How to become a programmer? Sign up for Summer Game Dev Camp
How to become a professional programmer in the IT industry was the topic of a webinar organized by ARC Academy, with three specialists in the field – Philip Yankov, Kamen Vakavchiev, and Yordan Iliev. They talked more about their career paths and gave advice on future programs.
Philip has extensive experience working for technology behemoths such as SAP, Microsoft, and VMware, as well as smaller businesses and start-ups. After returning from Silicon Valley, he made it his mission to pass on what he had learned. Thus, he has been teaching at universities and academies for more than 10 years and has trained over 1,300 people.
Kamen combines his responsibilities as a software engineer at Ocado Technology with teaching at Sofia University and the Ocado Technology Bootcamp.
Yordan is a multi-award-winning developer of programming and mathematics, a developer of mobile apps and video games, and a software engineer at Ocado Technology.
The three talked about their experiences and the preparation and training needed to become good programmers.
“Programming that is learned through video game development is more interactive and therefore more interesting. In programming, there is one foundation that is everywhere. 80% of the knowledge we need to be game developers is the same as for front-end and back-end programmers, etc. There is a certain knowledge that you cannot live without,” said Kamen Vakavchiev.
According to Yordan, the most important quality for a programmer is to be persistent, to be able to extract the fundamentals so that he can adapt, even if he has to change the language.
“The IT sector is developing at the speed of light. At least one programming language is released every year, and innovations are a daily occurrence. The most important thing for a successful career in the sector is the desire for development”, said Philip Yankov.
He advised people who want to become good professionals not to ignore the fundamental theory and try doing different things – websites, software, game dev, etc.
The three lecturers were unanimous that the desire for constant learning and upgrading of knowledge is of great importance for the professional development of a programmer. It is for this reason that ARC Academy is organizing a new educational initiative – Summer Game Dev Camp in Programming. In it, we provide an opportunity to train pupils, students, and novice programmers.
Over the course of a week (July 4 – 11), IT and game industry professionals will share their knowledge, and give hands-on programming tasks and feedback. Participants will work in our high-tech rooms and will be able to ask their questions directly to the speakers live. Based on the set tasks, everyone will try to develop their video game. The ten top performers will receive a 50-80% scholarship for the entire 2-year Computer Science program, which we will start in the fall.
Applications for the Summer Game Dev Academy in Programming are open until June 30 HERE.
A recording of the webinar follows:
