The SwitchUp Community

christine@startupinstitute.com

I agree with all of the advice here... especially Charlyne's point—get connected. The US Bureau of Labor Stats says that at least 70% of jobs are found through your network. I work at Startup Institute (www.startupinstitute.com), and we can't stress this point enough with our students. Get out there, meet people, and build MEANINGFUL (not transactional) relationships. Focus on offering value to others (this can come in many forms!), and eventually a company will see how employing you will bring even more value. Some other job search tips: 1. Give your personal brand a facelift In the same way that a company’s branding involves everything from their website and ads to their customer service, your personal brand is the sum total of your expertise, value-adds, and interactions as a ...

SwitchUp

There’s a lot to be said about getting a job and breaking into the design field. We have two main pieces of advice:

1) Do great work, and tell people about it. 

The only way to improve as a designer to the point of getting a gig in the field is to practice by working on a series of projects (either self-directed or with real clients). So, do whatever you can to work on as many projects as possible, and be conscious about the skills you’re trying to improve through those projects.

Then, it’s a matter of expressing the work you’ve done in a strong portfolio that captures your thought process, your attention to detail, and the quality of your skills.

2) Be thoughtful about how you build up your own set of skills.

There are a ...

Charlyne Fothergill

Agreed with other poster that you need to keep doing projects even after you graduate... bootcamps are the beginning of your development... don't lose the momentum of coding every day!

On top of this you have to get out and get connected! Your LinkedIn should say "Jr. Ruby/FullStac/FrontEnd/Javascript etc. Dev looking for a great opportunity" Ask for connections if your bootcamp offers them (Lighthouse Labs has a Career Service Director, me!) Go to meetups; connect with Accelerators/Incubators in your area; attend speaker and industry events. When you introduce yourself you say you're a new grad and you're looking for work. We've had students move to new cities and hustle their way into jobs in about a month.

You're new full time ...

Dan Kwon

The main tenet behind this is to have work you can SHOW. An actual website, iOS app, Android app, or whatever you work on. You have to be able to SHOW it. Then get out there and meet people and show your work. If it takes longer than 2 months to get a single job interview, you have to address one or more of the following:

- Improve your skills.
- Be friendlier. Far too many people are rude, awkward, or downright unprofessional in tech.
- Stop being weird. Look at people in the eye when you speak. Say please, thank you, and take care of your appearance. Shower.
- Improve your skills.

That's basically it. It's not complicated yet too many people make it more complicated than necessary. If the amount of people asking me for job advice/leads at my workshops is any indication, the ...

Kris bredemeier

Getting a job in the tech industry is not always as easy as some make it out to be. You have to have some tough skin, because you will most likely find rejection around a lot of corners.

So far, a lot of advice has been given around the idea of networking. This is super important, because the networks you create will most likely be the people who end up helping to get your resume in front of the right people. You need to find a balance though, you need to keep honing your coding skills and whiteboarding skills. Networking is not enough when you find yourself in the midst of an interview and totally blank on how to parse a string passed into parameter. Make sure to find a balance between studying for interviews and networking to find interviews.

https://www.holbertonschool.com

Kris bredemeier

To most companies, having a degree does not mean much, what they want is someone who can code. If you are up against a candidate that has the same technical skills as you, having those degrees may set you apart, but unless you find yourself in that situation, it won't mean much. 

What software engineering companies are looking for is an understanding of basic theory, the ability to get stuff done on a deadline, and someone who can code efficiently. 

I attended a school in SF, Holberton, and we have seen that it doesn't even matter if you have a C.S. degree or not. (Caveat, it can sometimes help you get the interview if you have a degree from a school like Stanford or MIT etc.) but once you are in the room with your interviewer, all that matters if you know your ...

elie@rithmschool.com

Hi there! At Rithm School we have a suite of free online courses on Terminal, Git, HTML, CSS and JavaScript (with even more coming soon). You can find them at https://www.rithmschool.com/courses/ and if you're stuck, feel free to chat with us on the website, we'll be around to help!

Elaine Queathem

Hello graphic desiger.  There are a number of online courses- Code Academy, Treehouse, Udacity are just a few.  They all offer different things but are all online.  If you find you are not well suited to an online learning experience, check out Savvy Coders - they offer a 60 hour instructor led, in person class in HTML, CSS and JavaScript.

ola@claimacademystl.com

Great question. There are several online programs.

Have you checked out bloc.io

They are the best online program with 1-1 mentors.

Become a Designer : Designer Track

Brock Rice

Hi there,

If you are new to the coding world, I would suggest starting with an online course like codeacademy.com or Udemy.com 

These websites offer courses that will get your feet wet and give you some great fundamental training before moving into advanced coding. I went through codeacademy HTML, CSS and JavaScript last year and the tools I learned helped me progress into writing fully functional websites. i hope you find this post useful

Brock

Nick

I think an online bootcamp is sufficient enough for getting a job but it also depends in how much effort you put into it. I completed an online bootcamp, Makers Academy Remote (Ronin at the time), and was able to land a job in week 10 of the course (12 week course). I'm not going to say it was because I knew so much they would have been dumb not to hire me because that's far from the truth. In fact, I think the main reason was luck and timing but hey, I still got a job.

My bootcamp wasn't self paced, we "met" every day for 12 weeks through video chat. Makers is based in London and I was in the good ole US of A so the time difference was tough but well worth it. There aren't any bootcamps near me so I knew I was going to have to eat the cost of housing and ...

info@CodeCareerAcademy.com

Overall I'd say picking the right bootcamp for you is more important than whether it is online or in person. Different people learn differently. I strongly recommend meeting the actual instructor who will be teaching you and hearing them give a talk, whether in person or online.

The honest answer about bootcamp certificates (including the ones I offer at my bootcamp) is that some employers will recognize them and some won't. In general if you want a piece of paper that will help you get a job, go for the 4 year CS degree from a respected univeristy. What you get from a bootcamp is a certificate that *some* employers will respect, some will ignore and some will look down upon PLUS a portfolio of work you can show. The portfolio and the personal connections you make ...

Kris bredemeier

Attending a bootcamp, be it online or in person, is going to take dedication, and you will get as much out of the experience as you put in.

There are a lot of different styles of bootcamps out there because it seems that everybody is looking for something a little bit different. Some things to consider, cost, duration of program, hours per week, location, framework or languages taught, size of class… oh my goodness the list goes on. When it comes to online learning, some people are very well suited for that environment and enjoy the flexibility that comes with it.

There is a cost to that flexibility though. One great way to get your foot in the door in the tech industry is to network. To meet others who are interested in the same things as you, and to meet industry ...

arfah@makersacademy.com

It really depends on the bootcamp you're considering. Many don't focus on job-readiness specifically, and few have employees focused on Careers and placing their graduates. 

At Makers Academy, our largest team is the careers team - we charge our partners a £5,000 fee to hire from us, which means that we're incentivised to grow that team and help incentivise us further to ensure our students get what they want - a job!

While you won't get any certificates, you'll have a portfolio of projects, all written using Test Driven Development, and we'll introduce you to our 00s of hiring partners after graduating.

Nothing in life is guaranteed, but a bit of research should show you that there is *huge* diversity in the quality of the European ...

info@CodeCareerAcademy.com

To add to Kris' comments I'd say if you attend an online bootcamp you had better make friends with Meetup.com!

Networking is vital to your success in any career, but crucial for programmers these days.

If you are going the online route, you will have to find people to network with yourself and Meetup can be a great resource for that. If you are in a rural area, you will likely have to put in much more effort in this regard. Don't have any technical meetups near you? Then you need to do whatever you have to do to get yourself to more distant meetups. I'd plan at least two times a month.

One thing I tell my students is don't think of it as "I'll go for a couple of months while in the bootcamp and then I'll be fine." No, you won't. User Groups and ...

Panos M.

The only necessary ingredient for you to get a job is YOU and only YOU. And this is sufficient. Nothing else can be sufficient.

Is it online? or requires your local presence? it is irrelevant. My believe is that a good school teaching you computer programming:

1. Needs to be hard. Like the software engineering profession is.
2. Needs to be teaching you from the basics to the more advanced. Both what you require to build a solid foundation, things that you need on a daily basis at your work and advanced topics so that you can get your hands on difficult situations.
3. Needs to be asking you to execute a lot of exercises, implement tasks and projects.
4. Needs to be giving you continuous evaluation and feedback about your progress and how you can turn the good to perfect.
5. Needs to be offering you ...

Karvari

Yes... and no. The answers below are totally legit. Pick the right bootcamp or online program or university that works for your learning style, give it your all, make connections. Those are important things to do.

Here is what is really going to get you a job in tech - A head full of questions, and the passion to answer them. (and lets be honest... a friend in the industry, but hopefully you can make one while you are going to school)

A good program will tell you that the specific tech you are learning doesn't matter. That the ability to learn it does. Learn how to find the answers. Learn how to read the documentation. Learn how to ask for help. Learn how to work with other people. Learn how to learn new things... and yes, you also need to learn the basics of programming, and (the ...

admissions@productschool.com

I'm with Nick on this and many of the other responses. It depends on what type of learner you are and how much effort you can put into learning. If you're able to follow the course material remotely, without having an in-person conversation with your instructors or peers, then an online course may work for you. 

Another key factor is what type of career path you want. If you want to become a developer, then an online course can still help you get a job, as long as you are putting in the time to master the material. However, if you want to become a Product Manager, we find that on-campus courses are more practical to prepare you for a job. Product Managers manage teams and work directly with designers, developers, marketers, and others. It's important to learn how ...

aaron@thinkful.com

Yes, but that does depend on the bootcamp. Your best bet is to look at their job placement statistics: what portion of students are actually getting hired after graduation? Are those stats CIRR-verified, or did the school make up their own standards? If you can look at a school's job placement numbers, then you can actually see whether or not that bootcamp is sufficient for getting a job (or at least how many people it was sufficient for — nothing works 100% of the time). If a school refuses to report their data according to open standards, bluntly, you can't trust their claims at all. SwitchUp has Thinkful's most recent CIRR reports on our page, though you can also check out our up-to-the month data at https://thinkful.com/bootcamp-jobs-stats/ . They show that Thinkful gets graduates ...

Andy Tiffany

Hi there! I'm going to do my best to answer while imagining I'm not the founder of First Step Coding and you're just a friend trying to figure out the best path to take : )

I'm going to frame this as a set of questions back at you.

How good of a self-learner / autodidact are you?

Have you taught yourself to play an instrument or other skill that requires 100s - 1000s of hours of practice? Most people are pretty bad at self-learning for a variety of reasons, but anecdotally I'd say the #1 reason is the lack of inherent accountability. It's all too easy to skip the hard parts or quit if no one's watching and checking up with you. For many people, the accountability that comes with a teacher and classroom full of people learning with them ...

Kris bredemeier

My suggestion is that if you need to take a bootcamp prep course, you may not be ready for the intensity of a bootcamp. Bootamps are best designed for students who are already well versed in the fundamentals and foundations of basic computer science principles, and move at much too fast a pace for student show are new to software engineering. They are best for students who want to gain a very specific skill since most bootcamps teach and focus on one specific thing. 

If you are looking to gain some of those fundamentals and foundations, then you may want to look into a more comprehensive program. I didn't have too much experience in tech when I decided I wanted to start gaining the skills needed to build a career in software engineering. I found a school that was ...

SwitchUp

Hi there, Yes! Many bootcamps are now offering Bootcamp "Prep" courses. Check out SwitchUp's guide here: https://www.switchup.org/blog/the-best-bootcamp-prep-courses-do-you-need-one-and-how-to-choose

epicodus

At Epicodus, we've had several bartenders come through our classes, and many people without college degrees :)

The real question is, do you like to code? You should try out coding and see if you enjoy it. There are lots of great sites for this; at Epicodus, we actually have all of our curriculum online at learnhowtoprogram.com/table-of-contents, starting with lessons aimed at people with no coding background at all.

If you like it, keep working through materials until you can pass the entrance tests (our application is at epicodus.com/apply.html). If you still like it, there's no reason you can't attend and be successful!

erik@vikingeducation.com

You should consider attending a coding bootcamp if you can confidently say that you're ready and willing to build a career as a developer.  In the end, your willingness and ability to constantly learn technical topics is a far stronger indicator of future success and whether or not you should attend a coding bootcamp than your previous career or educational history.

Just trying out a bit of code and seeing that developers get paid well is not sufficient to get you over that line.  There's a reason developers are in such demand -- it's a career built on constantly changing technology which requires you to learn aggressively to keep up and to succeed.  This means that you'll need a strong underlying passion for the craft and a deep ...

Lina Atehortua

Hello there! How about getting a taste for programming through a short seminar or/and an introductory class of 3.5 hours once a week for 5 weeks. Can I invite you to visit our website www.penpapercoding.com for more details? We offer a unique and effective pen and paper only intro to programming class 4 times per year and our spring term sessions starts April 25 (Saturdays) and April 28 (Tuesday evenings). On April 20 you could also attend our Snail & Programming meetup -2 plus hours- organized by JS New York; it promises to be very engaging and inspiring! Success with your study plans. Lina - Pen and Paper Coding NYC

bradbowl

Coding bootcamps are large investments of time and money so I wouldn't take the decision to attend one lightly. I would recommend spending time on sites like Codecademy, Treehouse, Codeschool, Lynda, etc. learning new technologies and building things. See if you like it. Also, once you are familiar with a language, try solving coding challenges on sites like Codewars, Coderbyte, CodingBat, etc. If after all that you're even more enthusiastic about programming, then I say a bootcamp could certainly be a good path for you.

info@zipcodewilmington.com

I've been a part of Zip Code Wilmington for short time and can only speak for our camp. I am a full believer in what a coding bootcamp can do for someone. I would suggest taking a lot of time to research and find the right bootcamp for you. Another poster mentioned that bootcamps can be a large investment of time and money and I 100% agree. Our students spend roughly 100 hours per week coding for 3 months. However most of our students are leaving and getting placed in relatively high paying developer roles and have great success stories. 

Kris bredemeier

I had been working in retail for about 5 years when I asked myself the very same question. I liked my job, but I wanted a career. So I started looking into attending a bootcamp. I had a lot of friends that were programmers, and it looked really interesting to me. I signed up for one in Chicago (that’s where I was living) - it was for iOS app development.  As I was prepping for that, I found about this school in San Francisco, Holberton School. I decided to to the application process for Holberton as more prep work for the bootcamp I was already signed up for. As I was doing the application, I started to fall more and more in love with the school. I ended up deciding to attend Holberton instead of the iOS bootcamp.

Why am I telling you my whole life story? Because I had no ...

Andy Tiffany

Great question. I can't comment on QA training programs, but I can tell you that any experience with QA / testing is going to put you in better position than having no experience.

One way to get experience is to seek out part-time contract work on sites like https://www.upwork.com

You could also try https://www.utest.com

Without experience, your best bet is to look for simpler projects first that just need someone to run "manual testing."

The two main steps in manual testing are:

1) Write a set of test cases. These are very detailed specs that describe:

  a) What actions are you taking in the application? E.g. "Click the sign up button"
  b) What is the expected state of the application afterwards? E.g. "The registration ...

Adam Wilson

In my program we had weekly 1 hour classes with the "Outcomes" coach together as a group. We created our LinkedIn profiles, took field trips to see agencies (companies). At the end there was a fair where we could show our final project app (like a science fair) to some folks from companies that were hiring. Ultimately though, it was totally on me to do my job search with a few meetings with the coach for guidance!  My opinion: If you are gonna quit your job and try to get a new one asap after bootcamp, don't do bootcamp as a code newbie. Put in 5-10+ hours a week learning on your own with online resources and books (at least do 1-2 textbooks in the bootcamp's focus languages (JS, Ruby, or whatever) and basic HTML and CSS. for a year or so so you will A. Not ...

Mohamed Kassem

Definitely, if your goal is to be a web developer whether a front or a backend, join a programming bootcamp. CS degrees, do not teach web development on any sort of profeasional level. Just a class or two.

Ty Shaikh

If you want to be a front-end developer / web designer, look at high-rated coding bootcamps on this website. Also, most full-time programs are only 12 weeks, not 24 weeks. Most of their graduates take on titles such as front-end developer or full-stack developer.

The bootcamps usually are not deep enough or specialized enough for graduates to be back-end developers, devops engineers, software engineers or UI/UX designers, though many graduates will eventually gain practical experience into those fields.

Kris bredemeier

If you want to focus on front-end web development, I wouldn't worry about getting a computer science degree. You will end up spending a lot of time and money learning theory that you won't need to be a front-end developer. If you want to become a good developer, you need to spend time on projects, and build things. 

Regarding hiring, most companies don't care where you went to school so long as you can code. There are a few acceptions to this rule, but I don't think you should base your education on the acceptions. Most companies want to see if you can get stuff done, and how and where you learned how to do that shouldn't matter. 

I studied software engineering at a school called Holberton in San Francisco, and the students here have not had a problem ...

Kris bredemeier

Attending a bootcamp is an excellent idea to boost your skills. Bootcamps are super challenging for those who come in knowing little to no programming. Those who end up being super successful tend to be those who have some base level of skill. I know Hack Reactor, for example, tends to be a better experience if you have a programming background. Deciding which bootcamp is right for you is an entirely different question. 

You also have to decide how deep down you want to go with your skills. I attended a programming school that had a strong focus on low-level programming and the foundations of computer science. Holberton was perfect for that, but you may not be looking for foundations, it seems like you may already have those. 

http://www.hackreactor.com

...

info@CodeCareerAcademy.com

Hi, Kevin.

I run Code Career Academy which is in the Atlanta area, and I have a couple of programs geared towards someone in your position.

First is my Part-Time bootcamp which you can take in a modular fashion. This works great for example for someone who is currently a front-end dev who wants to just study back-end plus computer science topics.

I also have continuing ed classes you can take on very specific topics. This week I'm starting my Intro to C# class which will run for 3 weeks.

For you it sounds like sticking with the Microsoft stack is a good idea since you already have .Net knowledge. I'd focus on learning C# and then ASP.NET MVC (preferably Core).

If you have any questions, I'd be more than happy to answer them!

I'm jeffa@codecareeracademy.com.

Steven Watkins

Job seeking Launch Academy graduates are accepting positions as full stack, backend, and frontend developers. It really depends on what interests the student. Our students have varying, diverse backgrounds and we encourage them to pursue their passions on a daily basis. Regardless of the stack or job type, when students gradudate from Launch Academy, they feel ready to contribute in meaningful ways their first day on the job.

We have a full time Director of Talent whose sole responsibility is to find our graduates their dream jobs. Our students have accepted developer positions with prominent Boston area financial institutions, educational tech startups, and local development consultancies, among many other industries.

Ultimately, when tech companies ...

hello@digitalcrafts.com

In our most recent cohort, which had 10 students who graduated 3 days ago on Friday (2/12), 3 of the 10 received 4 job offers before graduation. One was with Verizon working on their marketing team as a front-end developer. One was with Emory, helping to transition some of their legacy code to more modern solutions. One was a software engineering role with a company in Palo Alto called Live Action. The last one was with a company in Atlanta called Riskalyze, which needed a developer to help with their financial product. Other graduates are pursuing front-end, full-stack, and iOS developer positions. Hope that helps! Max McChesney, DigitalCrafts.com

Ty Shaikh

I have heard some great success stories of individuals self-studying through freely available material online and pairing with a mentor. Depending on your personal time commitment, you would need a mentor for 1-5 hours per week and it could take anywhere from 2-8 months.

Based on developer salaries, a junior software engineer will charge you at least $50 an hour. A better, mid-to-senior range engineer will charge 100+ per hour to mentor you. Are you able to pay that much?

If so, reach out to engineers at technology companies near you.

SwitchUp

After trying online courses, the general recommendatino is to go offline - it is difficult sometims to find motivatino studying on your own online or with remote mentors.  Being in a classroom is helpful and we recommend trying some more advanced bootcamp courses, specifically ones that teach teh tech stack you're interested in learning in your area.  You don't have to go full-time but you can try part-time courses like anyonecanlearntocode, and a few others listed on our search page.  Best of luck!

Yevgeniya

Since you already know your exact motivation, you just need to find the right bootcamp for you.

Various bootcamps focus on various aspects of coding, which means that you don't need to learn basics if you don't want to. Furthermore, mentors are there to help you reaching your own needs. Once you get to know your mentor, you can work with him on specific aspects of programming, which may even go further the tasks you will face in the bootcamp's schedule, like we have in Upscale Academy.

Another great aspect of a bootcamp is a community of students and mentors itself. Numerous graduates say that participating in a bootcamp was the best choice of their life mainly because of challenging and inspiring atmosphere they all live through together. Sometimes even your mate may turn ...

Kris bredemeier

I think it's great that you are looking for a mentor. They are so valuable in this industry. I was part of a program (Holberton) that specifically designed around the involvement with mentors, and everyone (students and mentors) benefited greatly from it. But you don't have to be part of a program like Holberton to find mentors. One recommendation I would suggest is to attend Meetups in your area. Meetups are held in most major cities and are a great place to get face to face contact with others working in the industry. You can also find people who are interested in the same niche things as you quite easily (since meetups are usually pretty specific). You can use meetups to create your own little community or build relationships into mentorships. If meetups are not ...

Ty Shaikh

If you have some free time on nights and weekends, I highly recommend you check out Udacity.

Here is a link to the Data Analyst Nanodegree: https://www.udacity.com/course/data-analyst-nanodegree--nd002

You can do the individual courses at your own pace and for free. If you complete those 5-7 courses, you will have a decent understanding of the data analysis field and whether you find that type of work interesting. You will probably need a basic understanding of the Python programming language. So check out their intro course or go over to Codeacademy.

If you find you want to dig deeper, check out Peaks Academy (www.peaksacademy.com). They are a newly launched Data Science bootcamp. They are fully remote and have a part-time schedule. The target demographic is working professionals ...

Principal Analytics Prep Staff

I have suggestions for a few books you can read to gauge your interest in the analytics and consumer insights area. The first book is my own, called "Numbersense: how to use big data to your advantage" (McGraw Hill). This book covers a wide range of examples of how data analyses impact our lives; I have a full section of the book dedicated to marketing case studies - since I spent 15 years in marketing analytics myself.  Another book that is good is Ian Ayres' "Supercrunchers". Also, I'd recommend reading Nate Silver's FiveThirtyEight blog as well as Michael Lewis' Moneyball. If you enjoy these books, it's a good indication that this field is made for you.

Everyone asks about technical skills but most hiring managers in this field care more ...