

New developers might start their career with a job writing project documentation, and maybe they’ll get an hour or two a month with more senior developers who share their experience and insights. Girdley explained: “Developers grow when they’re under the tutelage of more senior people. This aspect of the boot camps is key to helping prepare students for a career in programming. Students gather in a classroom for two- to three-months to learn how to code with the help of a live instructor who can answer questions and review material. Without the structure of a classroom, it’s a set-up for failure.”Ĭoding boot camps like Codeup, Hack Reactor, and Dev Bootcamp are designed to immerse students in how to be a programmer. People try these online courses and there’s no peer group, no rhythm. In addition, because we’re human, we’re social animals. “An online course will explain something to you in one way and if you don’t think the way the person who wrote the lesson thinks, you have a lot of problems learning. “The resources available for people who want to be programmers are fundamentally broken,” Girdley said. They need developers and platforms that can move as fast as their business,” he said.īut a lack of developers is only part of the problem. “Every company is racing to build apps faster. “We had a bunch of friends who ran companies and couldn’t find tech talent.”Īdam Seligman, vice president of developer relations for, put his finger on why there is such a demand for tech talent. “We saw a huge broken situation,” explained Michael Girdley, CEO and cofounder of Codeup, on why he started the San Antonio-based programming boot camp. At least one aspires to transform an industry by producing a new breed of software developers who have little or no prior experience in IT. However, coding boot camps are a little different.

These intense courses promise to teach eager IT professionals the key concepts they need to pass a certification exam, specialize or change career paths. The IT industry is no stranger to the concept of the training boot camp. They don’t have the resources to groom new programmers, and non-techies looking for a career change don’t have time to earn a four-year degree. In the age of mobility, those models no longer work.


Both approaches would take several years or more, and neither would promise you a job. Once upon a time, if you wanted to become a software developer, you’d get a degree in computer science or learn on the job and read how-to books in your spare time.
