Launching a Tech Career with HelloFresh

When Kenneth Malley graduated Code Platoon he never imagined he would end up helping deliver delicious dinners to people around the world. Well, that’s exactly what he’s doing as a Software Engineer at HelloFresh, one of the leading meal kit providers in the world.

We recently caught up with Kenneth, a 15 year Air Force Veteran, to learn more about how he launched his career with the meal kit company.

Kenneth graduated from Code Platoon as part of Kilo Platoon. His mentor during the program recommended him for a software engineering position at Factor. Three interviews later, Kenneth joined the team, helping them prepare Factor for a merger with HelloFresh Group. 

He transitioned to HelloFresh’s country launch squad five months later.

“HelloFresh used to manually launch in every new country, but now I’m helping them automate the process,” Kenneth said. “I used my programming skills to work on a new vault key generator. It grabs all of the template files and edits them for each new country.”

“So far, the program has helped HelloFresh launch in seven countries, including Ireland and Japan. It’s incredible knowing I’ve already made a lasting impact, that the code I wrote is being used world-wide.”

Kenneth’s software engineering journey began when he taught himself BASIC on his family computer at 10 years old. He kept up with programming as a hobby until he found Code Platoon. 

“When I started Code Platoon, I didn’t have much experience,” Kenneth said. “I only started to feel like a real programmer in week 10 of the program when I started to work on my personal project. It was my first time programming something from the ground up. I made a digital Hot Potato game that used each player’s phone as the controller via texting. The process of making a program from the beginning was like watching my baby grow up. The more effort I put in, the stronger it got. I was always thinking about the next features to introduce and improve.”

“I had support at every moment during Code Platoon. My fellow students cheered me on. Any instructor or teaching assistant I reached out to for help responded without hesitation. Everyone supported each other.”

“I’ve continued to have amazing support structures at HelloFresh. Launching a new country is very involved. My team of five software engineers touch hundreds of different repositories. It can be really intimidating, but if anyone gets stuck, we all dive in to help each other.”

When asked to share his favorite piece of advice for coding bootcamp graduates, Kenneth had this to say:

“Imposter syndrome is real, but you’ll figure it out. Software engineers come from diverse educational backgrounds. Some have advanced computer science degrees. Others graduated from a coding bootcamp like me.”

“Whenever you start a new field, you never know how it’s going to turn out. There’s an element of risk. In my case, I think everything ended up better than I could’ve asked it to be.”

To read about Kenneth’s experience as a coding bootcamp student, check out his blog post “When Grit and Opportunity Meet.”

If you’re a Veteran interested in starting a software engineering career, you can learn more about our programs and apply to Code Platoon today.

Kayla Elkin is the Marketing Content Specialist at Code Platoon. In this role, she utilizes her marketing, writing, and editing skills developed from previous positions in higher education and educational technology. Kayla has degrees in English and Sociology from Clemson University and completed the Study in India Program (SIP) at the University of Hyderabad. She lives with her partner in northern Chicago.