We (Jess, Carmen, and Eda) are excited to announce the next installation of our free and online bootcamp. We support learners as they work their way through the freeCodeCamp Responsive Web Design curriculum. The bootcamp will start Friday, April 24th, and will run for 10 weeks until Friday, July 3rd.

Here’s what to expect:

• Live Streams: We’ll be streaming Monday to Friday at 15.00 UTC (you can check your timezone here), where we’ll go through the course material together on our YouTube channel, on Jess' Twitch channel and Carmen's Twitch channel. It’s also a chance to ask your questions! If you can’t join us live, the streams will be available offline to watch later.

• Guest Sessions: We’ll expand on our studies with guest sessions where professionals working in software engineering and related fields will talk about their craft.

• Community: To support each other and work together, we have a dedicated Discord channel in the freeCodeCamp Discord server (you can join here: https://discord.gg/KVUmVXA) to help you establish better connections with other learners working on freeCodeCamp material. We’ll also be including shared notes on our website.

• Calendar: We have a shared calendar of lessons we’ll be covering with a supportive and friendly group of learners alongside you.

• Newsletter: There’s no signup needed, but if you want weekly emails, you can also sign up for our newsletter.

How Does the Bootcamp Work?

Bad Website Club bootcamps have been running for a while, so if you've joined us in the past, this one is going to feel a little different.

As the freeCodeCamp course material has expanded, we have adapted our learning structure to reflect what’s in it.

We’re experimenting with a flipped classroom model, where learners do pre-reading and more solo work before classes to come into streamed sessions, prepared to support each other’s learning.

Also, learners will be able to contribute to shared lesson notes which we’ll be going over in unit reviews. We’ll be talking through some (not all!) of the workshop steps and offer space for Q&A in our live streams.

The labs and certification projects need to be done as solo work, but we’ll be looking at how to approach them together on streams and covering them in Q&As.

We’ll be moving fast, but there are no fixed deadlines! If you need more time, your progress will be saved on your freeCodeCamp account. Also, the videos and our Discord are available after the bootcamp ends.

Note that the bootcamp doesn't offer job placement support or 1:1 instructor support for learners due to the size and global distribution of our learners. But we’ll help you learn the skills that prepare you to pursue opportunities on your own.

Who We Are

Bad Website Club has been running free and online developer education programs since 2020. It's run by a small volunteer team (Jessica Rose, Carmen Huidobro, and Eda Eren – also thank you to wonderful Kiri who made all the art!). We focus on learning and experimenting over perfection, and believe that the web can be better when it includes everyone.

Also, it really is free: there’s no way to pay for it.

If you want to join us, you can download or subscribe to the full lesson calendar (for Google Calendar, use the iCal feed with these subscription instructions), follow us on our YouTube channel, on Jess' Twitch channel and Carmen's Twitch channel. You can also sign up for our weekly newsletter for lesson notes, show and tell projects, extra resources, and more.

Hope to see you soon!

Hello again, I’m Jess. I’ve been running free, online bootcamps around the freeCodeCamp Responsive Web Development and Javascript curricula since 2020.

I’m so excited to update the you all on how this has been going, while reminding you that we’ll be starting a free JavaScript bootcamp focused on the new JavaScript Algorithms and Data Structures curriculum starting Monday the 12th of February (we’ve got an optional session Friday the 9th to say hi). It will run for 8 weeks until Friday the 5th of April.

We're wrapping up our Web Development Bootcamp on now, and prepping to start our JavaScript course. We would love to learn with you!

JavaScript Bootcamp

In our upcoming JavaScript bootcamp, we’ll be working through the new freeCodeCamp curriculum with you.

You’ll need some HTML and CSS skills to get the most of of this, so we recommend doing at least the first two weeks of the Responsive Web Design course. You can use this playlist of our past streams working on the Web Design lessons, if you want a little more support as you move through the material

This bootcamp will include streamed sessions explaining some (but not all!) of the lesson steps and projects in more detail. These will always be at the same time, but are available on YouTube if the livestream times aren’t a good fit for your schedule.

Please note that daylight saving time changes at different points in the year in Europe than in some other regions, so using this calendar is a good way to stay current.

We also offer a Discord for learner support and a subforum on the freeCodeCamp Forum, so that you always have someplace to go for help as you learn.

Because of the scale of these bootcamps, we’re not able to offer employment assistance or support as a part of these courses.

If you want to join us, you can follow the Bad Website Club Youtube channel or either of our Twitch Channels. Joining the Discord, saying hello in the Forums or adding the lessons to your calendar might also help you get ready to learn with us.

But there’s no application process, no waiting and no fees. Just join us when you want to learn with us. You can find all of the bootcamp info on our (bad) website at badwebsite.club.

Course Format

We’ll be running live-streamed lessons where we go over the freeCodeCamp course material and answer your questions live Monday to Friday at 5pm UTC (check here for what time that is where you’re based).

If this time isn’t good for you, the videos of the livestreams will be available any time. We also offer Discord and forum access to get help when you need it most.

Doing both these courses back to back will be a lot of work – but if you're up for it, you're welcome to do that. We're also happy to have you join us for just one course or a portion of any course.

Bad Website Club Philosophy

We think that learning to build things is hard enough already without putting pressure on ourselves to be perfect right away. We try and focus on building small, nice, imperfect things as we learn and can look forward to sharpening our skills to build better later.

We want to try to take the pressure off of learners. We don’t want you to feel like you’ve got to get everything right the first time, or learn everything there is to know about programming all at once. We just want to help support you as you learn the skills to make small, silly, strange things on the web and go on to become experts in your own time, sometime later.

How to Sign Up

There’s no signup process, tests, or application process. But if you want to keep up with what’s happening and when, here's what you can do:

• Check badwebsiteclub.com for the schedule

• Follow the YouTube channel and turn on notifications for new lesson streams

• Join the Discord

• Join the freeCodeCamp subforum and introduce yourself!

• Add the lessons for Web Development and/or JavaScript to your calendar using this Google calendar link

How to get the most out of this bootcamp:

We think that our learners get the most out of these lessons when they commit to learning a little bit each day. You'll want to be familiar with core HTML concepts before joining us.

To make sure you’re remembering what you learn, we optionally suggest keeping a learning journal. And the 100 days of code challenge can be a great way to structure your learning.

Hope to see you soon!

Here's an exciting announcement that'll help make your summer a little busier and a lot more educational. Two developers and teachers are running a free, part time, remote bootcamp where you'll go through the freeCodeCamp Responsive Web Design Certification together.

You might be thinking that bootcamps are expensive, full time experiences. And they can be. But over the past few years, Ramón and Jess from the Bad Website Club have been teaching informal, online, peer supported bootcamps based around the freeCodeCamp materials for free.

They've taught over 35,000 unique students and would love to learn with you. They'll be going through the Responsive Web Design Certification in just one month, starting August 1st and ending on the 31st.

But don't worry if you need more time to finish. This bootcamp has no entrance applications, no tests, and no deadlines. They just want to support you as you learn to code in low-stress environment.

Let's learn a bit more about how the bootcamp will be structured:

Live-streamed Lessons

During the program, they will help get you started with your freeCodeCamp lessons every weekday with a relaxed Q&A component. This will help you not feel stuck on a concept for too long.

You won’t do all of the lesson steps together – you’ll still need to do the hard parts on your own. But don’t worry. Help is available via the Discord and Forum, even when the streams aren’t on.

Livestreams are planned Monday through Friday on YouTube or on our instructors' Twitch Channels at 6:00am GMT/your local time here. And don’t worry if the time slot doesn’t work for you, all streams will be available as videos later.

Live-streamed Guest Sessions

With our past bootcamps, we’ve had industry experts join us to talk about creativity, HTML, standards, accessibility and more.

We’ll be continuing our guest sessions, holding them on various days of the week and at various times of day during August. This will help make live access more accessible to attendees from different timezones.

Even if the lessons aren’t at a good time to view live, we hope we’ll have some guest sessions to match your interests and your schedules. And replays of the videos will be available for you to watch any time.

Peer Support via Discord

When Ramón and I aren’t teaching bootcamps, we’re running the Bad Website Club. Join us in our busy, friendly Discord if you want to chat with instructors, get peer support, or just hang out in (near) real time.

Community Support via the freeCodeCamp Forum

We’re partnering more closely with the freeCodeClub platform this time. There is a dedicated sub-forum on the freeCodeCamp forums here.

Certificates and Support

Due to the scale of these courses, we’re not able to offer 1:1 support for learners or job support after finishing up. But you will get the freeCodeCamp Responsive Web Design certificate when you finish the course.

Don’t worry if you fall behind or need a little extra time. Trying to do this all in one month is a lot! Your progress on the freeCodeCamp platform will be saved when you sign in and go through the lessons, and you can come back whenever you need to.

How Do I Sign Up?

Excitingly, you don’t have to. Instead of signing up or applying, you can do any of the following steps to connect with the community and join us for our first lesson.

Set up a reminder for the kickoff party July 31:

• click the “notify me” button for our kickoff party, here!

Set a reminder for the first lesson Aug 1st:

• Click the "notify me" button to set a reminder for the first lesson.

Introduce yourself in the forums:

• Bootcamp section of the freeCodeCamp forums

Join the Discord:

• Bad Website Club Discord

Over the past 24 months Ramón Huidobro and I have been running free programming bootcamps teaching web development and JavaScript skills.

We've been stunned by the demand for these courses, which averaged 8,000 learners per cohort and let us reach 35,000 unique learners in total.

We've also gotten some great feedback from our learners about what they wish we had taught them in addition to the bootcamp topics, so we're launching something new.

Announcing The Bad Website Club

We'll be launching The Bad Website Club on March 6th. You might reasonably wonder why we want to teach people to make bad websites. While we want our learners to go on to make beautiful, well-planned websites from best practices, we found that many of our learners got bogged down with wanting their early work to be perfect.

To try and combat perfectionism, we wanted to experiment with a format that encourages learners to try new things without being too worried about doing them the right way. We wanted to teach folks just enough of a new skill to let them make fun, imperfect, but still practical websites right away!

To this end, The Bad Website Club will stream twice weekly. On (most*) Mondays, we'll be featuring a guest expert to show us a new tool or technology, grouped by themed seasons. On Tuesdays, we'll try to use the tool we just learned about the day before to make some kind of (usually bad) website with the new tech.

After our launch party on March 6th, we'll be starting a season looking at low and no code website builders, to unblock learners who want to make a website without learning web development skills first.

But what about the bootcamps?

If you just want the bootcamps, don't worry! We'll still be running free part time bootcamps around the freeCodeCamp Web Development and JavaScript tracks, between seasons of the Bad Website Club. This new project is designed to supplement the bootcamps we love to run.

Come along to the launch party

We'll be launching on March 6th at 16:00 UTC (other time zones: https://everytimezone.com/s/36eb3b59) with some short talks and panels on learning from some really stunning guests. freeCodeCamp's Quincy Larson, Spotify's Jo Franchetti, Class Central's Dhawal Shaw and more will be joining us for the launch.

After our remote launch party, we'll jump right into a season that teaches how to use low and no code website builders from Monday March 13th.

How to learn with us

How can you get involved? There's no signup needed. You can watch the launch event on YouTube on March 6th or keep up with what's going on at our (bad) website.

*we'll still take breaks and vacations as needed – we want to set a good example!

In 2021, the Class Central team helped my friend and me teach three cohorts of free programming bootcamps based on freeCodeCamp curricula.

We’ve been joined by over 20,000 learners from around the globe and it’s just been an honor and a delight to get to learn along with so many learners.

Ramón and I had such a nice time teaching that we wanted to come back for another cohort. Starting September 5th we’ll be teaching another free 6-week bootcamp built around freeCodeCamp’s Web Development and JavaScript curricula.

How Does the Bootcamp Work?

Just like the last bootcamps, we’re supporting learners with livestreams looking at the lessons and giving you a chance to ask questions in real time.

Don’t worry if we’re not streaming in line with your schedule – all videos will be available on-demand. We also have some great guest speakers to add extra context, a community supported forum, and a lively (and well moderated) Discord community.

These courses are designed for part-time remote learners, and most of our learners spent 5-20 hours a week on their bootcamps. While it is possible to take both courses at the same time, we (gently!) suggest doing only one at a time, to help keep the workload comfortable for you as you learn.

We’ve tried to design the learning experience to be lightweight and enjoyable. There’s no tests to get in, no taking attendance, and nothing bad will happen if it takes you longer than 6 weeks to get through the course material.

We're continuing to refine how we teach and how we support our learners. If you wanted to join and learn with us you can sign up for the web dev course here or the JavaScript course here.

What Will You Learn?

These courses will cover everything in the freeCodeCamp Responsive Web Design and JavaScript courses.

This means that the Web Development bootcamp will teach:

• HTML fundamentals: syntax, elements, images, links, lists, forms, buttons.
• CSS: selectors, classes, ids, attributes, fonts, colors, sizing, positioning.
• Accessible and responsive web design: websites for all and on all devices.
• CSS layout tools: positioning elements with CSS Flexbox and CSS grid.

And the JavaScript course will cover:

• Programming fundamentals: syntax, variables, operations, loops, functions.
• Data structures: arrays, multidimensional arrays, array methods, objects.
• Algorithms: searching, sorting, reversing, merging, splicing, hashing.
• Object-oriented programming: methods, constructors, prototypes, inheritance.
• Functional programming: terminology, constraints, mapping, filtering.

How is this Course Different from Paid Bootcamps?

Our free bootcamps are designed to support as many learners as possible, so we aren't able to offer as much 1:1 learner support. We do a lot more peer supported learning and are introducing paid mentors to help better support learners this time around. We also aren't able to offer career placement support due to the scale of these courses.

The most exciting difference is that these courses are free. Paid bootcamps can cost $10,000 or more. We've designed these courses so that you can save your money for important things like rent and video games.

How is the Bootcamp Free?

Great question! Ramón and I are volunteering our time because we love to teach.

The Class Central team is supplying the platform and paying for mentors because they're passionate about access to technical education.

And freeCodeCamp is supplying the curriculum for free because that's their mission.

How Can We Make the Course Better?

As an instructor, I'm always excited to learn more about how we can better support learners. I'm especially interested in how we can better support learners whose first language isn't English or who have hardware challenges.

If you do join the course, please do tell us how we can be better working to serve you. We won't be able to do everything everyone needs, but hearing more about how you learn will help us all.

On January 10, Class Central is launching two new bootcamps that are free, remote, and open to all.

You’ll complete freeCodeCamp’s JavaScript or Responsive Web Design certification, with weekly live streams, projects, and a friendly group of learners worldwide.

Free Bootcamp Based on the freeCodeCamp Curriculum

Hi everyone, I’m Jess! I’m a former language teacher. Later, I decided to get into tech. So coding bootcamps drew my attention. They promised to teach me how to program and break into tech in no time. But they were awfully expensive.

So instead, I self-taught my way into the field. But I kept thinking about creating a bootcamp, wondering if I could do it using open educational resources and bringing together my passions for teaching and tech. And three months ago, I put that idea to the test.

I partnered with Class Central to launch a free web development bootcamp based on freeCodeCamp’s curriculum. 8000 learners enrolled! So in January, we’re doing it again. This time, my friend Ramón is joining us as an instructor, so we’ll launch two bootcamps:

• Free Web Development Bootcamp: an improved rerun of our inaugural bootcamp led by yours truly, based on freeCodeCamp’s Web Design certification. You’ll learn HTML, CSS, and accessible and responsive web design. It starts on Jan 10. You can enroll here.
• Free JavaScript Bootcamp: a new bootcamp led by developer Ramón Huidobro, based on freeCodeCamp’s JavaScript certification. You’ll learn JavaScript, algorithms and data structures, and object-oriented programming. It starts on Jan 10. You can enroll here.

In this article, I'll go over the basics so you'll know what to expect. Here's what we'll cover:

1. How the Bootcamps will Work
2. What You’ll Learn in each Bootcamp
3. Who We Are: Meet Your Instructors
4. What’s a Typical Study Week
5. How to Enroll in the Free Bootcamps

How the Bootcamps Will Work

I get really mad about expensive, exploitative bootcamps. Many make big promises, but offer courses of dubious quality while costing tens of thousands of dollars.

This is what makes freeCodeCamp so special: it offers self-driven learners quality technical education for free.

But learning online can be lonely. So some aspects of paid bootcamps can be valuable to learners — most notably, the shared learning experience: having an instructor and classmates to keep you motivated, accountable, and on track toward your learning goals.

So I started thinking about how to offer the best of both worlds: a learning experience that would be entirely free but retain the best aspects of traditional bootcamps. Fortunately, Class Central had also been working on adding a social layer atop free online courses. So ours was a match made in heaven!

Promptly after, we launched our inaugural webdev bootcamp. And in January, we’re doing it all over again, but bigger and better. The new bootcamps will involve:

• Live Streams: Weekly live streams with Ramón or myself, where we’ll cover the course material and answer your questions.
• Guest Sessions: Weekly guest sessions, where software engineers, researchers, and other professionals working in development or related fields will talk about their craft.
• Project Portfolio: Most weeks, one of our live streams will be dedicated to working on a coding project to put into practice and showcase your new skills.
• Community: You won’t be learning alone. You’ll work through the course with learners around the world, and you’ll support each other through a dedicated forum.

The bootcamp will be 6 weeks long, with 10–20 hours of work per week. We’ll start on January 10, and if you’re diligent, by the end of February, you’ll be all done and will have earned one of the certificates above.

What You’ll Learn in Each Bootcamp

The bootcamps will be based on freeCodeCamp’s JavaScript certification and the Responsive Web Design certification.

In the JavaScript bootcamp, you’ll learn:

• Programming fundamentals: syntax, variables, operations, loops, functions.
• Data structures: arrays, multidimensional arrays, array methods, objects.
• Algorithms: searching, sorting, reversing, merging, splicing, hashing.
• Object-oriented programming: methods, constructors, prototypes, inheritance.
• Functional programming: terminology, constraints, mapping, filtering.
• Projects: palindrome checker, caesar cipher, telephone number validator…

In the webdev bootcamp, you’ll learn:

• HTML fundamentals: syntax, elements, images, links, lists, forms, buttons.
• CSS: selectors, classes, ids, attributes, fonts, colors, sizing, positioning.
• Accessible and responsive web design: websites for all and on all devices.
• CSS layout tools: positioning elements with CSS Flexbox and CSS grid.
• Projects: personal portfolio website, survey form, landing pages…

Who We Are: Meet Your Instructors

Ramón & myself, your bootcamp instructors

My friend Ramón Huidobro will lead the JavaScript bootcamp. Ramón has worked as a software engineer for over 10 years. More recently, he started consulting in developer relations and became head of Open Source at CodeSee.

He has a strong focus on community, which has led him to speak at numerous conferences and become a Mozilla Tech Speaker. Always joyful to connect and learn from you, so do please reach out!

And I’ll lead the new webdev bootcamp. I’m a self-taught developer obsessed with fostering more equal access to technical education and meaningful work in tech.

I used to work with FutureLearn and Mozilla. Now, when I’m not working in technical outreach, I like to do weird projects like this webdev bootcamp. I always love to hear what you’re learning or working on. Come say hi!

What’s a Typical Study Week

The simplest way of explaining the bootcamp experience is probably to walk you through a typical week:

• Lesson Monday: On Mondays, you’ll attend a live stream led by Ramón or myself. Think of it like attending classes. We’ll work our way through the lesson’s concepts and challenges. And at the end of the stream, you’ll have the opportunity to ask questions. If you can’t make it, don’t worry, all live streams will be recorded.
• Lesson Tuesday: On Tuesdays, we’ll continue working on the course. As always, the session will end with a Q&A. But you’ll also be able to take your questions to the discussion forum, where you’ll get support from peers, mentors, and instructors.
• Project Wednesday: On Wednesdays, when the week’s curriculum is theory-heavy, we’ll continue working on lessons. But most weeks, we’ll instead work on projects: an opportunity to apply the concepts you’ve learned and build a project portfolio.
• Guest session: Once a week, you’ll have the chance to attend a live stream where a guest speaker will talk about the realities of being a developer, or concepts and tools relevant to a programmer’s day-to-day. For example, during our inaugural bootcamp, Prof. Barbara Oakley and software engineer Zach Caceres explained how to become better programmers by understanding the neuroscience that underpins learning.
• Long Weekend: From Friday to Sunday, you’ll continue working independently on the lessons and projects you might have yet to finish. Your peers, bootcamp mentors, and instructors will be able to help via the forum. And when you’re all done, you’ll be able to enjoy a well-deserved rest, before starting it all over again the following week.

How to Enroll in the Free Bootcamps

Bootcamp enrollments are open. Remember: the bootcamps are free, remote, and open to all!

• Enroll in the Free Web Development Bootcamp here.
• Enroll in the Free JavaScript Bootcamp here.

Once you enroll, you’re all set. The bootcamps start on January 10. In the meantime, enjoy the end-of-year celebrations, and be ready to hit the ground running in January.

Now you can join a free part-time, remote coding bootcamp. You'll learn freeCodeCamp's entire Responsive Web Design certification, together with friendly people around the world.

👋 Hi, I’m Jess. A long time ago, I was an educator who worked in special education and language education.

When I wanted to get into tech, I latched onto the idea of a programming bootcamp. These were newer concepts at the time: private educational programs promising you the skills to get you into a high-paying job for the low price of… well, far too much money.

So I self-taught my way into the industry but kept a watchful eye on these programs, wondering how existing high quality free resources could be used to offer bootcamp-like support for learners.

Now I'm working with Class Central to teach a free, part time, remote web development bootcamp based around freeCodeCamp’s Responsive Web Design Certification. It starts on August 23rd. If you want to skip right to enrollment, you can do so here.

Why We're Starting this Bootcamp

I get really mad about expensive, exploitative programming bootcamps. Some can cost tens of thousands of dollars for courses of uneven quality.

This is what makes freeCodeCamp so special: they offer self-driven learners a high-quality technical education for free.

But some paid bootcamps do provide some value for learners. For instance, many bootcamp grads report that the live contact with instructors, the set schedule to keep them on track, and the camaraderie within the cohort helped them meet their learning goals.

I started wondering how many of these supports we could add to freeCodeCamp’s curriculum to help as many learners as possible, for free.

I sat down to think about what I would want from a program. It would have to:

• Be cohort based, for peer support.
• Be flexible and part time.
• Be low risk, meaning learners who take a break could still come back and succeed.
• Offer live instructor contact.
• Add value even for learners who don’t choose to study with us.
• Be entirely free, of course.

As luck would have it, a few months prior, Class Central started running free online study groups that fit that model. We were on the same page!

So we decided to partner to design a cohort-based bootcamp around freeCodeCamp's Responsive Web Design Certification.

Bootcamp Support and Flexibility

The bootcamp will be cohort-based. This means that learners will all begin at the same time, allowing for them to support each other as they move through the same stages of the course.

They will also share a dedicated forum to learn together, in the open. We expect they will need to spend 10–20 hours a week on coursework to keep up with their cohort. Since it leads to a certification, it’s an intense program.

freeCodeCamp’s Responsive Web Design Certification

While a cohort-based approach and a shared course schedule can help motivate learners and facilitate support, these pressures might negatively impact learners that need flexibility. How can we make sure that those who need to take a break or pause their studies still get support?

By using the freeCodeCamp platform and curriculum, learners can take a break or leave our cohorts and not lose any of their progress. We want learners to succeed, whether they’re learning with us or not.

Curriculum and Live Streams

This bootcamp will cover basic HTML, the fundamentals of CSS, applied visual design, accessibility, responsible web design, CSS flexbox, and CSS grid.

Our program is a great fit for anyone just getting started with web development. It might also be a great fit for folks who have taken a break and want to return to their studies in a supported way.

While this course will give you the skills needed for many entry-level web design and development roles, many learners go on to study JavaScript before applying for roles.

My Twitch channel, where we’ll have our bootcamp stream

Traditional bootcamps often involve live contact with instructors. We also wanted to add a live, instructor-led component to replicate this. But we wanted to do it in a way that was openly accessible both to our learners and to freeCodeCamp’s wider community of learners.

To accomplish this, we’ve added weekly live streams every Monday covering key concepts, going over some of the lesson materials, and offering students the chance to ask questions in real time.

To make sure that even learners from outside the bootcamp can benefit, these streaming sessions will be open across both Twitch and YouTube. Past streaming sessions will also be available on-demand as videos, so that learners can catch up if they’ve missed a session.

The Bootcamp is Entirely Free

Most importantly, all of this needs to be free. freeCodeCamp was kind enough to allow us to base our program around their high quality learning materials. Class Central made internal resources and budget available. And I'm working on a reduced day rate to help make sure we can offer this free to learners.

We’ll be exploring some ways to make this program (and future programs?) sustainable, including the possibility of bringing in tech sponsors. But we won’t charge learners for support in getting into the industry. You deserve help and support as you learn.

Want to join us? You can find more details and how to enroll here. We would love to learn with you.

I got offers from Google, Lyft, Yelp, cloud unicorn Rubrik, IBM Artificial Intelligence, and JP Morgan Chase. My story may help you in your job search.

Introduction

I hope my story inspires current software engineering job seekers - especially from non-traditional backgrounds.

You may be thinking “how likely is it that I could pull this off too?” In this article, I'll be specific about my decisions and thought processes. I'll also give links for further reading.

First, I must acknowledge that I have benefited from significant privilege: I am a white, straight, cis, male with a bachelor’s degree from a top 20 US university. I had also built up a network after three years of working in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Every job seeker's story will be different, but I hope yours benefits from mine.

Deciding to take the plunge

On July 29th, 2018, I made an irrational decision.

I was choosing between a Chief of Staff role for a hyper-growth adtech company and attending a coding “bootcamp.” The Chief of Staff role was lucrative and certain - seemingly an extraordinary ticket to a Silicon Valley fast track. The bootcamp seemed expensive and risky.

I had written my first line of JavaScript five weeks earlier on June 24th with no intention of becoming an engineer. I already had a degree in Economics and three years’ experience as a non-technical management consultant for nonprofits. I just wanted to make myself a more attractive candidate for roles that involved working with engineers in the Bay Area.

Actually becoming an engineer seemed like a moonshot idea. I had heard stories of people self-teaching and using bootcamps to do so in under a year. But I struggled to believe that I could do the same.

Most engineers I knew had four-year computer science degrees, years of experience, and seemed to speak a foreign language. How could I learn all that in so little time? Plus, doing so would require I throw out my career-to-date in operations and strategy — a high cost for an uncertain reward.

The Chief of Staff role, on the other hand, looked like a dream come true. I would be the most junior member by ~10 years in “the room where it happens” as the company navigated upcoming acquisition talks. Salary negotiations went better than expected, and it seemed I would likely inherit a department of my own after a few years.

But once I started coding I didn’t want to stop. I loved the technical challenge, was thrilled to make headway against something so intimidating. And I figured developing a second professional skillset might prepare me for an unusually impactful career.

An inner voice also asked if becoming an engineer would be as personally transformational as professional: If I succeed in learning this, what couldn’t I learn? This attitude, more than anything else, would become the theme of my journey.

I took an online course and, after coding ~40 hours/week for three weeks, I decided to apply to Hack Reactor, which I had heard described as “the Harvard of bootcamps,” just to see if I could get in. I passed the entrance exam by the skin of my teeth the same week I received the Chief of Staff offer.

After 72 hours of soul searching I checked my bank account one last time. I estimated I would have three months’ rent and food after Hack Reactor. Just enough time to find a job, I thought.

I chose bootcamp.

I declined by phone with the adtech company, hung up, and was hit by a wave of mixed emotions. Part of me was scared: I’m throwing away a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for a moonshot idea! Another part excited: The only thing that stands between me and regret is taking risks!

Soon my excitement won out. No turning back now – I was in for an adventure.

Learning to code

“You don't have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great.” –Zig Ziglar

Hack Reactor and other “bootcamps” aspire to do in three months much of what traditional university CS programs do in four years: prepare students to compete for top-tier software engineering jobs.

The goal is ambitious, and every moment counts. For 12-14 hours/day, 6 days/week over the course of 3 months, the program threw us repeatedly into overwhelming tasks against tight time constraints.

At the start of every assignment I would get a sickening pit in my stomach and think, This deadline seems impossible – I don’t even know where to start! But somehow I would (almost) always hack together a working solution just as time expired.

After enough reps, I started to associate the pit in my stomach with a sense of excitement — the more impossible the challenge seemed, the more satisfying it would be to find a solution.

Hack Reactor wasn’t just teaching content, it was teaching a new kind of grit and growth mindset, and the process was exhilarating.

Still doubting I would get a job before my savings ran out, I invested in the best learning and self-care habits I could find.

To ensure ample sleep for learning, I kept strict bedtimes.

To fight repetitive stress aches, boost wellbeing, and support learning, I worked out every other day.

To improve retention and make each day’s learning a little better than the last, I reviewed core lessons and reflected on what went well and what did not most evenings.

And most importantly, to maintain baseline wellbeing during such an intense schedule, I meditated for a full hour every morning before class, usually using a mix of vipassana (a form of body scanning) and loving-kindness techniques.

This last habit may strike some as extreme, but the evidence behind meditation improving wellbeing is strong, especially loving-kindness. I cannot overstate how valuable this practice was in helping me embrace the curiosity and joy of learning rather than grow anxious about the challenges of bootcamp and uncertain employment.

I also benefited from a blessing in disguise. A travel conflict prevented me from enrolling in the in-person immersive, so despite living a 10-minute walk from the SF campus, I had to take the remote program. Between the lack of commute, easy access to food, and the quiet of my apartment, I was able to protect another ~90 minutes a day of uninterrupted deep work.

The first six weeks involved two-day pair programming sprints building on semi-completed code repositories. We raced through rewriting the JavaScript Underscore library, building basic data structures from scratch, learning object-oriented vs. functional programming, calculating time and space complexity, and wiring up a full stack app from client to server to database. Our smaller, 24-person cohort grew close joking with one another over video conference 10+ hours/day.

Three weeks in, I was afraid I wasn’t going to pass the gating mid-course assessment, so I wrote a letter to myself dated in the future explaining how it came to be that I passed the assessment.

I mentioned all my existing self-care and learning habits and added a few more, including reviewing code I didn’t fully understand until I could mentally explain the core concepts to an imaginary 8 year-old (the Feynman Technique).

Three weeks later, I built my first full stack application from scratch in under 24 hours and passed the exam with flying colors. College was a great education. This was another level.

The second six weeks involved more free-form group projects. Taking inspiration from positive deviance, I tracked down and got in touch with bootcamp alumni who were especially successful in the job search. I followed their guidance to set tight personal deadlines for intimidating technical challenges, select “hot” skills on the job market (like working with Docker and microservices), and diversifying my roles across different projects. I arranged a tutoring session with one alum and successfully implemented a feature that originally took him weeks in two days.

Hack Reactor hires some of its graduates from each cohort to serve as temporary, part-time teaching assistants to support full-time staff. After graduation, I took a 6-week position working ~35 hours/week and helped roll out new curriculum, conducted independent research, lectured job-seeking alumni on my findings, and interviewed incoming Hack Reactor candidates.

I negotiated a 6-week position as opposed to the typical 12-week position to give me exposure to the new curriculum while limiting the delay in job searching and studying full-time. I was grateful to learn on the job (teaching in particular boosted my own learning) and the modest pay bought me two more months of living expenses – a big relief!

Securing a job as a Software Engineer

Companies that made me offers

On December 7, 165 days after my first line of code, my employment with Hack Reactor ended, leaving me with savings to pay for four months’ rent and food. Hack Reactor warns its graduates to budget six months for job searching. The clock was ticking!

I wrote down my goals. I was ambitious and the odds were stacked against me. I wanted:

• A top 25th-percentile Hack Reactor outcome in compensation, hoping for over $120K/annual salary
• The steepest possible learning curve; ideally in a role with both autonomy and access to experienced mentors
• A team and company culture that was technically strong but people-first
• Interesting and meaningful work
• A back end role, or at least full stack, which were less common than front end roles landed by bootcamp grads

I never imagined I would get everything I wanted and more. But the search would be a rollercoaster of ups and downs.

Hack Reactor left me with a terrific foundation in little time, but I was still weeks, if not months, of full-time study away from where I needed to be to interview successfully at top companies.

I would also have to face relentless, ongoing rejection with no certainty of success. Hiring from coding bootcamps is not yet mainstream, and despite evidence suggesting bootcamps grads perform just as well as those with four-year CS degrees in interviews, it would be an uphill battle to land interviews. And the vastness of topics covered in software engineering interviews meant I could never be completely prepared.

When it was all over, I had applied to 44 companies with 41 referrals and received 14 coding challenges or technical phone interviews, which converted to 8 on-sites and 7 offers by February 15, 2019 - 245 days after my first line of code.

16% of my applications converted to offers just over 8 months after my first line of code

Beginning the search and learning from failure

"Learning is not attained by chance, it must be sought for with ardor and attended to with diligence." ―Abigail Adams

My first weeks of job searching were the toughest. I landed only a handful of coding challenges and an interview with IBM Artificial Intelligence throughout all of December.

Feedback on my first two take-home coding challenges was not encouraging. I went way over time, and was told my code was “neither accurate nor performant.”

My third coding challenge was a multi-hour, heart-thumping affair in which I passed all tests with seconds to spare but failed to click submit before time expired!

I told myself it was a numbers game, and every morning after my hour of loving-kindness meditation, I’d take a minute to remind myself of two things:

• First, while my goals gave me direction, overly focusing on goals would only leave me dissatisfied with the gap between where I was and where I wanted to be. I wanted habits over goals.
• Second, I reflected that regardless of what job landed, the real prize of this journey was personal, not professional, transformation. I was lucky to have months dedicated full-time to learning how to learn, and I was falling in love with it!

I knew early failures could be seeds for later success, but they would require special care. I made sure to do a post-mortem on every failed coding challenge and interview, then redo the problem in my text editor until I solved it. One 20-minute prompt took me 9 hours over three days to solve!

I kept notes on new concepts and “aha” moments after I solved a problem, treating them as my invaluable collection of “mental models” I hoped would grow sufficient to pattern match to any interview prompt. I would review them on spaced repetition intervals to most efficiently commit to long-term memory.

For problems involving new code syntax, I’d redo them under time pressure to ensure accurate recall in an interview setting.

These habits did more than enhance retention — they built reassuring confidence. I didn’t know if I’d land a job before money ran out, but it was satisfying that even my greatest disappointments were making me better.

I settled into a steady routine, ~8 hours a day, 5+ days/week: study and/or interview, diagnose failure/success, reflect, repeat.

I curated and constantly revised my study plans by first getting a sense for what strong performance looked like in each of the different types of interviews I might encounter (data structure/algorithms, front end DOM manipulation, systems design, etc.). Then I’d estimate the probability of encountering each type in upcoming interviews and weigh that against my self-assessment of my performance to decide what to study next.

Wanting to ensure I only used the best resources, I kept lists of peer-recommended resources organized by topic. When it was time to study that topic, I’d supplement the list with anything new from a quick Google search and then skim each resource to determine the best one or two before diving deep into those. I’d do most prioritization the day before so I could go straight from my morning meditation into 2-3 hours of uninterrupted deep work the next day.

I spent another 2-3 hours/day building a pipeline of attractive companies, generating referrals, and submitting applications. It took more time than I liked to complete a single application and I had a limited number of top picks, so I did my best to increase app-to-interview conversation rates by

• emphasizing results over context or action in my resume,
• studying which of my approaches and messages generated referrals fastest via email and LinkedIn,
• tracking my entire pipeline in a spreadsheet, and
• following up on all communications.

I treated most applications as experiments in improving return for time invested. Habits paid off here too — steadily putting companies in my pipeline meant that I could immediately look ahead to the next opportunity when I received a rejection.

I also did my best to time applications so I could interview first with less desirable companies while pushing along slower moving processes (like Google’s).

My interview with IBM proved to be a bright spot to my rocky start, but even still, it doubled as a lesson to persist amidst uncertainty. It consisted of a phone interview and three more interviews at the “on-site.”

At the start of every interview I experienced that now-familiar pit in my stomach and thought: I do not know how to do this.

I responded each time by taking a breath and reminding myself: It’s fun turning this feeling into a working solution at home, so imagine how much more fun it will be here where the stakes are higher and the job is on the line!

After the first two interviews, I wondered if my excitement and learning orientation were contagious — my interviewers certainly knew I didn’t see an answer right away, but they seemed to enjoy how the energy in the conversation rose as I neared a solution.

I left IBM encouraged that, while I may not always crack an interview prompt, I could always enjoy sharing a growth mindset under pressure. I’m sure this mentality helped me convert seven of eight on-sites.

Fortunately, seeds sown in December’s failures bloomed into January's success.

Building momentum and early success

"Your hardest times often lead to the greatest moments of your life. Keep going." ―Roy T. Bennet

The first week of January, IBM called with an informal offer with formal details forthcoming. Could I use this as leverage in the meantime? I thought. I shared the news with a Google recruiter, who responded by accelerating me past the phone interview straight to an on-site.

Suddenly, I could command recruiters’ attention. I immediately informed all companies I was speaking with that I had an offer. Doing so during the start of the new year immediately heated up my pipeline.

The next week, I felt confident for the first time in all four technical interviews at a JP Morgan Chase on-site, finishing most of them with time to spare. I was overjoyed my work in December had so clearly paid off.

My Google on-site was a few days later. The difference in difficulty was shocking. I performed terribly in my second interview involving asynchronous JavaScript promises.

I took a moment in the restroom at the lunch break to regroup with a micro-meditation. I figured I had almost no shot at a job offer, so the objective was now to learn as much as possible from my failure.

I knew I’d do a post-mortem in the evening. In the meantime, I challenged myself to see how much gratitude and equanimity I could cultivate in such a high-stakes environment. After all, how exciting was it I was interviewing at Google?

The idea seemed to help me pull out of my tail-spin and I got better throughout the afternoon. By the time I left, I even had a glimmer of hope Google might still offer me a job.

Per my post-mortem habit, I went home and found online resources to help me build a JavaScript promise from scratch. The next day I took three phone screens and the ups-and-downs struck again.

I performed strongly on a call with a security startup. I Embarrassed myself with a small energy startup. And I had the comeback of a lifetime on the phone with Rubrik, a cloud storage unicorn.

Rubrik asked another question on promises, harder than the one from the Google interview I had failed a day before. Having done my post-mortem, I innovated on the spot and raced to the finish just as time ran out.

The interviewer said I may have been the first bootcamp grad the company had ever interviewed — they traditionally hire only from prestigious universities — and he couldn’t believe I wrote my first line of code the summer before. I did a little dance in my room.

The next week, JP Morgan Chase called and offered me $110K/year, with no equity or bonus. I didn’t think it was a cultural fit, and I wasn’t yet at my $120K/year target, but I was thrilled to have my first official offer. Someone was going to pay me to code!

I started to handle several calls per day from phone interviewers, recruiters, and advisors, and the often unpredictable ups-and-downs continued. Google called and said on-site results were mixed but I’d be moving to Hiring Committee. Uber offered an on-site. I thought I performed strongly on an Amazon phone screen but didn’t get an on-site. And I thought I blew a Yelp phone screen and got an on-site.

As on-sites came and went, I had to watch my words around recruiters. The security startup said they were afraid they wouldn’t be able to keep up with big companies like IBM and JP Morgan Chase and asked what salary offers I had received.

I almost bit the bait, but paused and deflected the salary question as Hack Reactor instructs. _“_I’d actually like to go the other way – can you tell me your range and I’ll tell you if you’re in the ballpark?” I said. “Sure, we start at $125K.”

$125K. That exceeded my goal!

I looked away hoping to disguise my excitement by making it look like I was thinking about it. I turned back and said calmly, _“_If that’s your starting point, I think we can have a conversation.” He responded: “Oh good, I’m relieved we’re still in the running!” Me too, I thought.

The formal offer was in a few days later: $125K plus $6K/annual in stock options at current valuation. But the money was almost insignificant! It was a good cultural fit, a fascinating back end role, and mentorship opportunities looked unusually strong. The team of ~40 engineers all had at least two years’ experience and were mostly from top schools like MIT, Stanford, or Berkeley. It was everything I wanted!

But the offers were just getting started.

Negotiating across offers and selecting a company

"Effective negotiators look past their counterparts’ stated positions and delve into their underlying motivations... they are relentlessly curious." –Chris Voss

Rubrik called two days later and shocked me. They wanted me to be their first-ever bootcamp hire too. Rubrik was already valued at $3.3B — a hot new unicorn and coveted place to work by software engineers with plenty of experience. I laughed with the recruiter, overjoyed such a competitive company wanted me, and hung up so excited I almost didn’t realize I had a missed call from Google.

I dialed back with bated breath. The recruiter got right to it: “I just got out of Hiring Committee and wanted to call you right away. We’d like to make you an offer — ”

I couldn’t contain myself. I yelled, jumping into my empty kitchen. Google! The gold standard of software engineering and my hardest interviewer had decided they wanted me! Then she mentioned numbers and things got surreal. $163K all-in: $120 base salary, $18K minimum bonus, and $25K annual in (liquid) equity.

$163K.

Are you out of your mind? I thought. My last tax return declared $77K. That is a stupid amount of money.

I took the afternoon off and walked around my neighborhood dancing when I thought nobody was looking and calling family members to share the unbelievable news.

The next morning, I was back to the grind, studying negotiation instead of algorithms. Overnight, the recruiters that had shepherded me through interviews became my counterparts in negotiations. I felt like a lone sheep amidst a pack of wolves – these were professionals and numbers could swing tens of thousands of dollars in conversations that lasted minutes.

Initially I feared coming across as greedy, but my Hack Reactor career coach was adamant. She said it was expected, and money aside, it demonstrates thoughtfulness, confidence in difficult conversations, and sets expectations for the first weeks on the job.

I saw almost a 90% increase in compensation by waiting and passing on my first offer

The next few days flew by in a flurry of phone calls with recruiters and advisors, studying, preparing, and conducting post-mortems on negotiations. I wrote one-pagers anticipating every negotiation and conducted post-mortems on what went well and what did not, similar to how I reflected on failed interviews.

I learned to love it. Each conversation was a fascinating puzzle, with layers ranging from high-level strategy, like when and how I shared information, to moment-to-moment tactics, like my tone of voice. It was especially fun to have so many at-bats – I would sometimes talk to multiple recruiters in a single day, each phone call doubling as another opportunity to try out new skills and learn from mistakes.

I had read Harvard Negotiation Project’s Getting to the Yes and Getting Past the No in college and was familiar with concepts like BATNA and win-win solutions. But I took most of my inspiration from Chris Voss’s Never Split the Difference, which I re-read immediately after Google’s offer.

I also scoured blog posts by Haseeb Qureshi, another earn-to-give bootcamp graduate, and chatted regularly with my Hack Reactor career coach who had advised hundreds of negotiations before mine.

Rubrik’s first offer came in at $163K, matching Google perfectly. Then Yelp called with the latest plot twist. They “leveled-up” my application to a non-entry level role and offered me $160K plus a $20K sign-on bonus for $180K all-in first-year compensation.

$180K and a non-entry level role?

I put on my very best performance at my Yelp interview — finishing every challenge with time to spare, adapting code seamlessly to meet new constraints, and making remarks about systems architecture using back-of-the-envelope calculations that seemed to surprise my interviewer. But that didn’t change the fact I had zero experience! Google and Rubrik immediately said they’d prepare a counter offer.

Finally the job search climaxed.

Lyft emailed asking to get on the phone. Lyft was by far my favorite interview experience, but I didn’t believe my on-site performance merited an offer. I conceptually solved one interview almost immediately, but never got my code to work. I pulled off a late comeback in another but failed to submit as time expired. Stretched thin across multiple rounds of daily negotiations, I responded with this exact email:

“I’m juggling a handful of different calls right now. Do you mind breaking the news by email? I’m guessing it’s a rejection, in which case I would love to get 1-2 sentences of feedback from each interview. Other than that, thank you for your time and shepherding me through the process!”

She responded with one line: “It’s not a rejection :)”

What! Would no company reject me? I couldn’t believe my top choice was back on the table. We talked numbers the next day: $210K all-in.

$210K.

And to think that was Lyft, where I would have loved to work, money aside! A couple of my friends at Lyft were some of my favorite people — harder to say if they were kinder than they were brilliant or vice versa — and my interviewers seemed cut from the same cloth.

I informed everyone a last minute offer had been made and set a decision deadline for one week, encouraging everyone to make their final offers. I was getting worn down in constant negotiations, I felt a deadline would professionally bound the time everyone was investing in my candidacy, and Voss suggests deadlines can be used to your advantage.

Google had prepared $189K to come in over Yelp, but said it would come back again given news about Lyft. Rubrik agreed to get on the phone. Yelp and and the security startup said they couldn’t negotiate further, and I was no longer keeping JP Morgan Chase or IBM up to speed. Uber, my only other onsite, did not make me an offer.

The Lyft team had me for lunch and I swooned. Teams at Google, Yelp, and the security startup were enjoyable, but 9 people took time out of their day to lunch with me at Lyft, laughing as if I were already part of the team. They wanted to staff me on the company’s number one 2019 priority and a senior engineer told me he would happily serve as a mentor. Lyft was also months away from an IPO.

I had it all: mentorship, opportunity in a high-growth environment, a people-first culture, exciting work, and now outrageously high compensation.

Rubrik didn’t counter offer in time, but Google came in at $233K, $216K before their 401(k) match and charity match programs (which I consider good as cash since I earn-to-give and will be donating 25% of my pre-tax income this year). The team was also a good cultural fit, and Google is world-class in developing junior engineers into top talent.

I grappled with the decision for days, wavering between Google and Lyft, but gradually growing confident that, compensation aside, Lyft was an opportunity I couldn’t pass up. I negotiated a final package of $226 all-in compensation: $135K base salary, $71K in equity at pre-IPO valuation, and $20K sign-on bonus. On Monday, February 25, 245 days after my first line of code, I spoke the two words that brought it all to a close: “I accept.”

Six months later, I couldn’t be happier working at Lyft. And to my delight, my morning reflection was dead on. My team is supportive, my work fascinating, and my compensation strong, but the priceless reward of becoming an engineer was falling in love with learning. Now that I’m in love, I don’t intend to leave it.

In search of software engineering roles?

I've curated the list of top resources I used to prep for interviews. I'm also offering coaching sessions to job seekers that commit 10% or more of their future income to high impact charities. Get access to both here.

Note: I write with a pen name to maintain a little separation between my personal life and growing presence as a job search coach.

I shared specific compensation information in this article for two reasons. One, I want this post to be as useful as possible to job seekers from non-traditional backgrounds, many of whom may be less familiar with these numbers. And two, because sharing our salaries is a concrete way to fight pay inequality that hurts everyone, especially minorities.

Fighting pay inequality is also aligned with the mission and culture of Lyft, which is extraordinarily committed to fighting pay inequality. It administers a third-party pay equity audit every year, and this past year Lyft became a different kind of “unicorn” in Silicon Valley after no systemic pay gap was found. Precise salary information already exists on sites like paysa, levels, and blind, so details shared here are nothing new.

Finally, I'm grateful for the support of many on this journey, especially Lena Johnson, my job search coach and negotiation advisor, and Robin Kim, my technical mentor. Thank you!

It’s been two entire years since I left behind my career of being a music publicist — one I worked towards all of college and miraculously landed a coveted spot in — to start a three-month-long frontend engineering program at The Iron Yard. I had no idea about anything within the tech industry, and I barely knew what a div was. The past two years have been some of the most trying times in my life, but I’m so glad I started this journey.

To give you some background on why I decided to transition to the tech world read my article ‘From Music Publicist to Web Developer’. I was stressed out. I spent most of my days emailing hundreds of journalists hoping they would say yes to an interview or a story about one of my clients. I wanted something new. Something where I would be pushed every single day and would always be learning. Well, working as a developer is exactly that. Here are some things I’ve learned since graduating from my bootcamp.

You’re always going to be learning

Not a day goes by when I don’t learn something new as a web developer. This is one of my absolute favorite things about this job but it can also be overwhelming. Whenever imposter syndrome is taking over for me I like to sit back and think about how far I’ve come.

As I said earlier, I started my bootcamp knowing nothing about web development. All I knew was what I had learned on Codecademy. It still amazes me what I can do now that I didn’t have any clue about two years ago. I can’t wait to look back and see what else I can do in two more years.

Always ask questions

When I worked as a publicist, I felt that asking questions was a sign of weakness. It meant I didn’t know how to do my job so I steered away from it.

But in order to get better at coding, you have to ask questions. It’s something I’ve had to get used to. Sometimes I still feel hesitant to ask a senior developer about an issue I’m having with my code. Never be afraid to ask.

Make sure you’ve done your research before you do reach out, though. Have you thoroughly Googled the issue you’re having? Have you run the debugger to see if you’re missing a step? Do all you can before you ask. Explain what you’ve done to your senior developer so they don’t have to walk through the same steps. Gordon Zhu has a great article on this as well.

There are a million different ways to do one thing

My office recently had a lunch and learn where we made an automated gauge with Vanilla JavaScript. As we all were going around explaining our solutions I realized that every single person went about the problem in a different way. I love seeing how my coworkers and I go about the same problem. I learn something new from each person’s perspective.

Take feedback in stride

Being a developer means you’re always going to have code reviews. It doesn’t matter how senior you are, it will always be something that happens. Learn to take the feedback from your code reviews in stride.

Writing code is something that is so personal. You’re building something from scratch and you’re proud of it. Don’t get offended when you receive feedback on a review. The person reviewing your code isn’t trying to be malicious. They’re trying to make you a better developer. I’ve seen some developers get so heated about their code reviews and it’s only hurting themselves. Code reviews are another opportunity to learn and grow.

If you liked this article don’t forget to tap ❤! Be sure to follow me on Twitter for my latest articles, tweets about tech and, if I’m honest, lots of cute dog videos too.

Kara Luton (@karaluton) | Twitter
_The latest Tweets from Kara Luton (@karaluton). Front end developer + former music publicist. Retired ballerina…_twitter.com

The story you are about to see is true; the names have been changed to protect the innocent.

_Python code by [nyuhuhuu](https://www.flickr.com/photos/nyuhuhuu/4653088356" rel="noopener" target="blank" title=").

Before the course begins

_[1919 ad for a Comptometer training school](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Comptometer_ad_1919.png" rel="noopener" target="blank" title=").

Don’t identify your target audience

Send the sign-up page to every subscriber under the sun who has ever given you their email address. Don’t have any information about their background or interests? Who cares, your course is SUPER IMPORTANT. It would be utterly remiss of you not to inform the hundreds of people who have ever entered their email address into your website.

Don’t mention the course content

Who doesn’t love a mystery?

Give no hint about pre-requisite skills

Let the mystery continue with providing only vague suggestions about how much prior programming people should have, and vague suggestions about prior languages that might be helpful.

Don’t cover anything about the sorts of programming people should have done.

Should they be familiar with writing functions? If so, how complicated? Who cares?

Provide no information about the time commitment

Again, don’t spoil the mystery! Everyone who signs up to a bootcamp has loads of time to spare. Therefore, this information is completely irrelevant.

Once the course starts

Printing to the console

It is compulsory for the initial code on the first day to print a message to the console. Be novel! Make them print something other than “Hello world”.

It is extremely important for programmers to know how to only print text they have supplied in the print command.

Don’t, whatever you do, emphasize how to incorporate results from their code into that print command on day 1. Bury this information.

Bury key syntax information

There are multiple pieces of information that can be buried!

Students must learn to read every sentence in your lesson carefully. Therefore, don’t put the key syntax points up the very top, at the start of lesson 1.

Instead, bury this information partway through lesson 1. Syntax is much less important than learning how to print “Hello world” to the console. It is also much less important than learning that + is the addition operator.

Put your lessons and your exercises on two separate screens

Learning how to use two screens is a skill that programmers must learn eventually. How better to teach them than by splitting the lessons and exercises? I mean, books have tended to have exercises at the end of each chapter. The book model is super important to use in online courses.

Headings, shmeadings

When teaching people how to code, don’t use headings for each subsection in a lesson. The learning experience is enhanced by making students scroll backwards and forwards. The longer the lessons page, the better! There’s always the “Find” option in their browser!

Bonus points: sometimes use headings, and sometimes not.

Hints and solutions

Hints and solutions that are commented out are useful to students. We sometimes get a bit stuck on why our code isn’t working. If we get really stuck, we can see how our code differs from the solution.

This experience is enhanced by ensuring that the hints and solutions return errors when run by students. Ignore the student comments that mention that the hints and solutions aren’t working.

This is particularly important in a bootcamp, where students have a different lesson each day, and the hints and solutions aren’t fixed ahead of the following day’s lesson.

Penalize students for creativity

There is only one way to write code. Use examples that encourage thinking about user-supplied input. Do not tell your students how to get the user-supplied input. Bury the code on how to generate random numbers (which can be used for debugging) in exercises marked as difficult.

Do not anticipate that user is good with Googlefoo. Obviously, because they have some prior programming experience, they have never used Google to locate code examples.

But assume they have Googlefoo for working out how to create random numbers to test their code. Or that they read the entirety of exercises marked as particularly challenging.

Allow their code to run perfectly on their lessons page. Then, after the student commits the code and the code is public, put up huge errors.

It’s their own fault, they should have looked at the hint. They could have just used the solution if they were really stuck.

Get course feedback on the first day

Everyone knows that the first lesson is the perfect time to get student feedback. The first lesson is the most difficult. How many students can correctly spell “Hello world”? Also, basic algebra is very complicated for programmers coming to a new language.

The mystery twist

I gave up after the second day.

After spending 17 weeks at a coding bootcamp in New York City, I am finally able to call myself a full-stack software developer.

This is a title that I have been dreaming about since graduating college a little over a year ago. But what did I actually learn in a little over 4 months? What will I be able to bring to the workplace with a non-traditional background in tech? Does the curriculum align well with the skill set employers are looking for?

I will share what I have taken away from a full-time bootcamp as a student with no prior programming experience.

Hopefully, this article will contribute to the ongoing discussion about software engineering bootcamps and help prospective applicants and employers learn more about bootcamp graduates.

I graduated from college in 2016 with a degree in Music Business and a minor in Web Programming and Applications. Before the bootcamp, I had only written simple HTML and CSS for company newsletters. I also had some experience in web ad-serving technologies (ad trafficking using Google DFP, troubleshooting ad tags, and working with the engineering team on site migrations).

I spent two months learning programming fundamentals and preparing my application. The application included online and in-person coding exercises. I was admitted in late August, and graduated in early December.

Everybody learns differently. I am speaking from my own experience and not on behalf of other students. We had a great deal of autonomy, and some of the technologies mentioned below were not mandatory.

I am trained daily on algorithms and data structures

Algorithms and Big O were taken very seriously. The first lectures were on Abstract Data Types, data structures (linked lists, binary search trees, heaps, hash tables, graphs, etc.), and sorting algorithms (bubble sort, merge sort, quick sort).

Later on, we practiced technical interviews every morning with other students, both as an interviewer and interviewee. In each interview, I was asked to write code and determine the time and space complexity of my solution. I answered questions like:

• What is the Big O notation for the naive solution?
• Is O(n*m) the optimal solution?
• Is using recursion here more efficient?

Besides the training on run-time analysis, we also learned a bit about hardware, such as how arrays are represented in memory and the differences between RAM and ROM.

I built many clones of popular applications

Wikipedia, Slack, Spotify, Twitter, Game of Life, you name it. Every application presented new and exciting technologies (single page application, sockets, flex-box model, APIs, etc.). It was great fun trying to replicate their core functionalities.

We learned Intro to React and Redux by building a front-end clone of Spotify. We learned about WebSockets and Socket.io by building a Slack-like messaging app. Wikipedia was its own beast where we learned to use an ORM (Sequelize) and write unit tests that validated back-end functionality.

I learned important JavaScript mechanisms from building it from scratch

For instance, we implemented our own A+ style Promise library from scratch. This helped us gain a deeper understanding of use-case behavior and underlying mechanics.

During the introduction to Node.js, we built our own functioning shell prompt that takes Unix-like commands, runs them through a Node.js process, and produces output that can be piped into further commands.

I know how to build a progressive web app

For our final project, we had two weeks to build an application we were passionate about in teams of four. The project could fall into these categories: games, data visualization, developer tools, educational tools, and real-time interactions.

My team and I wanted to get out of our comfort zones. We wanted to experiment with the latest technologies that weren’t taught in the program. After some research, we decided to build a progressive web app that uses Google’s Cloud Firestore as our database and AI services, such as Google’s TensorFlow, Amazon Polly, and IBM Watson (what we ended up using).

(screenshot from our capstone project presentation)

I played around with serverless architecture and cloud functions

Our final project played around with serverless architecture. We used cloud database and implemented our main functionalities through Cloud Functions. Since we had no prior experience, Cloud Functions were a pain to set up at first due to the amount of APIs we talk to. We eventually finished building the functionalities and deepened our understanding of asynchronous functions.

(screenshot from our capstone project presentation)

I played around with Deep Learning and AI

Our final project featured an auto-generated podcast. It allowed us to explore IBM Watson, Amazon Polly, and Google Tacotron (TensorFlow). Although we didn’t have enough time to train our own models using Morgan Freeman’s voice as we planned, we still learned a ton.

(I’ve also written an article on how deep learning makes fashion smarter — give it a read if you’re interested!)

I had great support for exploring side projects and hackathons

For a 4-day individual hackathon, I built a Tinder-like swiping web app that matches users based on their food preferences and received an award for best UI/UX design.

_All illustration of food by artist & illustrator, Kendyll Hillegas — check out her awesome [Dribbble](https://www.etsy.com/shop/KendyllHillegas" rel="noopener" target="_blank" title="">Etsy shop. Background image by Justin Wong. — check out her work on <a href="https://dribbble.com/patternsandportraits" rel="noopener" target="blank" title=")

Another one of my passion projects (still a work in progress) is a skincare application that helps consumers understand the pros and cons of active ingredients commonly used in skincare products. It also provides product recommendations based on users’ skincare concerns.

I am comfortable with building an entire application by myself

The most important goal of a full-stack bootcamp is to help you become comfortable with front-end and back-end technologies. That said, there is still so much more to learn and I will never get comfortable with the skill set that I already have. Stay hungry :)

I learned things beyond software

It takes more than programming skills to become a valuable software engineer. During the program, we had guest lectures about agile methodologies, lean startups, and how to cope with unconscious bias. Women’s lunches were held regularly for students to share experiences on being a woman or member of the LGBTQ community in the tech industry.

What I wish I could learned more about

17 weeks is a short amount of time to learn everything you need to know to become a good software engineer. I would love to explore more real-world web development problems, such as web security, scalability, system design, JavaScript design patterns, and overall architecture.

“This is probably the hardest program you’ll ever take. But it will change your life.”

Coding every day non-stop for 10–12 hours isn’t easy, but I loved every minute of it. The bootcamp did a very good job of throwing me in the deep end while also making sure I was not actually drowning.

With everything I’ve learned and the amazing friends I made, I would highly recommend exploring the option of attending an elite bootcamp.

Sure, elite bootcamps are stricter on admissions requirements and evaluations. This means more time and energy spent on preparing for an admissions interview. But I promise you the result is rewarding and life-changing. You will feel well-prepared after graduating to explore job opportunities with great skills.

All in all, I hope you enjoyed reading this article and found it helpful.

Feel free to leave a comment, email me at allison@allisonzhao.com, or message me on LinkedIn if you’d like to know more or connect with me. I am also currently open for job opportunities and looking for exciting products to work on — hit me up!

Last but not least, I’d like to thank my dear friends David and Nicholas for proofreading and making editing suggestions.