September 2019 Coding Bootcamp News Roundup

Table of Contents

• Acquisitions & Fundraises in the Bootcamp Space
• Companies Partnering with Tech Bootcamps
• Which Tech Skills are in Demand?
• Paying for Bootcamp + Free Bootcamps
• Coding Bootcamp Success Stories
• Successful Women in Tech
• Advice for Learning to Code
• College vs Coding Bootcamp vs Self Teaching
• Bootcamps in Universities
• New Bootcamp Campuses and Updates
• New Schools in September
• Favorite pieces on the blog

This September, one of the largest online tech bootcamps got acquired, two schools raised capital, and companies like Adobe, Pandora, Airbnb, Capgemini, and JP Morgan Chase talked to journalists about hiring from coding bootcamps! We also chat about two free coding bootcamp options and the difference between CS degrees, coding bootcamps, and self-teaching. Plus find out about 6 new schools and our favorite articles on the Course Report blog!

Acquisitions & Fundraises in the Bootcamp Space

• Thinkful was reportedly acquired by Chegg, for about $80 million in cash, with possible performance-based payments of $20 million. Inside Higher Ed compared the purchase to the acquisitions of Trilogy Education and Fullstack Academy.

  • Tech Crunch and SC magazine report that the online bootcamp also recently suffered a data breach. Thinkful said an unauthorized third party breached its systems and they were notifying all users. 

• Kenzie Academy has raised $7.8 million in Series A funding, led by venture capital fund ReThink Education. The Indianapolis-based online coding school plans to use the funds to expand its tech education to students in the Midwest.

• Barcelona based CodeOp, a bootcamp for women and the transgender community, has raised €320,000 in seed capital. Codeup has campuses in Barcelona, Spain, and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and offers part-time and full-time coding bootcamps.

• Edly, which works with coding bootcamps, has secured a seed round of funding from Mistral Venture partners. Tony Wan from EdSurge explains: “To get capital, some schools have taken to selling ISAs to private investors. Edly provides an online marketplace to facilitate these transactions and essentially offers a way for schools to sell the rights to future ISA repayments to accredited investors in return for money upfront.” Edly’s biggest client is Lambda School.

Companies Partnering with Tech Bootcamps

• The Director of Engineering at music streaming company Pandora, Dave Edwards, wrote a guest post for Venture Beat about Pandora’s new apprenticeship program where they are hiring coding bootcamp grads. They are partnering with Onramp, which helps companies build technical apprenticeship programs.

• Adobe is open-sourcing the process behind their Adobe Digital Academy program – they work with General Assembly to sponsor scholarships for career switchers to attend software engineering, data science, or UX design bootcamps.

• Consulting and technology company Capgemini is partnering with JP Morgan to launch a coding school for women in India. The 2-year school will be aimed at women aged between 18 and 30. 

  • We recently spoke to Capgemini Corporate Recruiter Lynn Hodak, who has been hiring data science bootcamp graduates from Metis data science bootcamp!

• Axios looks at the rise of “corporate colleges” in the US – companies such as IBM partnering with community colleges or universities to provide technical training to prepare students for "new collar" jobs in areas like cloud computing, cybersecurity and mainframes. Axios also highlights alternative programs like Lambda School building their curriculum around the skills Google, Amazon, Microsoft say they are seeking.

• The St Pete Catalyst highlights a new initiative by Suncoast Developers Guild to work with companies to train new employees or upskill existing employees.

• CodeClan coding bootcamp in Scotland is partnering with local businesses in Inverness, as it opens its new campus there. Their new partners include Scottish National Heritage, the University of the Highland, Tuminds, Yellow Cherry Digital, and Capgemini!

• Airbnb is partnering with TechHire Oakland to launch a 6-month software engineering apprenticeship aimed at people without CS degrees – their job description specifically states that people should not have a 4-year degree, and instead should have training from a coding bootcamp or online courses! Apply by October 19!

Which Tech Skills are in Demand?

• Technically Philly looks at the need for cybersecurity skills in Pennsylvania, mentioning a 2018 Burning Glass Technologies Labor Insight report which found there were 10,000 local cybersecurity roles that needed filling — a 127% increase in the last five years

  • The Daily Pennsylvanian looks at the launch of a cybersecurity bootcamp at the University of Pennsylvania.

  • The Foundation for Economic Education names Cybersecurity as one of the top 5 fastest growing jobs in the US, mentioning cybersecurity bootcamps as a way to break into the career.

  • Florida Trend covers the launch of a cybersecurity bootcamp at Miami Dade College in Florida. 

• In the Press and Journal, a Scottish university professor looks at Scotland’s digital skills dilemma, and how even though there is a huge demand for people with tech skills, CS degree graduates are struggling to find jobs. She looks at the education to demand mismatch, and how other ways of training could better meet those demands, such as coding bootcamps and apprenticeships.

• Quartz reports on new paper from economists that looks into this skill resilience, and how people can mold their skills to suit the needs of the tech industry. The research shows that when the end of Flash was announced, there was no evidence that employers were flooded with applications from out-of-work Flash programmers. Quartz says the findings suggest that when their skills became obsolete, IT workers who adjusted were thinking about the long term and were capable of learning by doing.

• CNBC’s Make It looks at how AI is becoming an ever more essential skill for finance jobs, and suggests ways to learn AI without getting a CS degree, including data science and coding bootcamps.

Paying for Bootcamp + Free Bootcamps

• Daily Hive looks at Canadian tech bootcamp BrainStation’s new ISA payment option for students. Students pay a $500 deposit, then don’t pay anything else until they land a job earning $40,000 or more. At that point they pay BrainStation 15% of their monthly income for 8 years, or until they reach the payment cap.

• Income Share agreements are also now available at Galvanize data science bootcamp and Hack Reactor coding bootcamp. Students pay a $2000 deposit, then once they find a job earning at least $50,000, they pay 10% of their income for up to 4 years.

• The Urban League of Metropolitan Seattle (ULMS) is launching the Urban Tech Jobs Program in partnership with the US Department of Labor, a free 6-week training program in tech skills focusing on AWS, for long-term unemployed adults. 

• St Louis coding bootcamp Savvy Coders is partnering with United Auto Workers to offer their 3-month coding bootcamp for free to minority groups, unemployers, and veterans

Coding Bootcamp Success Stories

• Emily Shea went to App Academy in 2014 and now works for Fastly as a software engineer. In 2017, Emily started experiencing symptoms of Repetitive Strain Injury and so she started using software to dictate code instead of writing it – which is called voice operated coding. Now she’s helping others with RSI!

• A Hack Reactor online grad wrote a guest post for Information Age about his career change and landing a $226000 job offer after bootcamp. When he graduated, Jason Zedde applied for 44 jobs, and received 7 job offers from Google, Lyft, Yelp, IBM, Rubrik, and JPMorganChase. He negotiated with all of them, and Lyft ended up offering him the best package.

Successful Women in Tech

• South China Morning Post highlights Asian women leaders in tech, including Michelle Sun, who is the founder of kids code school First Code Academy, and is a graduate of all-women coding bootcamp Hackbright Academy!

• Jaxenter highlights a Flatiron School grad, Quynh To Tuan, about how she got into tech, what it’s like being a woman in tech, and her job as a full stack developer at Tillhub in Berlin. 

• Silicon Republic reports that Talent Garden Data Science Bootcamp instructor Steph Locke won Microsoft’s Most Valued Professional award for AI and data platforms! She talked to Silicon Republic about teaching at the Dublin-based tech bootcamp, and running her own businesses focused on data science and artificial intelligence.

• Built in Austin looks at how local tech companies are embracing diversity initiatives including Flatiron School – in 2019, they’ve given over $2 million in scholarships between the Facebook + Flatiron School Breakthrough Scholarship and Houston Community Boost Scholarship, Women Take Tech initiative and other diversity and community scholarships.

Advice for Learning to Code

• An article by Imogen in the The Muse looks at how to find a bootcamp that will actually help you land a job including what to look for in the curriculum, how to make sure you choose a bootcamp that works with your schedule, how to find a learning environment that works for you, and the importance of looking at job outcomes, and talking to real alumni about their experiences!

• FE News and Computer Weekly look at London coding bootcamp Makers Academy, its outcomes stats, and how women software developers are often earning more than men in their first roles.

• The Globe and Mail looks at whether going to coding bootcamp is worth it.

• The Oklahoman looks at how coding bootcamps help people switch careers into software engineering.

• The Next Web gives advice to new startups in London, recommending coding bootcamps like GA, Flatiron, and Founders and Coders as great places to hire entry-level talent.

• TechWorm put together an article on what languages to look for in a coding bootcamp. 

• Dice Insights looks at why QA testers need to learn how to code, quotes Liz from Course Report on options for learning to code, and mentions DevMountain’s QA course.

• Built In looks at advice for becoming a devops engineer, describing devops culture, the job of a devops engineer, and interviewing some devops engineers who suggest ways to break into devops, including going to a developer bootcamp.

College vs Coding Bootcamp vs Self Teaching

• A woman who taught herself to code wrote a medium Noteworthy post that looks at the differences between learning to code at college vs coding bootcamp vs online self-study. Hanna Yang studied by herself for 8 months, then landed a front-end engineering job. She put together some comparison tables and charts comparing each path of study.

• Utah Business looks at whether college is worth it, looks at average salaries by undergrad major, and compares it to alternatives like coding bootcamps. They point out that the average starting salary of a coding bootcamp graduate is $64,528, still higher than the average earnings of most college graduates.

Bootcamps in Universities

• UVA is partnering with General Assembly to offer bootcamps through the school of continuing and professional studies. 

• Trilogy Education is a company which runs bootcamps at 40 universities around the country. In September Trilogy launched new financial technology bootcamps at Rice University and Columbia University.

• Thinkful is partnering with the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga to offer their online software bootcamp. 

• Fullstack Academy announced a partnership with the University of North Florida earlier this year, and is offering a $2000 scholarship for the first class of students who enroll in the full coding bootcamp! Fullstack is also offering an intro to coding course at UNF to help people ramp up for the full bootcamp.

New Bootcamp Campuses and Updates

• Technically Delaware reports that Zip Code Wilmington’s executive director Melanie Augustin is leaving, and published a profile of Zip Code Wilmington’s new Executive Director, Desa Burton. She’s a veteran, has been at ZCW for 2 years, and spearheaded Zipcode’s scholarship program for veterans!

• Aaron Brooks, the founder of online tech bootcamp MASTERMND Academy and co-organizer of the Baltimore Black Techies meetup group has been nominated for Impact Leader of the Year for the Technically awards.

• Tech Elevator is launching a new campus in Philadelphia

• Eleven Fifty is opening more campuses across Indiana

• Holberton School is opening a new campus in Tulsa, Oklahoma

• Nucamp is opening a new campus in Baltimore.

• General Assembly just opened a new campus in Orlando, FL

• Codeup is opening a new campus in Dallas, Texas in 2020. 

• According to Business Insider, Lambda School is paying a $75K fine for not registering properly in the state of CA. And according to Law.com, a former Amazon lawyer Cecilia Ziniti is now general Counsel at Lambda School

• Telecom Paper reports that free coding school 42 School is launching new campuses in Spain, the first in Madrid followed by campuses in Malaga, Barcelona, and Valencia. 42 school already has campuses in Paris and San Francisco.

• And then on a related note, Finland coding bootcamp Hive Helsinki, which is based on the educational model used by 42 School, has been approved to offer students student financial aid. 

New Schools in September

• iDevOps.io, an online devops bootcamp

• The University of Miami Cybersecurity bootcamp

• Codevity, a coding bootcamp in Kuwait City

• Data Science Dream Job, an online data bootcamp

• Cognizant/ASU Digital Business Analyst Bootcamp, at Arizona State University and Online

• Coding Boot Camp at Harvard Extension School, in Cambridge, Massachusetts

Favorite pieces on the blog

Imogen was really impressed with a project built by a BrainStation UX Design student! She talked to Zack Ginies who shared his screen and demonstrated his final project; an app to help people find volunteer roles with nonprofits. It was beautifully designed and thought out, and particularly resonated with Imogen because she volunteers with a nonprofit. He talked through his design process, explained what tools he used, and how he’ll be using the project to demonstrate his skills to future employers!

Liz got to work on a piece in September about programming languages (JavaScript, Ruby on Rails, Python etc) which answers a question we hear all the time from future bootcampers –  How to Choose The Best Coding Language at a Coding Bootcamp! She runs through the pros and cons of each language, the average salaries to expect, and the job prospects for each language. 

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FURTHER LISTENING

• August 2019 Coding Bootcamp News Roundup + Podcast

• July 2019 Coding Bootcamp News Roundup + Podcast

• June 2019 Coding Bootcamp News Roundup + Podcast

• May 2019 Coding Bootcamp News Roundup + Podcast