Northcoders

My time on the Northcoders bootcamp was an amazing experience and the course content has absolutely set me up for working in the industry. On the strength of my portfolio and exposure to real-world industry tools, best practices, etc I was able to land... Read More a job with a great company soon after graduation, meaning that ‘Bootcamp: Day One’ to ‘Totally New Career’ took less than six months! The staff are all absolutely amazing, special mention to my seminar lead Emily, personal mentor John and career consultant Joe who were patient, knowledgeable and also just happen to be some of the nicest people I’ve ever met! Absolutely would not hesitate to recommend this school to anyone.

I started the course a 19 year old gap year student, and I ended the course a work-ready software engineer with the career support to land my first role. I found that role as a junior software engineer at a Fortune 500 company. Northcoders is the perfect... Read More bootcamp for anyone looking to transition into a role in tech. You will become part of a fantastic community full of supportive and friendly people. The curriculum is well-paced and the tutors are super engaging. It also has a practical approach to teaching so you will learn by doing, rather than remembering / copying. I cannot recommend Northcoders enough, especially if you can get in on a government-funded scholarship. The only thing to be aware of is the state of the job market before you join. You should check to see what the demand is like for entry level roles. If it is high, you will likely breeze into a role because Northcoders is one of the best industry-ready skill sets you can have on your CV. However, if demand is lower, you can expect more competition from uni grads, experienced developers and fellow bootcamp grads. In this case you would need to differentiate yourself from the pack (e.g. work on soft skills, offer a specialised tech stack, up your Leetcode, etc…) and maybe prepare for a longer job search.

Northcoders changed my life. After completing my A Levels I felt like the natural progression of things was to go to university. When I completed my undergraduate I struggled to reconcile the idea of not using my degree in my future career so I started... Read More a masters degree. A few months in I realised it wasn't right for me and I made the decision to step off my course. For a few months I didn't know what to do with myself. I had a lot of student debt and was struggling to find a job. I felt completely lost and I was scared I'd made the wrong choice. It wasn't until one of my friends recommended Northcoders that I stared to feel more optimistic about my future. I'd previously enjoyed coding and Northcoders reignited that joy for me. I spent 13 weeks building new skills, making projects that I felt proud of, and becoming friends with some of the most supportive people I know. The course went at a pace where I felt challenged but never out of my depth. The mentors are always there to help guide and develop skills to solve problems. I can't believe just how much I learned in such a short amount of time. Northcoders has put my life back on track and I'm so grateful for that.

The structure of the program is great, instructors are really helpful as well. The fundamentals, backend, frontend of the course is great. However towards the project phase, it seems they make sure each team has a member that has much more experience... Read More to ensure the group will have an actual project complete. Again, I still do feel it was a good curriculum. However they have absolutely zero connections to getting users jobs. There is a job board which is very limited, and these jobs are usually advertised to the public on other websites. Theres so many students now especially since doing remote bootcamps, that they just hope a few students from the course end up getting a job one day so they can collect the government grant, law of averages. I would recommend this bootcamp overall, but don't expect any job placement or assistance on that front. Great place to learn and stay on schedule.

Had a great time at Northcoders learning full stack software development remotely. Pros: 1. Very strong curriculum, well structured and covers a lot of relevant topics. Focusses a lot on PERN stack, giving you the opportunity to gain a reasonable competency.... Read More 2. Good pace of learning and the right balance between lectures and exercises, particularly liked the Wednesday afternoon katas! 3. Uses modern software development practices from the get go so you will be using TDD and Git pretty much on day one through to the end. I feel this is great preparation for the 'real world'. 4. Online notes are very good, clear and well presented and I still use them even now. 5. They have put a lot of effort into the exercises/sprints, like the internet its impossible to get to the end so even a seasoned coder will get to their stretch zone! 6. Tutors are genuinely friendly and knowledgable people. Although the quality of lecturing was variable, it was variable between good and really very excellent teaching styles. Cons: 1. Pairs programming can be a bit hit and miss. Often new topics are introduced in the exercises when you are working in pairs and the pairing actually gets in the way of trying to understand something new, especially when one of the pair 'gets it' and the other does not. I would not remove pairs programming as it is a very useful way of working, but I would limit it to exercises which are focussed around either project work or consolidating already taught topics. 2. There are two 'assessments' during the course that you are required to pass to progress through, both at the end of your individual project work (back-end then front-end). I think this leaves it a little late to pick up if someone is struggling as it doesn't really give much opportunity for some remedial training. It might be worth having some smaller assessments that are more frequent so people can get earlier interventions if required. As you can see, my pros heavily out way the cons. I would recommend Northcoders to anyone thinking of retraining or upskilling.

This is from someone who chose to do the 18 month apprenticeship. The first 3 months on the bootcamp were great, good teachers and helpful tutors. Everything after that point has been a waste of time, the time spent gather materials to 'pass' the apprenticeship... Read More hinders your ability to learn at work. You'll find yourself gathering pace at work and then you're signed up for 5 days on something you're never going to use at work, or something you've already learnt at work. I've been informed on many occasions on courses passing that I was due to attend but wasn't told about, it feels extremely unorganised and I made that clear when Ofsted inspected them again, this is prior to the newest Ofsted report that hasn't come out yet. I would be a much better and experienced software engineer at this point if I hadn't done the apprenticeship. I also feel like they put a lot of effort into inclusivity which is fantastic, however it feels like everything else is neglected just so they can look pretty from the outside, people from certain backgrounds are told they're not allowed to attend revision courses for example, what if that person was only available on that day, how is that fair? Many strange requirements of the apprenticeship like British values and PREVENT just feel pointless and frustrating. Even now, a month or so before finishing I feel like I'd be happier if I just binned it off and worked for my company instead. If you have the opportunity to do either the 3 month bootcamp or the apprenticeship, avoid the apprenticeship.

You do about 2 hours of lectures a day and the rest of it working on something, early on into the course you do something call 'sprints' that cover what you're doing. You work in a pair 90% of the time, bearing in mind that right now we are all doing... Read More it virtually this is a terrible experience. Your partner might further ahead, they might be far behind, they might not care at all because they are an apprentice and already have a job. You are told at the start you will work in pairs sometimes, if you're a normal person you would think this would be during the projects, not 80% of the course. It absolutely ruined the entire experience for me, if I could I would've saved my money and just watched videos on youtube. I would not recommend this course.

If you want to work in software development and are looking for a bootcamp that will give you the skills you need then absolutely go with Northcoders. The course itself develops the skills you need even if you're coming with very little knowledge when... Read More you start. The tutors really help you through each stage of the course and some go above and beyond what you might expect the make sure you truly understand a concept, which is so important given the fast pace of the course #PayRiseForDave! They have great links to employers who are looking to hire but the pool of jobs available when you graduate is completely down to chance and the context of the job market at the time, so be prepared to look more broadly for jobs. However, in my experience, companies outside of their hiring network won't be as interested in considering you as those they have an existing relationship with. Their career support could be improved by giving feedback on your CV and more importantly your portfolio. There isn't an opportunity to sit down with someone and go over these and you're left to get on with it.

At 28 deciding to change careers can be a tricky business but I could not be happier with my decision. The course was quite challenging at times but I was a able to land my first developer role before I even graduated! The tutors are amazing and always... Read More there to help and the careers department is amazing and helped me a lot with great feedback about my cv and job applications

Northcoders was one of the best decisions I made. After learning to code in my spare time for a couple of years and attending multiple meet-ups, I decided I wanted to make the career change from project management to software development. I previously... Read More assumed I would have to go back to university to study but after asking the advice of current developers I eventually discovered Northcoders. From the day I applied, Northcoders supported me through onboarding and studying for the entry challenge (really important as it helps you discover if coding is really what you want to do!). The course was brilliant - it teaches you everything you need to be a Junior Developer and a bit more. The tutors are really supportive and relatable (they themselves have completed the course). The careers support was also really invaluable - the interviews were all arranged for you and I managed to find work after a couple of weeks!