I recently completed the Coding House program and have been actively interviewing for four weeks. I had three offers this morning from different companies - all six figures and above (yes - $100,000+). I am accepting one of those now. I also turned down several other opportunities because they didn’t fit my career interest. This didn’t happen by chance and it certainly would not have been possible without the exceptional program I attended at Coding House. These post come at the perfect time for me to voice my opinion on coding bootcamps. And by the way this has nothing to do about money - it has to do with an amazing program that provided me with thousands of career opportunities.

For complete transparency I graduated college with a business degree, worked in the software industry (project management/account management side) for 5+ years, and completed multiple online certifications for various programming languages. I am telling you this not to brag (because this experience doesn’t mean shit) but to demonstrate these programs can benefit individuals who have a solid work/education background, as well as those wanting to make a career change.

Prior to Coding House I was making roughly $50,000. I was teaching myself programming on the side on platforms such as Pluralsight, Codecademy, and Code School. I also took took three classes at O’Reilly School of Tech. I can say from personal experience NO ONE can become a Jr. Developer in a reasonable time using these resources. These platforms teach you programming in a kiddie pool environment far away from real world environments. Try developing a production ready application after completing those courses - it isn’t possible for 99% of people. You don’t have professionals showing you the ropes of Version Control Systems, framework architecture, Test Driven Development, Design Driven Development, development tools, deployments to AWS, Digital Ocean, Heroku, and API integrations. Anyone who is claiming someone can make the transition with only using these educational resources is clearly uneducated on software development. Those individuals are so far disconnected from reality its laughable.

Making a transition into software development is far more complicated than taking a few free courses online. Programs such as Coding House (and several others) prepare their “students” for real world application development. Bootcamps are extremely intense and mentally exhausting. You have to be resilient and willing to make a million mistakes. Yes the reward can be great on the other side (great pay and work) but you have to be honest with yourself prior to attending a camp. 2 months is a short time for anything. You have to put in countless hours before and after the program. Nothing is going to be handed to you. Welcome to life - mommy and daddy will not be there to hold your hand. These camps provide a huge stepping stone that modern Computer Science programs are not providing. I am not saying CS programs are not worth time + investment because I have never attended such a program. CS programs and bootcamps are different on so many levels and have different goals.

My Accomplishments at Coding House:
-Accepted employment offer one month after program was complete
-Won 1st place at Launch 215 Hackathon building an application with Sabre Cord API
-Invited to speak with the CEO of Codecademy based on a blog post I wrote.
-Interviewed at PayPal and Apple and completed all final rounds of the interview process (and I turned all those offers down)
-Developed a mobile application that allows anyone to scan a barcode of a food product and know instantly if they are allergic to any ingredients.

Prior to coding house these accomplishments were not within my reach. I can honestly say I accomplished more in 2 months than would have been possible in a 18 month timeframe on my own. My money and time was well worth the investment.

What makes Coding House successful:
-Extensive pre-work prior to attending. I spent well over 200 hours or more dedicated to preparing myself for the program.
-One of the best damn instructors the industry has to offer. I have worked with very talented developers throughout my career and this instructor is top notch. He can teach, coach, challenge, and push you to your limits.
-The curriculum (Javascript Stack) builds extremely well and allows for great progression
-No others worries but coding and collaborating with other students
-Application based learning with a solid portfolio to display at the end of the program

So what does this mean? Bootcamps are what you make of them. Are they perfect? No. But they can help propel you in many different directions for your career. Anything worth pursuing is difficult and a lot of people will fail achieving it. I swam for 4 years as a NCAA Division I athlete (again -this isn’t too brag). 20 of us started as Freshman, and 4 of us completed our Senior year. Why? Because it was hard and demanding. Bootcamps are the same. They are hard and require 110% dedication to achieving your goals. The weak will fail and blame everyone around them for it. Those people are everywhere and it’s sad they can’t take ownership for their own failures. The tough will succeed and continue to push the limits of education and software development.