Hack Reactor

This program really changed my life not only by giving me the confidence to be a fullstack software engineer, but more importantly gave me the confidence to learn any new technology or language. This program focuses on building autonomous fullstack engineers... Read More and that is exactly what they create. The support system is amazing, they really do an amazing job at fostering a community of growth and support from both the staff and the students. The program is intense and moves at a very fast pace, but if you are serious about getting into the technology field and most importantly willing to put the work in, you will get so much out of it.

I went to Hack Reactor with my mind set on the prize. I knew it would be hard but nothing could have prepared me for the rigor of this course. There were times where I thought I couldn't make it but I pulled through and learned so much on the way. From... Read More learning advanced full-stack skills to learning all the soft skills I need to be a good team member and interviewee it was a journey that I'm proud to have completed. The support is there. There's help desk when you get stuck and the staff is amazing. They're all very passionate about their jobs and the exemplify that throughout every process within Hack Reactor. I started at a major tech company out in SF (remote position) and I'm loving it so far. Everything I learned at Hack Reactor I'm having to use on the job. I'm fully prepped to be the best dev I can be here. Thanks HR.

I spent a few months preparing in order to get into Hack Reactor, starting in January. I got accepted and started the precourse in April and the full-time remote course in May. I graduated in August and had accepted a job by September. In less than a... Read More year I was able to achieve my goals of becoming a software engineer and land a competitive job in the industry thanks to Hack Reactor and without a college degree. This would've taken me over 3 more years of education plus a job search to get where I am now. On top of that, since they are a part of the VET TEC program, I didn't have to pay anything for this. So my fellow Vets out there that have an interest in software engineering or development use your resources!

The course itself is very impressive and I found my expectations being exceeded at every step of the way. Their teaching approach is very hands-off a majority of the time but is handled expertly. They know what they are doing and have a good reason for it. You will come out of this course a very self-sufficient learner which is valuable in this industry. I would say that some of the best value that Hack Reactor brings is in its curriculum. It will push and teach you a lot while giving you the projects to put on your resume to help land you that job. Which brings me to one of the best parts of this course, the career services. They will provide you all the resources you need in order to be successful after you graduate. If you do what they advise it is only a matter of time before you land a job with your newly developed skills. Then there is the Alumni community which will continue to provide you value long after you graduate.

Overall this is an amazing immersive program and I am so thankful for all the staff that has helped me along the way!

Before Hack Reactor, I'd gone to some great schools for undergrad and grad school, but Hack Reactor provided some of the best instruction I've received and placed me among some of the smartest, most engaged classmates I've known. I loved my time there... Read More and have remained close to my classmates, who are working across some of the largest companies in the Bay Area and some of the coolest startups.

I was impressed by how quickly my classmates and I found jobs--within a month or two. It's amazing to think about how much Hack Reactor was an inflection point in my life, when I learned to put together all of the things that fascinated me. That 3-month period and the tuition are easily some of the best investments I've made in myself--and this is after going to an ivy league school for undergrad and a top-14 law school. Learning to program takes a lot of self-guided study, but Hack Reactor taught me how to find what I needed in order to get started. I'm very grateful to the Hack Reactor program and its inspiring, energetic, and tight-knit community that stays with you after you graduate.

The support structure and environment provided was truly amazing. The level of care and investment in the students that the instructors and leads have was far beyond anything that I was expecting from the program. The program is fast pace and requires... Read More a significant time investment. However, if you open yourself up to the process and truly learn from it, you will not be disappointed.

Hack Reactor was an exhausting but wonderful three months. I really enjoyed the semi-structured aspect of the sprints (first half) and being able to dig deeper into the things that were interesting to me. The pairing was useful as well - I frequently... Read More learned tips from my classmates and was able to reinforce my own understanding by having to talk about code. The second half was much less structured, and while I enjoyed it a little less, it was a great opportunity to practice developing in the same repo with other engineers and tackle more complex problems.

I found the interview prep that occurred throughout the program to be well aligned to interviews that I experienced in the job search. While Hack Reactor didn't teach me everything I needed to know to do my eventual job, it provided great foundational knowledge that I was able to use to learn other things, and in a shorter timeframe than I would have been able to do all by myself. The things I use most today (5 years later!) are the deep dive into JS internals and the debugging process. Instructors were super smart and were great at breaking down concepts. I'd happily take more courses from Marcus or Fred in the future. The career search staff was energetic and invested in our success, and while most of the staff from my cohort are no longer with the company, Marlene (who does alumni job support) is awesome - no-nonsense, caring, and focused. Overall, if I could go back and time and do it again, I would.

For context, I graduated in 2015 and I realize the school, curriculum, and even the industry have changed since then.

Hack Reactor radically shifted the entire trajectory of my life in the most positive way. I was able to go from being a "failed" artist... Read More to beginning my career as a Software Engineer. I look back on the time spent there as one of the pivotal moments in my life.

I had expected the program to be challenging, but honestly, nothing prepared me for how much of a whirlwind of work it would be. It was easily the most challenging educational endeavor i'd ever taken on. While it easily pushed me to my limits, being surrounded by equally motivated, driven, and enjoyable cohort-mates helped me tackle the challenges presented by the curriculum.

More importantly, the ongoing career support through the Alumni program, facilitated by the one and only Marlene, has been an absolute game changer that continues to pay dividends all these years later. Marlene isn't just one of the most caring and compassionate people I know, she has more experience helping people prepare and secure jobs than anyone I have ever met. Every question, concern, and anxiety that surrounds the job search are deftly answered by her and often with suggestions of entirely different approaches I never would have imagined on my own.

Hack Reactor gave me an opportunity and a career I would have never imagined for myself and I will forever be indebted to the program for what it provided me.

I graduated from Hack Reactor in 2015, and have since then worked at startups (Planet and Patreon), tech giants (Google), and even started my own company (Babylon House), and I can say with no reservations: Hack Reactor is the best of the best. The instruction... Read More is top notch, the leadership is excellent, and the alumni community, thanks to the endless energy and enthusiasm of Marlene Tang, is better than even an Ivy League school or Google. Had I a chance to go back in time and advise my high-school self, I wouldn't tell him to get a CS degree; I'd tell him about Hack Reactor.

I attended HR in 2018 at their SF campus. It was an experience for sure. I did not come from a CS background but had some experience doing QA at a small web dev shop. I will say that if you can / are willing to put in the time, Hack Reactor will support... Read More you. They will not hold your hand the entire time or even half that, but they will give you the resources and more importantly (at least in my case) the community to help you best leverage those resources. There was a common joke at the time that all of us had migrated to SF from far away places and paid a large amount of money to just sit in a room and struggle for 3 months. What that experience taught me is how to communicate thoughts to others in a relatable way, how to ask the right questions not only of others but also to google, and how to learn things quickly. I think these things are some of the most important skills that you can have going into the tech industry. HR will tell you to ask questions if you don't understand something, please do me a favor and listen to them when they say that. There is honestly no better space I've yet found to feel so comfortable not knowing the answer.

At least when you're in person, the additional resources after you complete HR are incredibly noteworthy. At the SF campus, I could schedule mock interviews with other students and instructors, talk to career coaches, and get inspired to keep pushing as many of my cohortmates were also searching out of the base of operations that was located at the galvanize campus.

I will not lie and say that it is easy. Sure it'll be easier for some, but not so much for others. I am others. I spent the next six months after graduating, juggling work and a job search in a foreign and expensive city with no contacts other than classmates. And I ended up finding work not in SF. It was a draining process. But I have to say it was worth it in the end once I'd finally accomplished what I'd set out to do.

Enter 2020, I lost my first job to a reorganization and was back on the search in the middle of the pandemic. There is a whole network of people that I was able to contact via a HR alumni's slack group and an extremely talented alumni career coach that put me in touch with some alumni for interviews. When I finally was in the final stages of my negotiations with another company that same career coach gave excellent advice on how to properly negotiate for what I needed from my new employer.

All in all, I think it's a worthwhile investment, but by no means is it a guarantee of success in a particular amount of time.

I attended Hack Reactor back in 2015. The time I had there was a blast. The curriculum was a pretty good mixture of practical learning, some CS fundamentals, and interview preparation. From what I hear, the curriculum has kept pace with the direction... Read More the industry has gone in (e.g. switching from Angular in the curriculum to React). At the end of the day, what I enjoyed the most was being surrounded by like-minded, enthusiastic peers. That more than anything is what Hack Reactor provides. That is, except for the post-graduation job support. I remember coming out of the bootcamp feeling decently prepared for job interviews. I've had friends from other programs who've graduated from other bootcamps and it seems like this is less of a focus for them.