Today we’d like to introduce you to Zakia Whiteside.
Zakia, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
My story begins in Upstate, NY where I was born and raised. I attended the State University College at Buffalo and majored in Business with a concentration in Management.
While attaining my degree, I worked at Bank of America in Getzville, NY in their mortgage sector. I learned about Loss Mitigation options, Bankruptcy, Deed in Lieu and Foreclosures. After I graduated, I continued working at Bank of America as I researched MBA programs and career opportunities. By that time, I had worked my way up from a Processor to a Team Lead and I’d heard that our branch was closing. As a recent college graduate, I was terrified! I had no idea what I was wanted to do as a career and I realized that my timeframe to make a decision had just gotten shorter.
That summer my girlfriends and I decided to travel down the east coast in search of fun and adventure. I visited Philadelphia, Maryland, Virginia, Washington D.C., Atlanta and Tampa. Once I’d returned home, I decided to take control of my circumstances and I started to apply to jobs. After about 3 months I received a call from a law firm in Buckhead that wanted to bring me on. After approximately a week of negotiations, I had signed the job offer and packed my belongings into a moving truck… I was headed south.
Working at the law firm taught me a lot! In short, I realized that although my degree and background are focused on business, my true passion is customer service. Within 5 years, I’d been promoted from a Processor to Assistant Manager of Georgia Foreclosure with several direct reports and an entire department to manage, but I wasn’t happy. I’d dedicated numerous hours and sacrificed holidays and vacation time to developing my employees, but something was missing.
To be honest, I felt like a fraud. I didn’t like networking because I wasn’t proud of what I actually did. The hours were long and there was absolutely no work/life balance. It was time for a change, so like most millennials, I went to Google in search of not simply a job but a career I’d be proud of. In my search efforts, I came across DigitalCrafts which I found out was a coding boot camp located at the Atlanta Tech Village.
At the time, they had two positions available, Operations Manager and Admissions Director, so naturally, with my background, I applied for the Operations Manager position. I’ll never forget, during my interview our CEO Jake Hadden looked me dead in the eye and said, “Look, after meeting you I know exactly which position is best for you. Are you open to either?” “Absolutely”, I replied and the rest was history.
I’m the Admissions Director for DigitalCrafts in Atlanta but like most startups, I wear multiple hats. In conjunction with my normal duties, I’m also in charge of company culture and I dabble in marketing.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It hasn’t always been a smooth road. The transition to a startup from a corporate environment, although refreshing, created some new challenges. The most challenging task was learning the programming languages in our curriculum. I didn’t know anything about tech or Web Development for that matter.
Prior to this position, I’d been working in the same industry for the past seven years so I had to almost reprogram my thought process and approach to my daily workflow.
Please tell us about DigitalCrafts.
DigitalCrafts is a software training company that provides full stack coding boot camp programs as well as custom corporate training and staffing solutions. In short, our coding boot camp program is designed to transform aspiring developers into full-stack software developers with cutting-edge skill sets, polished portfolios, interview training, and career support.
As the Admissions Director for our Atlanta campus, it’s my responsibility to inform prospective students about our programs and take them through our interview process.
Our company is known for providing quality training and excellent customer service for all of our students and corporate clients. There are various benefits and perks, that set us apart from our competitors, like location, program length, and cost, just to name a few.
Do you look back particularly fondly on any memories from childhood?
As a kid, my favorite Disney character was Pocahontas. My parents had planned to take my sister and I to Disneyworld for my birthday. This particular day, the resort event planner called and left a voicemail for my parents to confirm our appointment to have breakfast with Pocahontas.
As my sister and I stopped doing our homework to listen to the message being recorded, I will never forget the sheer joy I felt knowing that I was not only going to DisneyWorld but I was going to have breakfast with the best princess alive.
Pricing:
- Full Stack Immersive program – 16 weeks: $13,950 (full-time)
- Full Stack Flex program – 26 weeks: $9,500 (part-time)
Contact Info:
- Address: 3423 Piedmont Rd NE #420, Atlanta, GA 30305
- Website: https://www.digitalcrafts.com/
- Phone: 833-327-2387
- Email: hello@digitalcrafts.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dgtlcrafts/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/digitalcraftsllc
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/DgtlCrafts
- Other: https://www.linkedin.com/school/digitalcrafts/
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