Rickard Sundén just completed the Ruby on Rails course at the Iron Yard. He’s passionate about working in an environment where he can add value to a company and its customers. His knack for language, statistics, and past startup experience makes him an ideal candidate for your Ruby on Rails opening. Check him out!
What program did you just complete?
I just completed the Ruby on Rails course at the Iron Yard. It’s really hard to believe how much I’ve learned these past 12 weeks! The course has given me a lot of confidence that I can learn pretty much anything I set my mind to. It has also taught me that sleep deprivation really sucks.
What past tech projects have you worked on?
Oh man, I really can’t believe it. In just 12 weeks I’ve done some really crazy stuff!
Only 5 weeks into the program at the Iron Yard I attended my first civic hackathon! I was so nervous coming into it because I felt like such a beginner but it ended up going really well. As a team we wrote a web scraper that would pull restaurant inspection data from the Georgia Department of Public Health. We processed the data into a user friendly format and uploaded the data to an API service for anyone to use.
We also had a hackathon recently with the Iron Yard where my team and I built a route optimization application. The app provides an optimum route for up to 10 locations with information like the distance and duration of the trip and the directions mapped out on Google Maps. You could also save the trip for later!
I’m currently working on a verb conjugation web app for foreign language instructors to help their students conjugate verbs more effectively, which I’m really excited about.
What are your best technical or creative skills?
I have been really blessed to have grown up all over the world and across cultures. I’m half Swedish and half American, I’ve lived in 9 countries and I can speak 6 languages at varying skill levels. Because of this experience I think I’m able to approach and solve problems from many different perspectives. I think it also allows me to learn programming languages really quickly. As for a specific technical skill, I really enjoy working with relational databases.
What’s next on your list to learn?
I’d love to learn more about Ruby and Ruby on Rails. I really like the language and the community has been great so far. I’ve seen some people doing some really neat visuals/graphs with Javascript and I’d love to learn how to create some myself as I really enjoy statistics.
What’s your ideal internship/job?
My ideal job would be somewhere I can learn something new every day and work with great people. I’m very passionate about working in an environment where my opinion matters and working somewhere I can add value to a company and its customers.
Interested in startups?
Working for a startup is really appealing to me because it allows you to work on a lot of different things and take on more responsibility. I have experience working for a fashion startup in New York and I’ve started a few websites on my own for fun so I’m definitely interested!
Post graduation plans?
I’ve been contacted by a small tech company in Atlanta to do some contract work which will be a lot of fun. I’d love to get a full time job working as a junior Ruby on Rails developer but I am open to working with other languages. I’m also looking into starting my own class to teach kids how to program with Scratch.
