Building the Infrastructure Piscine

Eduardo finished school without any major difficulties, but his grades weren’t good enough to get him into university. He then found a role at McDonald’s.

The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic proved to be a turning point for him. This period of reflection prompted him to rethink his professional future. Having always been passionate about IT, he seized the opportunity presented by the opening of our school in Lausanne. Convinced that this was the perfect chance to change careers, he took a chance and was selected.

For Eduardo, 42 Lausanne represented the most direct route to a fulfilling career change. As our school does not rely on traditional qualifications, but rather on candidates’ ability to tackle challenges and work as part of a team, Eduardo was able to put the skills he had acquired during his time at McDonald’s to good use.

Eduardo quickly made a name for himself at our school, even earning the nickname ‘caretaker’ for his ability to always know where to find the information he needed and to identify the right people to work with on different projects. A true pillar of his year group, he stood out for his sense of initiative and his willingness to help his fellow students.

Passionate about cybersecurity, Eduardo decided to deepen his knowledge by taking additional modules in this field, thereby preparing himself for more specialised technical challenges. His natural curiosity and his love of continuous learning have made him a recognised and respected student.

Towards the end of his time at 42 Lausanne, Eduardo was approached by the CEO of 42 Lausanne to take part in a special project: setting up an infrastructure lab. The aim of the project was to enable Swisscom, one of our sponsors, to assess students in real-world working conditions. The idea was ambitious: to create an environment where participants could install, configure and manage professional hardware infrastructure, an area often overlooked in training programmes as it requires expensive and specialised equipment.

This project enabled our students to acquire practical infrastructure skills, ranging from server and operating system management to the creation of networks for machine management. For several weeks, Eduardo and his team worked tirelessly, often even at weekends, to meet this challenge.

The infrastructure lab covers the full range of network and infrastructure skills, from the physical installation of servers to the deployment of business services (AD, Citrix, Azure for Windows, LDAP, Kerberos and Linux sessions), including the hypervisor, VLANs, Ansible… All this as part of deploying a complete infrastructure for a specific requirement.

Eduardo’s involvement in this project has not only enhanced his technical skills but has also offered him a unique opportunity to work closely with Swisscom, with the prospect of a permanent contract for the top-performing students.

For Eduardo, this experience at 42 Lausanne – which is not yet fully complete – has been shaped by three key pillars that he keeps in mind: collaboration, which was at the heart of his team projects; the social aspect, the unique bonds formed with fellow students; and curiosity, which has enabled him to constantly push himself, learn and progress in fields that fascinate him.

42 Lausanne works regularly with companies that might be interested in students specialising in systems administration, adapting the curriculum each year in consultation with interested companies