Hack Reactor

I had the wonderful experience of being mentored and motivated by Kevin Gavino and Clarence Bowen for the majority of SSP34. This program re-instilled and solidified incredibly important JavaScript fundamental concepts, but was done so in an engaging... Read More and exciting way. I could always count on being guided on the right learning path, and any questions our class had were always answered completely and thoughtfully. I would definitely recommend SSP to anyone who is eager to learn and wants to conquer the JavaScript basics.

I attended the Hack Reactor SSP as a way to gauge if coding was something that I wanted to do as a career. For the price of $250 it did that and more. I found the course to be super helpful and motivating to get work done, while also maintaining the challenge... Read More and thought process of coding. They do not and will not do any work for you, which will be fine for you if you are serious about coding. All of the instructors and teachers were great, but I wouldn't recommend the ++ Pacing(doing the SSP 2 months before your planned start date) as it is much slower pacing. Overall, I would recommend the Hack Reactor SSP

If you know what javascript, HTML, CSS, and the basic structure of the web-service thing is, then this prep course would be perfect for you.

The quality of the course, lecture, and tutors are lovely. And the opinion goes further when we consider the cheap... Read More fee for the course.

The fundamental javascript drilling part is the highlight of the course, I guess. The "building blocks" part would let you understand and use the essential logical phase of the javascript.

The self-assessment part that comes every week encourages you to study yourself and let you know how far you are among the course.

After all of the course, the challenge for the readiness-assignment can give you the experience of the real-time technical interview.

One could not be happier with a decision than I am with mine to attend the Austin Immersive at Hack Reactor.

Like a lot of people my age, I have always been infatuated with technology and began messing around with computers and code at a young age. Over... Read More the years I have taken countless online courses but nothing ever seemed to stick. That being said I never really understood any of the deeper concepts needed to actually write meaningful code until I started the prep program for Hack Reactor.

I had never heard of coding schools like this before a few years ago and never did my research until my brother in law went to a coding bootcamp in Cleveland in 2017. I was very curious about his experience and started doing my research. He had mixed reviews and was definitely overwhelmed with the pace but I was intrigued nonetheless. After a couple weeks of research and talking to admissions with multiple schools I finally decided to get started with the paid Structured Study Program provided by Hack Reactor. It was the most in-depth and fast-paced training I had ever been through. Even if you decide to go to a different school this prep program is amazing. Once I was about halfway through the SSP program I decided to take the technical interview to get into Hack Reactor and passed!

After a lot of research and family discussion I decided on the in-person immersive in Austin and it was incredible in so many ways. I was thoroughly impressed with how much the staff cared about our success and about us as people. The team was led by Linden Kueck who turned out to be as loving and helpful a teacher/leader one could ever have. I learned an unbelievable amount about computer science, data structures, algorithms and Javascript in a very, very short time but I am also very grateful for the unexpected lessons in team dynamics and soft skills like how to effectively work and communicate with other developers in the real world.

Aside from the unexpected, I can't express in words how much I learned in such a short time. The pace was nothing short of insane and I was not sure I was going to remember anything that was being taught or if I was even going to finish the program. Then all of a sudden things just started to click and I was instinctively writing clean, readable code and building applications all on my own. These guys know what they are doing.

After graduation, the team continued to help immensely and the career coaches were amazing as well. I interviewed for just over a month and landed a full stack engineering position in my hometown making 6 figures. The job hunt in this industry is difficult but Hack Reactor was there to help the whole way.

If you are serious about coding as a career move and are looking to do it quickly, I don't see how anyone could make a better choice than the Austin campus at Hack Reactor.

Hello -

If you're looking for a bootcamp, Hack Reactor is probably your best option, but I can't say for sure as it's the only one I have experience with.

what's great: They really focus on job-related skills like debugging, collaboration, version control... Read More systems, etc. You get to build real apps that you can talk about in interviews, you learn how to be resilient, self-taught, solve-your-own-problems autonomous engineer -which is highly valuable.

What's not that great: Like most education of our day, there's more emphasis on 'how' and less on 'why'. You learn how to make things work but don't understand what is going on or how it works. This is a big limitation if you want to solve something new. "This worked before, but now it doesn't." For example, it took me weeks during Hack Rector before I knew what npm install was doing. It was a command I was told to run when setting up a repo, but no one explained what it did or why I should understand it, and with all of the information hitting me I assumed it must not be that important to understand. Wrong conclusion on my part. You get a really good introduction to software engineering in Hack reactor. If you are good at identifying things like this (what is npm isntall doing? ) and going out to find your own answers, then you'll do fine.

My other problem I faced in HR is that they spend zero time on html and css, so unless you invest a good amount in these topics BEFORE Hack Reactor, you might not come out very strong on the front end. I know I didn't.

All in all I'm grateful for Hack Reactor and feel like I am a good junior developer. Unless you invest a lot of time before doing the program (in HTML, CSS, etc.) and are able to invest every waking moment outside of class into practice, don't expect to be more than a junior developer. You will not find a high paying job until you get a few years experience. If you think you can become a six-figure developer in 12 weeks without massive prior investment you'll be disappointed. If you can prepare hard, invest hard, and then have realistic expectations of growing after graduation, you can get to the six-figure job.

Job support is outstanding after graduation.

This program is great for people who want to get a job in the web dev industry. The program is jam-packed but there is a lot of information needed to be proficient in web development. You will be working hard and you will learn a ton. The staff is top... Read More notch and very knowledgeable. The curriculum is good and teaches what you need to know to land an entry-level job. The job support is really good, but don't expect them to find you a job. They will help you in your search with stuff like resumes, interviews, and keeping you on track. Everything I needed to do well in my interview I learned through Hack Reactor. If you are interested in a programming boot camp I could not recommend Hack Reactor more.

Overall this is a very efficient way to become proficient in modern web development. If you put in the extra work, you'll also leave with a strong understanding of algorithms and data structures, which differentiates Hack Reactor from the crowd. The remote... Read More program in particular took a lot of stress away from an inherently strenuous learning experience because I could work/study as many hours as I liked in the comfort of my home without losing time to a long commute. Overall a great program that got me where I wanted to go - a full-time developer role in a major US city!

I attended Hack Reactor Los Angeles as part of the HRLA22 cohort starting in April 2018. The tl;dr is that I’m happy to give Hack Reactor a 5-star review: it worked out for me exactly as I’d hoped. I learned a lot, had a lot of fun, built friendships... Read More and professional relationships with an excellent group of people, and landed a well-compensated job I’m excited about.

About me: I’d been programming for several years before Hack Reactor, mostly in Python and SQL, which made me one of the more experienced people in my cohort. However, I didn’t have a CS degree, any engineering roles on my resume, or any professional network of engineers to speak of. I’d wanted to make the career transition for a while but hadn’t pulled it off. Before deciding to go to Hack Reactor I’d been taking classes in the evening towards a CS degree, but frankly I was impatient and wanted results faster. (I’d only taken a couple math classes and one CS class before making the jump, so I would have had at least a couple years left on the college route).

About the team at Hack Reactor: Everyone I interacted with regularly at Hack Reactor (Campus Lead, Tech Mentors, Hackers-in-Residence, Career Coach, Class Coordinator, etc.) was great. Smart, knowledgeable, friendly, and truly interested in everyone’s success. They’ve done a great job putting together a team.

About my cohort-mates: I couldn’t have asked for a better group of people with whom to attend Hack Reactor. Everyone was excited about engineering, willing to work hard, and easy to spend the long hours with. We’ve kept in touch after graduation and hopefully will continue to do so.

About the curriculum: It’s definitely “drinking from a firehose”, but that’s kinda the point. I thought the lectures were generally excellent and found the whiteboarding practice especially helpful. The project-oriented system really pushes you to learn-by-doing and practice solving problems autonomously.

About career week: I got a lot out of career week; more than I expected to. The discussions on interviewing, negotiating, etc. were all very helpful. The improvement to my resume after feedback from the Career Coach, Tech Mentors, and my peers was remarkable: I hadn’t realized how ineffective my pre-Hack Reactor resume was (not to mention all the things I was able to add from Hack Reactor’s curriculum).

About the job hunt: I accepted a contract-to-hire offer at a salary I’d previously worried might be somewhat unrealistic (low six figures) a week and a half after graduation. Even apart from the money, it’s a job and a company I’m really excited about. And the job was a referral from Hack Reactor (the company is one of their recruiting partners), so they get even more credit for making it possible. I went to our Career Coach for advice several times during the application process, and she was always responsive and helpful.

Of course, it wasn’t 13 weeks of pure bliss: It’s long hours and hard work, and there were moments when I was frustrated, overwhelmed, bored, or questioned whether I’d made the right decision by going. But comparing where I was at the beginning of April to where I am now (4 months later), or where I’d be if I’d continued taking night classes, it was clearly the right thing for me.

All in all, my experience was exactly what I’d hoped for: I learned a lot, had a lot of fun, built friendships and professional relationships with an excellent group of people, and landed a well-compensated job I’m excited about.

I personally always found really long reviews helpful, so I’m paying it forward here! But first here’s my TLDR: I have never had another experience even close to my time at Hack Reactor, and I can truly say that attending is solidly among the best decisions... Read More I’ve made in my life. It was also one of the hardest things I’ve ever done, and it’s definitely not for everyone, but if you’re committed and know your own limits, you stand to gain more than seems possible from something like a bootcamp. Really.

The proof is in the pudding, as they say, so let’s start there. I started teaching myself a little bit of JavaScript in late August 2017 while I was working in business development at a law firm – I had no previous coding experience whatsoever, unless you count WordPress as coding experience. I interviewed in September, accepted a seat in an upcoming cohort in October, got a scholarship in November, and began class in January 2018. I graduated in late April, stayed on for another three months as a paid fellow (or as HR calls them, Hacker in Residence), and finished in late July. I accepted a job offer three days later, and now in August 2018 I’m in my second week as a professional software engineer at a large and prestigious company. So, for those keeping score, in the space of a year I’ve gone from zero coding experience and a job I hated to a member of a company where I feel more engaged and valued as an employee than I ever have before, I get to do something I really enjoy, and I make more than twice as much as I ever have at another job.

Here’s my perspective as both a student and fellow: if you put all of yourself into HR and trust the process, even when you don’t see the outright benefit in what you’re doing, you can change the trajectory of your life. More than anything, you’re paying for the opportunity to be around driven, brilliant people all day every day, both students and staff, and as such, it behooves you to always be humble, passionate, and curious. In my experience, nearly everybody who comes through HR is used to being the smartest person in the room wherever they go. The magic is that, while you’re there, that will never be the case. The students I saw fail, with just a couple exceptions, failed because their egos got in the way of their learning and they thought they knew better than HR what they had to do to get through the program. Whether or not that sounds like an exciting environment to you is, I think, a good indicator of whether Hack Reactor would be a good fit.

Sometimes it feels strange to be learning from fellows who were just students a few weeks before. Sometimes it feels strange to be learning relatively outdated technologies (I’m looking at you, Backbone). Sometimes the amount of direct lecturing you receive feels inadequate for the amount of money you invest as a student. I’m sure I totally sound like I drank the Kool-Aid, and I guess I kind of did, but all of these things are baked into the process and are designed from the ground up to immerse you and get you fluent in a valuable and in-demand skill in less time than should be physically possible. And it really, really works.

You will have to give up your social life for three months, and it will be emotionally taxing. There will be bumps along the way, and things will not always be perfect. That being said, if you’re looking to change careers, become a better coder, or even start your own company, you won’t find a better place if you’re up for the challenge.

P.S. I’d be remiss not to mention the very recent acquisition of Hack Reactor by Galvanize. I have mixed feelings about it – in my eyes, like I said, the caliber and reputation of the students is really what make Hack Reactor special, and I worry that if the HR team has less control over their admissions and curriculum, some of that may be lost. As I understand it, however, HR faculty will still be largely in charge of those things and Galvanize does have a pretty significant and wonderful professional network, so only time will tell!

Hack Reactor was the right fit for me in my situation. Your situation is very important to consider when deciding whether to embark on a new career as a software developer. You need to have at least one of two things before coming to a program like this:... Read More

1. Be relatively young, relatively intelligent, and absolutely driven
and/or
2. Have a certain amount of experience/education/some other secret sauce that will help you stand out from the rest and secure a job ahead of the competition.

I will tell you that you will have to work hard, that is non-negotiable. But you can be of average intelligence and mid-to-late age if you possess some other competitive advantage.

I remember a talk from a hiring manager I heard at Hack Reactor, and he said if you "impressive me twice" he will give you an interview. If you secure an interview and have practiced enough at solving toy problems(coding challenges) under time and audience pressure, you'll get the job. One of the things you can do to impress an interviewer like this is have a respected software engineering immersive like Hack Reactor on your resume. Other examples that would "impress" a recruiter like that is previous experience with computer science, a high level of academic achievement like an undergrad in computer science or a technical field, an established software development blog, or a robust account on stackoverflow(full disclosure: this hiring manager worked for stackoverflow.com).

If you've considered these things and still would like to attend Hack Reactor, prepare for the following:

Hack Reactor is your life for the time you're there(assuming you aren't part of the part-time cohort, I attended full-time so I can't speak to that). If you give everything you have, and you have some of the competitive advantages mentioned previously, it will be a worthwhile investment. This also assumes you've done your due diligence and you are certain you really want to work in software development - you do not want to find halfway through the program that you don't actually enjoy building software.

We did lose people from our class. I believe we started with 25 and ended up with 18. Of those that graduated, a handful did not find jobs as software engineers. I can't speak for all, but I know of a few who either left the program or did not find a job because they didn't want to put in the huge time and energy commitment or they didn't have enough competitive advantages to really carry them through.

I was able to find a well-compensated position as a contractor and I am thoroughly glad I attended the program. I was pushing 30 and I would not consider myself to be anything approaching a genius. That's a great anecdote for Hack Reactor's marketing team, but remember that I did not attend Hack Reactor until I had enough competitive advantages in my corner to ensure I would be successful after the immersive had ended. Your situation and timing is everything. I wish you all the best of luck in your career journey.