For more than five years, Jovanni Luna's mornings started in the lobby of a luxury apartment building in Brooklyn. He worked the front desk as a concierge, greeting residents who earned in a month what he made in a year. By afternoon, he'd clock in at Best Buy. Sixty hours a week, two jobs, roughly $40,000 a year — and the growing feeling that none of it was going anywhere.

Jovanni grew up in The Bronx after being born in Brooklyn. Latino, first-generation, and nobody in his circle worked in tech. He enrolled at Baruch College to study international business, but the cost crushed him. He dropped out carrying debt and no degree. The closest he'd ever come to coding was a basic computer science elective in middle school — some HTML and CSS, then nothing for years.

"Having those two jobs, I felt like it wasn't really going anywhere," he told Spectrum News NY1. "And I needed a change in my life."

One day, a coworker mentioned a program called Pursuit — a nonprofit fellowship in Long Island City, Queens, that teaches software engineering to low-income New Yorkers. No upfront cost. You only pay a percentage of your salary afterward, and only if you land a job making $50,000 or more. If you don't hit that number, you pay nothing.

Jovanni went to an information session in Williamsburg. He was skeptical. "I always thought it was something that only the smartest people in the world can do," he said. But he applied anyway. In September 2019, he joined a cohort of 25 fellows — predominantly people of color and women — learning JavaScript and React from scratch. Classes started at 7 PM on weeknights and ran through weekends, because everyone in the room was still working their day jobs.

Picture that for a second. You work a full shift greeting people in a building lobby, then ride the subway to Queens, and sit in a classroom until late at night learning a skill you're not even sure you can do. Then you wake up and do it again. For months.

Then COVID hit. The program shifted online. Jovanni kept going.

For his capstone project, he and two fellow students built Trip Hikers — a web app that helps solo travelers find groups to join. "I went from not knowing how to code," he said, "and then I was able to build a web application."

The program also prepared him for tech's brutal interview process. Volunteer engineers from companies ran mock sessions. When job-hunting time came, Jovanni sat through eight interviews in a single day.

In July 2021, he joined Foursquare — a location technology company valued at roughly $390 million — as a Junior Software Engineer. He was the only fellow from his cohort hired there. Others landed at Chase Bank, Peloton, and Thirty Madison.

His salary? Six figures. His hours? Forty a week. His commute? Sometimes none at all — he's visited family in Mexico City while working remotely.

"All that work I did finally paid off," he said. "It was the best feeling just knowing I have a future from that point."

The first thing Jovanni did with his new income was take his entire family to Disney World. It was something he'd always dreamed of doing but could never afford. Now he's teaching his little brother to code. He's referred friends from The Bronx and Harlem to the program. He represented Pursuit at the Robin Hood Gala in 2021.

"My friends from The Bronx and Harlem also had no coding knowledge," he said, "and just to see them also achieving their goals is pretty great. We like to see our community rise up with us."

He reached his personal goal: making six figures before turning 30. And he sees what he found as bigger than himself.

"I think it can be a gateway to getting out of poverty and even creating generational wealth."

He's not wrong. Since 2013, Pursuit has placed over 1,000 fellows at more than 200 companies — Uber, Google, Pinterest, JPMorgan Chase. The average fellow goes from earning $18,000 a year to $90,000. That's not a career boost. That's a different life.

Jovanni Luna didn't need a Stanford degree or a family connection. He needed a free program, evening classes, and enough stubborn curiosity to keep showing up after a full day of work. His word for it is simple: "Opportunity meets preparedness."

Sources & Further Reading

• Spectrum News NY1 — Tech Fellowship Helps Low-Income New Yorkers Break Into the Industry — Primary interview with Jovanni about his journey
• amNY — Here's How One New Yorker Got His First Tech Job in NYC — Detailed profile with timeline, quotes, and program context
• Foursquare — FSQ Faces / Behind the Tech: Jovanni Luna — Employer profile describing his role and technical growth
• Mizuho Americas — In Pursuit of Transformation — Overview of Pursuit's impact metrics and employer partnerships