DevelopMe_

I joined the course with around 10 months of prior experience self teaching in my spare time which gave me a great foundation to make the most of this course. At no point did I feel like the content I was studying was a waste of time because I had already... Read More got to grips with it, which was an initial concern.

All of the tutors were experts in their speciality and I felt supported and challenged throughout. I also feel the curriculum was suited to the state of the industry at time of writing, and gave me a great understanding of technologies such as React and Redux which I have continued to build on to this day.

I highly recommend preparing as much as you can before you start, otherwise you may find some weeks incredibly challenging, I felt I had a reasonable understanding of Javascript before I started, due to my prior studying but I still found the JS weeks to be incredibly challenging.

I was provided with ample oppertunites upon completion of the course for employment, though it did take me around 2 months to secure employment. However, in this time DevelopMe_ were in contact to make sure the search was going well.

Highly recommend the course for anyone looking to career transition, and you can leave feeling confident you have a solid grounding in the core technologies required to begin your journey as a web / software developer.

After 18 years working in secretarial and personal assistant roles in various sectors, I began considering my next career move and had been looking into web development for a while. I had completed a few home learning courses in HTML and CSS and watched... Read More various online tutorials but it was the Develop Me bootcamp that enabled me to accomplish my career change.

I was starting to fear that in my late 30s, it was too late to change career and that I would be out of my depth and competing with university leavers but was assured that none of these were the case. There were students older and younger than me from various backgrounds, with different skill sets to offer and it became clear that age wasn’t even a factor.

The course is 12 weeks long with a different subject covered every week. It was intensive and challenging, with a lot of information to take in but at the same time very rewarding and enjoyable. The tutors throughout the course are specialised in their topics and so information is relevant and up to date.

All of the staff were supportive, friendly and approachable and there are weekly 1:1 catch up meetings with all the students for regular feedback and an opportunity to discuss anything. The class had 10 students in it which was an ideal number for paired and group work tasks and still lots of opportunity for individual assistance and support from the staff.
Everyone is provided with a key to access the classroom so there was opportunity to go in early or at the weekend if you wanted to.

In the second half of the course each student was given contact details to their own mentors, all of which were people that work in the tech sector and have lots of knowledge and experience to pass on. I found this immensely helpful as extra support with getting my CV prepared and gaining an insight from someone who has had a long career in this sector.

The students in my group all bonded really well together and many breaktime and lunchtime games of table tennis were enjoyed by all!

Towards the end of the course we were prepared for interviews and put forward for various work placements.

I am now 7 months into my first application developer role and am incredibly happy there. There have been many moments along the way where I have felt out of my depth as there is so much to learn and so many different directions you can go in, but when I think back to where I was and what I was doing a year ago, I realise I have come a very long way, achieved and learnt a lot, met so many fantastic people.

I highly recommend the Develop Me course and thank the staff for all their support in my career change.

I was part of the Summer 2018 Full Stack Web Dev Bootcamp and really enjoyed the experience. I wasn't sure I'd be able to re-train at this stage in my life (being ancient at the age of 31) but the trainers were very patient and the course really well... Read More structured. It was challenging, of course, but I got through it and learnt this entire new skill set in a crazy short amount of time. There was lots of support available throughout the course and probably just as much support now having finished the course months ago. Timing was unfortunate for work placements as there weren't many companies hiring when we graduated but it didn't matter, I was still able to find a job within about 4-5 weeks of completing the course (and the first 2.5 weeks of that I wasn't looking or applying as I was getting strung along by one of the work placement companies lol). Pete was also really good at keeping me up to date with tons of opportunities/vacancies around Bristol and Bath. I've now since left my first junior web dev role and am getting ready to start my second, with a better company with better prospects... all within a few months of graduating from my Developme_ Bootcamp. If this is what you want to do with your life and you're thinking about signing up, just do it. I was apprehensive and a little terrified about investing so much money in myself but you only live once and if you're willing to put in just a little work and effort you can literally change your life in as little as 12 weeks.

I would recommend the DevelopMe bootcamp to anyone who is committed to becoming a web developer, and willing to put in a lot of hard work, keep asking questions and really make the most of all the support available here. The course is very intense, even... Read More if you have been through all or most of the preparation materials, but it is a brilliant, well-structured way of learning vital skills, and ultimately getting started in the industry.

The syllabus is regularly updated with new technologies based on current trends, and we were taught for 1-2 weeks at a time by a professional developer specialising in a particular area like React Native or GitHub. There is a lot of support available - instructors and teaching assistants are always on hand to answer questions and point you in the right direction. We worked on coding challenges individually, as well as projects in twos or threes, which I found very useful as it involved justifying everything you were doing to your team and thinking more about how the whole project worked. Every Friday we would have a one-to-one chat for five minutes, which was a chance to talk about anything you were struggling with, particularly enjoyed, or felt could be improved about the course.

After the 12 weeks of teaching we were set a week-long challenge which would be sent out to prospective employers, which was lots of fun to work on once I got into it. Then DevelopMe organised interviews for each of us with interesting tech companies around Bristol. I spoke to five companies, and was getting quite nervous that no one would ever hire me, but Pete was always checking how things had gone and looking into other opportunities, and in the end I got a great job as a Front End Developer/Quality Assurance Tester.

During my time on the course I also had a job in the evening...which just about worked out, but I'd recommend avoiding if you can! Ideally you want to be immersed in development, getting into a good routine with enough rest so that you're prepared to learn, and keeping some time free to go to things like hack nights and talks with your coursemates. If this sounds like a commitment you're happy to make, then go for it!

The Coding Fellowship is not just for career changers, it’s also a great opportunity for self-taught developers to update their skills and to keep up with the industry standards. It’s an intense and challenging 12 week bootcamp that requires hard work... Read More and full commitment, but at the end you will be rewarded with job interviews and great opportunities to really start your career as a developer. Bristol is full of great tech companies, which makes this bootcamp even better, as DevelopMe is well known and valued in Bristol’s tech scene.

Within 3 months you will learn the most important skills to become a web developer. The content of the bootcamp is well designed and the instructors are just amazing, always available and willing to help you with any questions you might have. As the class sizes are small (we had 10), you will get very personalized support when needed and they are checking on your progress weekly on one-on-one meetings. DevelopMe is also very open for suggestions and they are constantly updating the content to remain up to date with the industry.

In class there was a teaching assistant available to give you extra help and DevelopMe will pair you up with a mentor, who will advice you outside of the classroom. You will also get great support for job interviews and technical challenges to stand out from the crowd, all personalized just for you.

I got hired by a well established tech company in Bristol just few weeks after the course, so I couldn’t be happier with the bootcamp. I would highly recommend it to anyone looking to make a career change to web development or to improve their coding skills. And yes, it’s well worth the money!

I absolutely loved the Develop Me 12 week bootcamp and would recommend it to anyone who is interested in a career as a web developer.

The course was definitely intense (and there were times where my brain felt like it was melting!), but it's such an achievement... Read More to learn as much as you do in 12 weeks. I would never have dreamed that I could go from knowing virtually nothing about coding to getting a job as a junior developer the week after the course finished!

I loved having different teachers for each part of the course - this gave us a variety of teaching techniques and exposed us to different insights into the industry. All the teachers were amazing, really passionate about teaching, and created a supportive environment in which to ask questions. Having a teaching assistant as well as the teacher is amazing - Pete was always on hand to help out with all excerises. We were also paired up with mentors in the industry - I got on really well with my mentor and met up for coffee every few weeks. This really helped me gain a better understanding of work as a developer and the industry as a whole.

Learning how to use git was really helpful in my interviews and prepared us well for our placements after the course. Pair programming and working together as a group was always really fun - you learn so much coding with someone else, like developing the ability to talk through your code.

The course had such a friendly atmosphere with Pete and Oli really caring about us as individuals. Our group became really close over the 3 months, and it was great to be able to work together with such a motivated group of people.

I've been working as a junior developer with Ecotricity for 3 months now and absolutely love it. One of the best things about the course is the help that Pete gave us to get a job upon graduating - from setting up the interviews to helping us with mock interviews.

In summary - it's really intense but completely worth it!

The Coding Fellowship was overall challenging, rewarding and incredibly fun. It gave us a broad range of skills that were invaluable for a future in web development.
The course was very well structured and continually updated so that we learntthe most... Read More relevant content for going into industry. The modules were one to two weeks each and were taught by very experienced professionals, all of whom were amazingly knowledgeable and always willing to explain anything. The class was small which was a good environment to learn in and as well as the instructor there was always a teaching assistant available to help. It's very apparent that the whole course was very well thought-out as we had weekly quizzes, feedback reviews and assigned a mentor who was always willing to meet up and give any advice.
At the end of the course, I was lined up with 6 interviews with a range of really interesting tech companies. This was an intense couple of weeks but we continued to get support from Oli and Pete, by means of interview practice and any additional support needed before and after the interviews.
I am now coming into my 3rd week at my internship, and am incredibly fortunate to be in a great company. I could honestly say that everyone working at DevelopMe has been invaluable in helping me to get here.

I have just completed the DevelopMe web development bootcamp and I can definitely say it has been one of the most fulfilling 12 weeks of my life. I didn’t know what to expect coming into the course; I thought perhaps we would become proficient enough... Read More to build a one page website but little did I know that we would be working with all the best tools a web developer could have to build fully functioning, multi-paged websites and apps. Not only did we learn solid industry standards of HTML, CSS, and Javascript front-end development we also learned PHP and worked with content management systems to incorporate both front-end and back-end aspects of web development. We went on to creating apps and mobile apps with React, Redux, React Native, and Laravel. We were expected to work like a web developer would at a company so we got comfortable with pushing our work up to Github and pair programming.
My favorite thing about the program was the instructors and teaching assistants. We had a different instructor for the topics based on the instructor’s expertise and it was very obvious to me that DevelopMe had very high standards for their instructors. As a beginner coming from a completely unrelated field (hospitality) I was afraid that I would not understand the concepts but the instructors and TAs patiently explained things, even if it meant sitting with me and going through the code line by line at times. I was in a bit of a unique situation as not only had I just moved to the UK from the States a week prior to starting the course, but also being pregnant into my second trimester! There was one other pregnant person in one of the past cohorts who attended the course and we have both successfully made it through the course with the help of Oli and Pete.
Although the program is quite intense, I never felt like it was unmanageable. I can honestly say that it would have taken me years to learn what I learned in the 12 week program!! Working in a setting where you can ask and get immediate answers, and being surrounded by people who are just as motivated as you are to learn is invaluable. I recommend doing as much precourse work as possible, the more you learn prior to coming to DevelopMe the more you will understand and therefore take away from it. Living in Bristol, I have bumped into a lot of other web developers and every one of them seems to have a very high opinion of graduates from DevelopMe. Although the students in my cohort are still finishing up their interviews, as far as I know they have all gotten at least one offer.
If you are serious about becoming a web developer and you want to work with people who are just as serious about turning you into a top notch developer, DevelopMe is the place to be.

The Coding Fellowship has more than met my expectations. I’m impressed that we are taught by different instructors each of them with many years experience working with the technology that they are teaching. Not only that but they can all teach as well,... Read More which is obviously important that they have the ability to articulate complex concepts to other people. I have found all the instructors very knowledgeable and inspiring.

I also feel that a lot of hard work has gone into the curriculum as it teaches the latest core concepts of the language or tool and you then get a chance to code and put into practise what you have learnt. It is set at the right pace. The curriculum has been tweaked and fine tuned with every cohort, so it is now difficult to suggest any improvements, which is something we are all asked every Friday in our weekly feedback meetups with a DevelopMe person.

At the end of the day, just about everything you could want to know is available somewhere online for free. But working for hours on your own without the support of knowledgeable instructors or a community of peers will not yield the same results as an immersive program like the Coding Fellowship. It’s certainly a big commitment of time, money, and energy, but I don’t think there’s a better way to prepare yourself for a career in web development.

If you're looking for a direct route into web development then the Coding Fellowship is definitely for you. The course teaches you the latest web technologies and best practices which you can use to build fantastic projects, all whilst collaborating with... Read More like-minded people looking to get the most out of the experience.

The teachers are all industry experts and genuinely care about your learning experience. The people there are amazing and a lot of work is put in to ensure the course content remains up-to-date and relevant. Develop Me keep the cohort size small which means you are well looked after, you are never without support from either your teacher, teaching assistant, mentor or fellow students.

The support does not stop when the course ends, you are matched with a number of tech companies all of which are offering a 3 month internship to succesful candidates. Develop Me help you write your CV and conduct mock interviews which are especially useful to those who haven't experienced a technical interview before (they're not that scary really).

In the end I had 3 job offers out of 4. Develop Me displayed the ultimate show of faith in their Fellowship programme by offering me a Developer/Teaching Assistant internship. I'm now 2 weeks into my job there and it has to be said that this is the best decision I've made.

Attend one of the introductory evenings and I promise you won't regret it!