From games programmer to full stack engineer, nearly 60 applications later

Coding at 13, games ever since

Kaz wrote his first code at 13, after his mum spotted a shop-lot class teaching kids website programming and asked if he wanted to try. He liked playing games, so he said yes. After SPM, the same logic picked his degree: two and a half years of game development at KDU, chosen over computer science.

He worked in games and also held a junior self-taught full-stack job. But self-teaching had its limits. "The term that's been used online is 'tutorial baby' — tutorials only tell you one way to solve a problem. To really get it, you have to actually do it."

Four months, not a year and a half

Between jobs, with his search going nowhere, he was working through daily coding puzzles when his partner made the suggestion: why not widen the net beyond game development and try Sigmaschool.

He'd seen bootcamps online before and never bitten. The famous ones were priced in US dollars, and most ran six months to a year and a half. "A year and a half's investment — I would have lost quite a lot of time compared to four months." Sigmaschool's four months still challenged him: weeks diving into state management and API calls, with leeway to self-study. He came in with an open mind and, in his words, wasn't disappointed.

“Traditional education has the opportunity to go deep, while a bootcamp has the opportunity to go wide. It's a great place to kickstart, learn new knowledge, and see whether you want to venture deeper after.”

A study group and a delayed flight

Kaz studied online from Penang. The most memorable part of the course wasn't a module — it was a private study group a batchmate set up. "Everyone was discussing their opinions and thought process — why this code works, why it's good practice, why it's bad practice. Those were good times." Better, he says, than sitting alone thinking one way with nobody to challenge you.

When final project presentations came around, he flew down to KL to do his in person, even though his flight was delayed and he arrived an hour late. He wanted to meet his instructor and batchmates face to face at least once.

A concert platform born from a grudge

His capstone came from eight years of waiting. A band he'd wanted to see live had been skipping Malaysia ever since local organisers botched an earlier show, playing Singapore and Jakarta instead. So he built a concert management platform: a middleman connecting concert organisers with venue owners, with a public front end for ticket bookings and an admin back end for managing it all.

The requirement was mainly front end. He built the back end anyway. "I wanted to challenge myself and do both — become a real full stack."

Nearly 60 rows in the accountability spreadsheet

He graduated at the end of April and tracked every application in what he calls his accountability spreadsheet — close to 60 by the time he was hired, with some weeks bringing 15 to 20 rejections or silence. He didn't mass-apply; he picked companies that fit his criteria, and Sigmaschool's job support team reviewed his cover letters. The rejections triggered imposter syndrome more than doubt in the bootcamp. His fix: "Compare less, appreciate what we have, and move forward."

Interviewers kept circling two things: why a game development graduate was now coming out of a bootcamp, and a two-year gap in his portfolio. The interviews that went well were the ones where he answered with full honesty — the gap was spent in coaching, finding himself; the shift came from noticing that back-end work in multiplayer games is the same discipline as back-end work in software.

At YYC taxPOD it took at least three interviews. He demoed his capstone front to back, including its Lighthouse performance scores. What won them over wasn't paper: "If I can prove I can move from one tech stack to another, and articulate the problems I faced and how I solved them — that was more valuable to them than my qualifications."

Senior scope on day one

He'd told them he was looking for a mid-level role — ahead of junior, not quite senior. They told him to give the senior level a shot anyway. On his first day he was handed the task: take an already-released product and make the entire thing mobile-responsive, while also building APIs and wiring them to the front end. He'd never used Vue before — Sigmaschool taught React — and had to pick it up fast. "Pretty nerve-wracking," he says. In a previous games job, his first task had been a login page.

Three months in, he measures himself by growth rather than confidence. "Back then, if you asked me a Vue question — I don't know, let me look. Now I know. I'm not at the top of the mountain. I'm still climbing."

His advice for anyone eyeing the same switch: start with why — is it the crunch, the pay, or a genuine pull? Then look honestly at your finances and options. And whatever you decide, act on it. "Intention without action — we get procrastination. 'I will apply someday' won't work."