Mark grew up in Oakland, CA, and graduated in 2013 from Wesleyan University, where he earned degrees in Math and Music. Mark spent the months leading up to the VFA Fellowship out in San Francisco honing (okay—more like building from scratch) his technical skills at Hack Reactor, a coding bootcamp. He took his recently acquired talents to Detroit last week, and is already off and running at SocialProof, a company that helps companies produce personalized, impactful local advertising.
For more information on becoming a VFA Fellow, visit apply.ventureforamerica.org.
Name: Mark Bennett
School: Wesleyan University ’13
Major: Math and Music
VFA City: Detroit
VFA Company: Social Proof
This time last year, I was constructing a plan for how I would turn myself into a software engineer. I was in New York City during my first job out of college, doing interesting work with smart people, but I had figured out fairly quickly that my long-term interests lay outside the arena of management consulting. I enjoyed the creative elements associated with tackling problems for young, small nonprofits and big, bureaucratic organizations alike. But as a math major who finds great pleasure in figuring out the quantifiably “correct answer” to a problem whenever possible, I wanted my everyday responsibilities to be rooted in a more technical skill set. Enter software engineering.
I was interested in finding the quickest way to becoming a credible engineer. I had been learning web development for the prior six months on nights and weekends, and enjoyed it immensely. But I was still an absolute beginner. After weighing a few options, I decided to do what many aspiring engineers are doing today—attend an intensive software engineering program.
Around the same time I was developing my plan to become a software engineer, I was also applying to join Venture for America. In my head, the game plan made perfect sense. I would leave my job at the end of the year, spend the spring getting trained up as an engineer, and land a gig with a VFA company as a software developer. With VFA, I’d become a member of an amazing social and professional network of driven, intelligent, and enterprising young people that would last well beyond the two-year Fellowship. With my new company, I’d get to add value to a startup in a new, exciting city while continuing to hone my technical chops.
So that’s what I did. I was lucky enough to be offered a Fellowship with VFA, and immediately accepted. A few weeks thereafter, I was accepted to Hack Reactor—a software engineering immersive program in San Francisco. In December, I left my job and New York City to move back west and kick off my new adventure.
The engineering program was everything I was hoping it would be. The schedule was life consuming and the pace was intense, and I developed skills and aptitude at an incredible rate. But more than any of the engineering or technical problems I tackled, perhaps the thing that challenged me most during the program was a question that I thought I had already answered: “Why are you doing Venture for America?”
Graduates of top software engineering programs, and of Hack Reactor in particular, get exceptional training in technical skills. As a result, they land great jobs. They join exciting startups or large, successful corporations. They earn six-figure salaries, work alongside incredibly talented and seasoned developers, and participate in the most active and engaged community of software engineers in the world. And if they are interested in starting their own business? They live and work in Silicon Valley and the Bay Area, the Mecca of the startup world.
Given all that, people didn’t understand my motivation for pursuing VFA. I was already set up for success as an engineer (and, if I was so inclined, an entrepreneur)—what more was I looking for? Why was VFA the better path? Good questions, which I’ve struggled with, too. And yet, I have confidence that today, my second day in Detroit, less than one week until I start my new job, I am in the right place.
In choosing VFA, I placed a bet on people. The prospect of working for a small company with people I liked and admired, and participating in a broader community of Fellows, were the biggest reasons I chose the program. This, I realize, is what made it so challenging to communicate my motivation for choosing the Fellowship six months ago – I hadn’t met my class of Fellows or my new coworkers.
Over the last several months, I accepted an offer to join SocialProof as a software developer, in large part based on the people. I spent five weeks bonding with my “fellow Fellows” at Training Camp, being consistently amazed by the talented and passionate group I had joined. Silicon Valley, with all its startups, engineering talent, and sunshine, isn’t going anywhere. Today, I could not be more excited to be in Detroit.