Landing a Paid Internship at DocMorris After WBS CODING SCHOOL

René Weiberlenn made a bold career shift from audio engineering to full stack web development, fueled by a long-standing interest in tech. After choosing Berlin-based WBS CODING SCHOOL for its modern tech stack and local presence, René immersed himself in the Full Stack Web App Development Bootcamp. He emerged with hands-on experience in full stack development, a standout final project, and a win from a competitive hackathon. That win led to a paid internship at DocMorris, where René expanded his skills across UX, data, and web development. René shares what it takes to succeed in the bootcamp, and his tips for incoming students. 

What inspired you to start a tech career now?

I used to be an audio engineer, and I did podcasts and voiceovers. It was great, but with COVID, lots of things changed. I had a wonderful partner who's in tech and who encouraged me to do what I always wanted to do. I originally had an education in IT, so getting into tech now wasn’t completely new. I just needed to refresh my skills because my IT education is 20 years old. 

There are a lot of coding bootcamps online and also based in Germany and Europe. What stood out about WBS CODING SCHOOL?

I liked their tech stack and the fact that they're local. I wanted a place that was based in Berlin. WBS originally had an in-person course, but that wasn't something that I was able to join at the time. Their tech stack was exactly what I was looking for. I looked through a couple of other coding bootcamps, and while they had similar tech stacks, my partner who works in the industry gave me a lot of good insight on what to pick.

What was the bootcamp application process like at WBS CODING SCHOOL? Did you need to know any coding or have any technical skills to join?

No, you do not. Anybody can join. When I was there, we had a lot of people in the bootcamp who were new to tech as well as those who were well-versed in it. I came into the bootcamp very well-prepared. Before the bootcamp, I learned C# to refresh my coding skills and knowledge. 

Do you recommend that people new to coding learn some basic coding, like HTML or CSS before starting the bootcamp?

Yes, it will make things a lot easier, but it's not necessary because the bootcamp starts at the very bottom level. Knowing basic coding will make things much easier, though. There are a couple of good resources online where you can learn the basics, like “if-then-else” and logic. 

Did you receive any government funding like Bildungsgutschein to make the bootcamp tuition at WBS CODING SCHOOL more affordable? 

They do accept Bildungsgutschein, but I did not use it. I was one of the few self-paying students. I think 90% of people who go to a bootcamp, at least to a WBS, get a Bildungsgutschein because then the tuition is paid by the German government.

What was a typical week like in the Full Stack Web & App Development Bootcamp once you were enrolled?

Each week we learned new things, and we had new tools at our disposal to complete projects with. We started at 9 a.m. with a standup, which followed an Agile methodology. In standup, everyone would share what they were working on and learning. We usually had a lecture, which lasted an hour or two, followed by an exercise. There would be a week-long project that we worked on using the knowledge from the previous week. We always had something to work on, and there was always guidance for us. Our projects got more complex as we got further into the bootcamp. In our first project, we built HTML and CSS standard web pages, and towards the end of the bootcamp, we built full stack web applications with React and Express JS. It was great!

How many hours a week were you dedicating to the bootcamp?

It was a full-time bootcamp, so we were dedicating eight hours a day to the program. On the weekends, I would work on my projects or do more studying if I felt like I needed it. I'm a very dedicated person. I like learning and I was deep into this bootcamp, trying to get the best experience and the most knowledge out of the experience.

What was the difference between learning technical skills at WBS CODING SCHOOL versus your previous IT training program?

My original education is in IT sales through the German workforce development program, Ausbildung, which is a three-year commitment where you learn a career. The Ausbildung training is similar to university, but it’s  specific to the trade you are learning. When I was in the Ausbildung training, it meant going to school and slowly learning something. There were courses and you received grades, which differs from WBS CODING SCHOOL. The amount of knowledge crammed within 17 weeks in the WBS CODING SCHOOL bootcamp was faster paced. You were learning something one week and then applying it the next week. The coding bootcamp training was focused more on the practical rather than the theoretical. This made the coding bootcamp more exciting and easily applicable.

What were your instructors like at WBS? 

Some of our instructors had attended a coding bootcamp, so the structure of the bootcamp wasn't new to them. They were very knowledgeable. Whenever I had a problem with anything, they were always there to give me an answer.

If you were struggling with an assignment, how do you receive support at WBS?

I could easily reach out to the staff for help. I would share my problem with them, and then we would hop into a room somewhere and talk about it, sometimes for half an hour, sometimes longer. For example, there was one instance where we were looking for a bug in my code, and it was literally just one space somewhere that we kept overlooking.

What was your cohort like at WBS CODING SCHOOL?

Everybody who was there wanted to get into full stack development. A few people enrolled to refresh their knowledge — some of these people had many years of experience in JavaScript development but wanted to learn a new tech stack. Other students had swapped from .NET or Java over to React and Node.js. We also had many people who had never coded. They struggled more at the beginning, but by the end of the bootcamp, it was all doable for them.

What kinds of projects did you build during the bootcamp?

We worked together to build full stack web applications, such as a blog and a movie rating app. There were APIs in the back end that called upon APIs already on the internet. We even wrote our own APIs. We were working with designs or creating designs using teamwork. So where we were working together to do apps, obviously those are classics. 

What did you build for your final project?

I built an event manager for an events agency. They are a local company, a nonprofit organization in Berlin, and their original website wasn't very good. I created a new website as a full stack web application that they can also use for event management. On the homepage, people can buy tickets to events. Since they organize music events for audiences between 100 and 500 people, they now have a dashboard in the back end to keep track of their artists. I wrote the API myself. 

What languages did you use to build this?

It’s written in React.js and JavaScript for most of the front end. The back end is written in Node.js using Express.js for the API. I'm also using PostgresQL as a database.

How long did it take to build this final project? 

WBS gave our teams six weeks to build the final project, and I was not completely done at the end of the six weeks. Since this was a personal project, I finished it after the bootcamp and it went live at the beginning of April. 

How did you divide up the work for this project?

We used a Kanban system with Agile methodologies, just like we learned at WBS CODING SCHOOL. We figured out the tasks that needed to be done, and everybody picked a task whenever they had time and wrote for it. I was like the project manager, so I oversaw new code and did the code reviews to make sure everything looked clean and worked. 

You also participated in an eco-themed hackathon through WBS CODING SCHOOL. What did your team build for the hackathon?

It was an eco-themed hackathon with a heavy emphasis on AI. With that in mind, we created an AI app to show the best way to apply sustainable initiatives within a company. We trained our AI on the hackathon’s jury, which was DocMorris and Delivery Hero. We could ask the AI questions like, What's the current ecological state of DocMorris? How do they work sustainability into their company? 

We had 48 hours to build our project, but technically, my team built our project in 36 hours because we lost the first day to unforeseen difficulties. It was a very stressful situation, but since I was still in bootcamp, I was prepared for it. There were many people, so the hackathon became about organizing, giving them work to do, and creating something that works in the end. It was quite difficult, but a very good experience. I was able to immediately use all the knowledge that I got from WBS CODING SCHOOL and their tech stack in the product that we created. I ended up being the front end person on our team, so my job was to create the page rather than the logic that was behind it. The API was done by a team member who did the data engineering course beforehand. Besides the app, we created a simple webpage that could be integrated into any company's intranet. 

Our overall idea there was to keep our app simple, which would allow a company to easily organize it within teams and make it fun. This paid off because we won the hackathon!

How many other bootcamps participated in this hackathon? 

The team I was on had students and alumni from WBS and StackFuel, a data engineering bootcamp. Altogether, about seven coding bootcamps were competing, and the hackathon was held on the campus of 42 Berlin, another coding bootcamp in Berlin.

How did you land your internship at DocMorris? Was it because you won the hackathon? 

The prize for winning the hackathon was the opportunity to land a paid internship at DocMorris. When my team won the hackathon, each of us had a team fit interview with DocMorris. From there, DocMorris chose me as their new intern. 

What kinds of projects did you work on in the DocMorris internship?

The internship lasted eight weeks, and it was split into four parts, so I could work with different departments at DocMorris and learn their tech stack.

• First, I was on the data engineering team and learned about Snowflake and Tableau, which were new to me. Tableau shows data in a beautiful way. 

• After that, I went to the UX/UI team. This team relied heavily on Figma, which I learned to use at WBS. With the UX team, I was delving into their design systems and working designs for their Zendesk FAQ page. I created a few components for pop-ups and advertisements. 

• During the third part of the internship, I worked with their content management system and web application. I was focused on engineering and trying to make my component ideas work. I talked to many people at DocMorris about how something like this would be implemented. I learned a lot about how to improve my work, which was very useful. I was also focused on A/B testing. 

• For the last two weeks of the internship, I worked with the marketing and business analytics team. This meant that I was working with data engineering by organizing the data and making fancy charts using Tableau.

What are the benefits of an internship after graduating from a coding bootcamp?

When you come out of a bootcamp, you may think you know everything, but at best, you’re a junior and just starting to understand what's going on. Going into my internship, I knew that I needed to learn more and get into the groove of what it’s like to work as a developer. The practical experience within a company like DocMorris was invaluable. I had pair programming sessions with a senior developer at the company, and he helped guide me through the internship. WBS CODING SCHOOL gave me a wonderful baseline, but within every company, some things aren't just baseline. This means you need to have the will to keep learning, and that's one of the main things I picked up at WBS CODING SCHOOL. I can learn new things quickly. 

What does career services look like at WBS CODING SCHOOL? 

Career services happen throughout the bootcamp. They help you learn to properly write your CV and cover letters. They rate all of the cover letters and CV drafts that you share with them, and they give tips and tricks on how to stand out in the job market. They also help you set up your LinkedIn profile, and find the right jobs. They know where to look for jobs and how to apply for them. 

Career services are  also available for WBS alumni for up to a year after graduation. Now that I have finished my internship, I’ve returned to WBS for job support. They are committed to helping me until I have a job.

Was attending WBS CODING SCHOOL worth it for you?

Yes! I paid for this bootcamp, rather than have the German government cover tuition, so the value of the experience is important. I've gotten so much out of this experience. I won the hackathon, which is now on my LinkedIn and CV. I got a certificate of completion after I graduated. I got a paid internship at DocMorris, which gave me a lot of information and references. Now, I have career services supporting me in my job search. I feel like I made out like a bandit with everything I got for the price. WBS CODING SCHOOL was very much worth it.

What is your advice to incoming students on how to make the most of their WBS CODING SCHOOL experience? Is there anything you wish you had known before day one of the bootcamp?

I would tell people to be prepared to learn a lot and be aware that the learning process is different from going to university or school. This is a practical learning process that is founded on making mistakes — a lot of mistakes! You need to make those mistakes, otherwise you won’t learn from them. Making mistakes is a fundamental programming concept. It’s important to sit there at your computer for an hour looking for a bug. 

There's a lot of knowledge in the bootcamp, but afterwards, you’ll wonder how you learned all of this in just 17 weeks. At the start of the bootcamp, it will feel overwhelming, but at the end, it will be very rewarding. 

Find out more and read WBS CODING SCHOOL reviews on Course Report. This article was produced by the Course Report team in partnership with WBS CODING SCHOOL.