The Rise of the Coding Boot Camp
Once upon a time, if you wanted to become a software developer, you’d get a degree in computer science or learn on the job and read how-to books in your spare time. Both approaches would take several years or more, and neither would promise you a job. In the age of mobility, those models no longer work. Businesses need programmers now. They don’t have the resources to groom new programmers, and non-techies looking for a career change don’t have time to earn a four-year degree. Enter the coding boot camp.
The IT industry is no stranger to the concept of the training boot camp. These intense courses promise to teach eager IT professionals the key concepts they need to pass a certification exam, specialize or change career paths. However, coding boot camps are a little different. At least one aspires to transform an industry by producing a new breed of software developers who have little or no prior experience in IT.
“We saw a huge broken situation,” explained Michael Girdley, CEO and cofounder of Codeup, on why he started the San Antonio-based programming boot camp. “We had a bunch of friends who ran companies and couldn’t find tech talent.”
Adam Seligman, vice president of developer relations for Salesforce.com, put his finger on why there is such a demand for tech talent. “Every company is racing to build apps faster. They need developers and platforms that can move as fast as their business,” he said.
But a lack of developers is only part of the problem. “The resources available for people who want to be programmers are fundamentally broken,” Girdley said. “An online course will explain something to you in one way and if you don’t think the way the person who wrote the lesson thinks, you have a lot of problems learning. In addition, because we’re human, we’re social animals. People try these online courses and there’s no peer group, no rhythm. They lose focus. They let life get in the way. Without the structure of a classroom, it’s a set-up for failure.”
Coding boot camps like Codeup, Hack Reactor, and Dev Bootcamp are designed to immerse students in how to be a programmer. Students gather in a classroom for two- to three-months to learn how to code with the help of a live instructor who can answer questions and review material. This aspect of the boot camps is key to helping prepare students for a career in programming.
Girdley explained: “Developers grow when they’re under the tutelage of more senior people. New developers might start their career with a job writing project documentation, and maybe they’ll get an hour or two a month with more senior developers who share their experience and insights. We take that apprenticeship model that happens in every entry-level job and compress it into three months. Our students spend 700 hours with instructors over 12 weeks instead of 10 minutes here and there over a couple years of their employer’s time.”
While Girdley said Codeup encourages new students to talk to employed programmers and to learn what a career in coding is all about, students typically come from an industry other than IT and have no coding skills. “The program is optimized for people with no coding background at all,” he said.
The typical student is between the ages of 25 and 35, and has a degree in an industry that isn’t in demand, Girdley said. “They are smart and employable, but they all share the same thing: They want to work on something that’s meaningful. They don’t feel fulfilled in what they’re doing. They want to do something creative, to help people, to do something that matters,” he said and added: “That’s why I’m doing this.”
It is still early in the game, but coding boot camps are already having a positive impact on the industry. Codeup itself boasts a list of 55 employer partners, and 87% of its graduates have been hired or given job offers.
“Coding boot camps are bypassing the traditional university model because they allow anyone with any background to get into software development and get a great job,” said Adam Seligman. “Our Salesforce developer community has developers from a broad variety of backgrounds.”
But it isn’t just about increasing the number of hirable programmers. “One of our missions is to make coding more diverse. Ninety-one percent of our current class is female or minority, and that’s great because studies have shown that mixed teams do more meaningful things. Diversity will make tech stronger,” Girdley said.
Coding boot camps focus primarily on web programming languages such as PHP, Rails, and JavaScript. The hottest trending Web programming language is the JavaScript language because it is best suited to handle the dynamic nature of modern Web sites. Students also learn about other programming languages, platforms, and tools such as Node.js, Linux, GitHub, and MySQL. Tuition varies across the coding boot camps from $9,000 to $17,000 dollars for a 12-week course.