would last and I was not too keen on remote teaching either, so I started looking at other options. I was ready for a career change,” she explains.

She searched for resources online and came across WordPress, creating web pages. It sparked her curiosity and she decided to dig deeper. “I learned how to develop websites, work with HTML and CSS on my own. I soon realised that if I was going to do this seriously I needed some guidance. I wanted something that is current, intensive and done in a short time. That’s how I came across the Full Stack Development boot camp.”

It was a leap in the dark for Jana. “I’m from a very different world. I had zero IT literacy, so it jolted me out of my comfort zone but they said that it was OK for beginners - so I went for it. I saw it a bit like learning another language. After all, when you are coding you are communicating with computers, right?”

With the boot camp, Jana found balance and renewed motivation. “It was great to be on the other side, to be learning again like a student. It has been very intense, learning to code from scratch. In this field you need to be the kind of person who likes to learn, research, and find solutions. It’s not for everyone.” But learning unfortunately often comes at a price: “Boot camps are expensive, I had just lost my job, and had no income, so I needed to figure out a solution.” An income sharing agreement with Universia Foundation (Santander Group) backed by the EU through the EIF provided the much-needed financial support. “My course is paid for and I will only start to repay the full amount once I have a stable salary…and if anything happens, repayment is paused. It gives me flexibility and peace of mind.”

Jana completed the boot camp in February and immediately afterwards found an internship as a web developer working for a property rental company in Portugal. “I love the fact that I still keep learning and this is a great team. My internship lasts until October, but I’d love to stay and see where this takes me.”

Location: Alicante, Spain

Financial Intermediary: Universia Foundation (Santander Group)

Beneficiary: Jana Kudlickova

Studies: Full-Stack development

Institution: Wild Code School (remote campus)

EIF financing: Skills & Education Guarantee Pilot; EFSI

For further information about EIF intermediaries in Spain, please refer to: http://www.eif.org/what_we_do/where/es