He said: “I was looking for a new direction and knew people who had left teaching in China to become programmers and my mum often said she heard there was an industry drought so I started basic coding and looking for a course in Sheffield and EyUp was top of the list. I signed up from my home in Shanghai, joined the second cohort in March and graduated this summer.
“The curriculum was extremely well reviewed so I was expecting enthusiastic teachers, useful and comprehensive content and a solid grounding for the future. Throughout the course I was consistently satisfied with the education I received and it was absolutely what I expected.”
Michael grew up in Bristol and enjoyed gaming, progressing from Game Boy to Grand Theft Auto, skateboarding and making video edits with his friends. He studied philosophy at Oxford Brookes University and the day he handed in his final essay he started looking for work abroad. He moved to Santiago and spent 10 months in the Chilean capital teaching English, learning Spanish and living in a city of social and economic extremes.
Later, Michael moved to China on a British Council program and spent six years teaching English at universities in three different cities and getting to grips with Mandarin. He also met his future wife.
Michael said: “After spending most of my twenties enjoying a laissez-faire life abroad, I started to feel like I was at a professional impasse with few applicable skills outside of teaching and since I had no desire to continue that career and little interest in spending one or two years gaining a masters degree, I needed an alternative.
“After beginning my exploration of coding, I became more aware of the diverse opportunities open to people in the tech industry both in the type of work and where in the world a programmer can ply their trade. I cannot think of a more attractive industry.”
Tech company’s praise for EyUp
After graduating, Michael found a job at Sitehop, a Sheffield-based cyber-tech company. CEO Melissa Chambers said: “We are beyond pleased to find EyUp right here in Sheffield, training the next wave of engineers. When we hired Mike, we gave him two tasks that we thought would take a recent graduate over a month to execute. He smashed it in a week! Sitehop will be looking for more graduates in the future. EyUp clearly has a good program to get candidates ready to be immediately effective employees.”
EyUp is recruiting for the March cohort and offers a money-back pledge for any graduates who complete the course and fail to win a tech job within six months. Every graduate from the first and second cohorts has found work in the tech sector.
Technology entrepreneur David Richards said: “We founded EyUp to change lives and give talented people like Michael the opportunity to get tech jobs and bring valuable new experience to our fast-growing industry.”