After learning the basics of HTML, CSS, and responsive design in Juno's part-time Web Development course, she applied for Juno’s Bootcamp in 2017, and was accepted! Over 9 weeks, Kait learned core front-end concepts and applied them while building stunning projects for her portfolio. She felt confident investing in Juno because of the support, the Student Outcomes, and the curriculum. “Talking with Heather and other folks on the Juno team before applying, I already felt supported in my decision to change careers, and I felt way more confident investing the time and money knowing I had a team to help me navigate a new industry. I also felt really welcomed and supported by Juno’s environment,” Kait adds.
There are so many female developers and Juno staff in the community - which was important to me coming from a book publishing background, which can be really female-dominated - and the Juno community is also really diverse.
After graduation, Kait landed her first job in tech working at a company that sold a technology system for foreign exchange trading and payments. “I was so relieved and excited," Kait says. "I read the email offer while walking downtown in the summer and sat on a cinderblock on Portland Street to call my mom and then my best friend!”
Today, Kait works as a Digital Designer and Developer at the ROM (Royal Ontario Museum), working with a small team to maintain and create their website and other digital properties, such as on-site digital signage and e-communications. Kait also spends her time on content architecture, UX, and content strategy, and on an as-needed basis, helps train staff on their CMS (Drupal 7), basic HTML, and web accessibility best practices.
“It feels like the perfect marriage between my web development skills and my background in the arts,” she says. “Recently we’ve developed a new initiative called ROM at Home — it’s part of a larger goal to develop richer content for the web, which we started with online magazine content. I really enjoy getting to work on projects like this because my team sees it through from ideation to launch. We develop a content strategy, design, and develop, and then make adjustments iteratively as we respond to how users interact with the final product.”
“I also worked on an iPad project for our Dior exhibition that was a lot of fun — each dress in the exhibition was accompanied by an iPad with detailed photographs and related information, documents, and quotes. That’s not something my team does all the time and it was fun to work on something more hands-on and interactive.”