Makers Academy

It says a lot about Makers that their open days for the course are also students final projects. The confidence is well placed as well, I graduate confident in my abilities and keen to start my new career. The curriculum is fantastic, focusing on your... Read More own independent learning but the real strength at Makers lies in the environment. Coaches and fellow Makers are friendly and helpful, meditation and yoga adds some relaxation to what could be a stressful time of your life and the building is a wonderful place to be. You can sense if from the moment you walk in but if you doubt me, attend demo day and see for yourself.

I decided to move into software engineering as I was looking for something more challenging and focussed on problem solving. I was recommended Makers by a friend who already worked in engineering; he worked alongside Makers Alums who had been hired by... Read More his company after the course, so I knew going in that their methods worked.

The Makers course encourages you to get into the learning mindset, without being punishing if you don't understand something straight away. The early weeks consist of pairing with other members of your cohort on weekly challenges, which have multiple ways of approaching them (walkthroughs, reference materials). If there are concepts you don't understand in those early weeks, you'll continue to encounter them in different contexts going forward, so there's very often a realisation a week after you're introduced to a concept as to how it can be applied, as well as a really supportive coaching team who will unblock you if you feel you're struggling.

Makers focusses on Ruby at the start of the course, as opposed to JavaScript, which is more standard in the industry, however Ruby is a comparatively simple language for learning object-oriented programming and test-driven development, and they also teach you how to effectively learn new languages based on your understanding of an existing language.

Along with coding, you're also learning effective communication and Agile team-working styles that are used in the industry. You'll have seminars on effective communication and empathy alongside how to develop good algorithms, and yoga to destress after a long day writing code.

By the end of the course, you'll have a strong portfolio of work, a process for developing code and you'll be able to work effectively in teams, taking a final project from ideation to demonstration in just two weeks.

After the course, you get access to monthly jobs fairs with the Makers hiring partners. You also get a great support structure from the careers team from CV reviews and mock interviews, to offering you support if you are feeling disheartened.

Makers is an intense bootcamp. It requires you to be self-motivated, prepared to learn and explore for yourself and not rely on being spoon fed. If you are willing to put in that effort, and are not deterred when you come up against a bit of a wall, then... Read More Makers could be the course for you.

It is worth noting that the key thing that you learn at Makers is a process, not any particular language. This can lead to some frustrations along the way, but once it clicks you are left with a skill that is far more valuable than proficiency in one language - you are left with a proven method of learning any language. This approach means that you shouldn't end up being fazed by new problems - just apply the process and you can do it!

I did not have any serious coding experience before undertaking the course, instead having had a ten year career in an unrelated field. The prospect of starting a new career at 38 was both exciting and a little daunting. The careers team at Makers were brilliant, both before I had any interviews and then in helping me prepare once I had an interview. In my case, I had a six-month gap between completing the course and starting to job hunt (self-granted paternity leave!), and the team were always available to check in with and then to reassure me that all would not be lost once I started teh job hunt.

I really enjoyed the focus on mental well-being along with learning new skills and the curriculum. Although there was heavy focus on learning ruby in the precourse by no means was it the only language learnt. It help set the pace and knowledge for how... Read More to learn new languages. During my time at Makers I had the chance to learn Ruby, Javascript, Python and Swift. When it comes to the final project, it is very flexible and the team do their best to make sure you get support throughout. In terms of the careers team they were super helpful. I got a job with one of the hiring partners and beforehand they were great at giving me advice on unsuccessful applications and how to prep for the final interview. This is definitely an experience I would recommend anyone looking to change their career at any stage in their lives.

I really enjoyed the focus on mental well-being along with learning new skills and the curriculum. Although there was heavy focus on learning ruby in the precourse by no means was it the only language learnt. It help set the pace and knowledge for how... Read More to learn new languages.

During my time at Makers I had the chance to learn Ruby, Javascript, Python and Swift. When it comes to the final project, it is very flexible and the team do their best to make sure you get support throughout.

In terms of the careers team they were super helpful. I got a job with one of the hiring partners and beforehand they were great at giving me advice on unsuccessful applications and how to prep for the final interview.

This is definitely an experience I would recommend anyone looking to change their career at any stage in their lives.

Before coming to Makers I was working in IT as an Operation engineer but wanted to move into DevOps, however my programming/coding ability and understanding of the software development lifecycle wasn't strong enough to make the transition. I decided to... Read More come to Makers after failing to learn sufficient programming skills by myself and certainly don't regret making that decision.

Pros:

Excellent learning environment
Some of the coaches are really knowledgable & helpful
Good course materials and projects

Cons:

On a few occasions the lectures/lessons didn't seem well planned
Not all of the coaches are helpful, one in particular was avoided by the whole cohort due to their unhelpful attitude

I decided at the beginning of 2019 to leave my career as a criminal solicitor and attempt to become a software developer instead. I knew absolutely zero about coding so it was quite a big step for me.

Fast forward 5 months and I'm now about to start my... Read More first role as a software developer so Makers has certainly done the job, and to be honest I never thought I'd be in this position so quickly.

The course was intense and requires a lot of work, both onsite at Makers and in your free time, so you can't sign up half-heartedly. However, because of this you do learn a crazy amount in a short period of time. I enjoyed every day of the course and haven't once regretted my decision to leave my previous job. In addition to being a great learning experience, it was also really fun. I met some great people in my cohort and there was a lot of socialising which meant that our group projects towards the end of the course didn't feel like work at all. The standard of work that our cohort produced by the end of the 12 weeks was pretty impressive.

I feel that some of the course materials are slightly outdated (which I imagine is difficult to avoid with coding languages that dip in and out of popularity constantly), but it meant that I felt a bit on the backfoot when it came to interviews and I wasn't using the most up to date version of javascript for example. I would advise any new starters to find out whether there is a more modern version of the language you're learning, which is used in the industry, and to brush up on that as well as what you learn at Makers.

At one point we were told that we should expect to find a job within 3-6 months after completing the course which terrified a few people, but it turns out a good handful of our cohort had jobs within 4 weeks. However, I would advise budgeting for the full 6 months, or having a back-up plan, just in case. The careers team are very helpful and supportive and the careers fair which is held every month generates some good opportunities.

I will start off by saying that I am a very picky person, but I absolutely loved my time at Makers. It is a really fantastic atmosphere to learn in and the community are very supportive. By the end of the course I really was equipped with the tools to... Read More go and pick up any language or framework independently - something I couldn't have dreamed of prior to starting the course. The emotional intelligence and meditation workshops are fantastic (this is coming from a hard sceptic) and you really cannot underestimate the importance of these soft skills in the industry. The vast majority of jobs I've applied have made it paramountly clear that they want a team worker, not a lone genius, and I feel that Makers have prepared me really well for all the collaborative aspects of my future career as a developer. The careers team are also very supportive in your job hunt. A few things to note. Not negatives, just clarifications. first of all, it will require a lot of self-study and self-motivation. There are people to reach out to if you are stuck, but no one is going to spoon feed you. Secondly, they currently teach very little computer science as part of the core curriculum. It's not necessary in order to learn to code, and indeed during my interviews I didn't even encounter any computer science type questions, but just something to note. Lastly, the job guarantee doesn't mean that you'll automatically be given a job at the end - you are still expect to be very proactive in your own job search, but as mentioned before the careers team are there to help. Expect at least a few weeks between finishing the 12 week course and landing your first job - you most likely will not have time to apply while doing your final project and can only get the ball rolling afterwards. The only place I took off a star was curriculum. The general curriculum is great, you learn about the core concepts of object-oriented programming thorugh ruby (which you can then translate to basically any OO language) and javascript is likely to stay very relevant and important. Some parts, however, do feel like they need an update - perhaps too much of a focus on fullstack Rails (which really doesn't lend itself well to modern sexy web app behaviour). Would have liked to replace the mandatory Rails part with a Rails/Django/etc API backend + JS framework frontend instead, also some exposure to NoSQL databases too would have been nice. Also replacing jasmine with jest would have been more relevant to current industry requirements.

I will start off by saying that I am a very picky person, but I absolutely loved my time at Makers. It is a really fantastic atmosphere to learn in and the community are very supportive. By the end of the course I really was equipped with the tools to... Read More go and pick up any language or framework independently - something I couldn't have dreamed of prior to starting the course. The emotional intelligence and meditation workshops are fantastic (this is coming from a hard sceptic) and you really cannot underestimate the importance of these soft skills in the industry. The vast majority of jobs I've applied have made it paramountly clear that they want a team worker, not a lone genius, and I feel that Makers have prepared me really well for all the collaborative aspects of my future career as a developer. The careers team are also very supportive in your job hunt.

A few things to note. Not negatives, just clarifications. first of all, it will require a lot of self-study and self-motivation. There are people to reach out to if you are stuck, but no one is going to spoon feed you. Secondly, they currently teach very little computer science as part of the core curriculum. It's not necessary in order to learn to code, and indeed during my interviews I didn't even encounter any computer science type questions, but just something to note. Lastly, the job guarantee doesn't mean that you'll automatically be given a job at the end - you are still expect to be very proactive in your own job search, but as mentioned before the careers team are there to help. Expect at least a few weeks between finishing the 12 week course and landing your first job - you most likely will not have time to apply while doing your final project and can only get the ball rolling afterwards.

The only place I took off a star was curriculum. The general curriculum is great, you learn about the core concepts of object-oriented programming thorugh ruby (which you can then translate to basically any OO language) and javascript is likely to stay very relevant and important. Some parts, however, do feel like they need an update - perhaps too much of a focus on fullstack Rails (which really doesn't lend itself well to modern sexy web app behaviour). Would have liked to replace the mandatory Rails part with a Rails/Django/etc API backend + JS framework frontend instead, also some exposure to NoSQL databases too would have been nice. Also replacing jasmine with jest would have been more relevant to current industry requirements.

To be honest I don’t have any cons, others may have but my experience at Makers was hands down the best experience of my life.

I wanted to make a change after 15 years in sales and it was a tough decision to make a change at this point in my life.

However,... Read More if you’re reading this and want to make a change in life and start a career in something you love you need Makers, amazing coach’s the best cohorts and the best time of your life....

You will learn industry standards, how to work through problems in a methodical way and everything you will need to enter the real world of code and start a new life doing something you love and live.