Software Guild

I was beyond excited to hear about the Software Guild on NPR, especially when I realized a couple of my old friends had gone  through the 12-week program with successful outcomes. I had wanted to get into software development for some time, and I was considering going back to school for a BS in Computer Science, but I saw that the career outcomes were comparable with high job placement of junior developers from the program (and in a significantly shorter amount of time!).

After reading many of the reviews on Course Report and speaking with some Guild instructors, I decided to drop everything at my marketing/project management role and prepare for what would be the most intensely satisfying 12 weeks of my career.

The Guild is no joke. They teach you exactly what you need to be an effective developer. In the software field, this often means being able to independently find solutions to complex and sometimes abstract problems. The 'flipped classroom' style of learning forces you to learn the material on your own time, after hours, so that you can apply your new-found knowledge to realistic business applications the next day at the Guild. Since it is more or less up to you to manage your time, it feels very similar to working in the actual software industry -- strict deadlines, adding maximum value to projects, and finding time to push the project to the next level beyond the minimum assignment criteria with new features and enhancements (a must!).

Pat Toner, the Lead Java Instructor at the Akron Software Guild, was (and continues to be, post-grad), the single most helpful mentor throughout my academic and professional career. For me, this did not mean sugar coating critiques or lowering the bar on assignment criteria (which has often been my experience in academia). Pat responds thoughtfully to well-developed, focused questions, and he will always go out of his way to offer the most honest, helpful advice and direction. Pat is a very friendly and funny instructor who has a talent for making his lessons very memorable. He is a great listener, and even after my time at the Guild, I still go to him for advice on all kinds of software industry-related questions (he still provides the same level of thoughtfulness and insight even with his new cohort in session).

Code is never handed to you at the Guild; You have every resource you need to excel on every single project. These resources come in the form of staff members who are dedicated to the success of each and every Apprentice (very small class sizes by the way, so you get plenty of help if you are willing to seek it out), a brilliantly developed online curriculum that builds very nicely on the previous lessons (you will be surprised how soon you create working, enterprise-level web applications), a suite of software tools and frameworks that are relevant and very useful even long after completing the Guild, and perhaps most important post-grad, the network of smart, talented, genuinely passionate, and supportive Software Guild alumni network with whom you will likely stay in touch for years to come.

Matt LoPiccolo, the Employer Network Manager in Akron, works tirelessly to help ensure each Apprentice is well-equipped to land jobs of personal interest. With Matt's help, I and most of the cohort landed really good jobs either during the program or soon after graduation. No matter how busy he is helping other Apprentices, he will ALWAYS find time to have genuine, meaningful conversations that will leave you with information on how to become a much more competitive, desirable candidate.

My advice to people considering the Software Guild for to facilitate in a career change to development is to spend a good amount of time coding beforehand to make it is something you want to do as a career. For most people this was the case, and those people also ended up doing very well during the program and continue to enjoy their new software developer jobs.

I will always look back fondly at my time at the Software Guild. I wish it existed before I started my undergraduate studies!

 

Learning to code and make web applications is not a one step process. Many many things are involved in this process. So while learning this on your own is definitely possible, it is quite a daunting task.  I took many courses online and learned how to do some simple code and make simple websites, but I never understood how the whole thing came together or how to make a web application with a backend and database.

This bootcamp brought it all together for me and made me understand the nitty-gritty to the whole big picture and helped get me into a place where I could get a software engineering job at a company that is not only in the Fortune 500 but also in the Fortune 100.

It was great to spend three plus months focused on learning without distractions and with a group of like-minded people. It is definitely a huge upfront investment in time and money, but if you make it through the pre-work without much trouble and are very interested in this field, just keep continuing on the path and eventually I believe you’ll come out happy like I did.

But this bootcamp is not magic. You must like coding and computers. You must be motivated to learn and code. If you are getting into this career for the money, you will probably drop out of this program quite quickly like several in our cohort did.

I was a part of the Java cohort in Minneapolis in 2016. Michael was our teacher, and he honestly was not the best, but us students still made it through. Now, I hear the teacher is Corbin. He is amazing. You won’t be disappointed.

Overall, this bootcamp changed my life and I am so happy I took the chance.

I'm a somewhat atypical boot camp case: I have worked in (manual) software testing for three years at an information security company in Chicago. I took a leave of absence from my job to attend the Software Guild in hopes of moving from testing to development within the same company. Management was cautiously supportive, and since graduating from the Guild and returning to work, I've been hired on permanently as a software engineer, with the salary to match.

I chose the Guild primarily because it was the most highly rated full-stack boot camp that teaches Java, staffed by instructors who each have over a decade of experience in software development. As someone with a previous background in instructional design, I was also encouraged to learn that instructional designers are on staff as part of the parent company, which I took as a good sign toward the quality or at least organization of the curriculum.

Having said that, the Java curriculum at the Guild deeply impressed me with its thoroughness and organization. Skills build on each other in a logical progression with a level of detail that ensures you understand the tools and technologies you are using on a more fundamental level than merely how to use them. My cohort had a "flipped classroom" style of instruction where we spent evenings watching videos and doing step-by-step code-along exercises that built an example application with you and explained all the components in detail. During the day, the instructor, Pat, led class discussion on concepts and broke the room into smaller groups to work on projects implementing what we had learned. Pat's classroom is a lot of hands-on learning - whatever you're thinking of trying, he'll say, just try it and see what happens - but he is able to answer questions, help solve problems, and provide insight into your design dilemmas, with just the right information-to-snark ratio. He's both knowledgeable and hilarious, which kept us smiling even when the work was tough and demanded long, frustrating hours.

Even I have been surprised at how exactly the Guild program matches what you see in the workplace. You will have stand-up every day, code review every week, and pair programming/collaborative design on every project. You use the same project management software at the Guild (i.e. Atlassian tool suite) that enterprises use. My colleagues have been surprised that I came back already familiar with not just Java and object-oriented design concepts, but also Spring, Maven, SQL, Git, and n-tier web application design - all critical knowledge that is not necessarily typical of junior developers. Most importantly, because you understand what the tools do and why they exist, you gain the ability to communicate clearly with experienced developers: to ask intelligent questions and to understand the answers, using the same common vocabulary.

The team environment at the Guild was what really made the experience for me, and why I endorse the full-time, in-person program for others considering a boot camp. I lived at the Lofts, the nearby apartments that serve as on-campus housing, only a five minute walk from the school, in a very nice suite alongside many of my classmates working on the same projects. We spent many evenings reviewing lessons together, discussing our designs, and even doing peer code reviews prior to the official ones in class. I only had to go next door to get a fresh perspective on something I didn't understand or see a way of doing something that I had not thought of before. Toward the end of the class, many hours were spent rehearsing interview questions with one another and reviewing each other's resumes over beers. That kind of cameraderie is invaluable for learning and for morale, and something you just can't get from an online class. I have never met a group of smarter, more driven people for whom I've had so much respect.

If I decided tomorrow that software wasn't for me, I would still consider my time at the Software Guild to have been a great investment. It was like four years of college (but much cheaper!) smashed into the space of three months: I was the most challenged I have ever been, learned a great deal that will serve me well wherever I go, made friends and connections that will last, and had a ton of fun. To be honest, it was difficult to leave and go back to my normal life. If you're thinking of doing this boot camp thing, and you're not afraid of a challenge, just do it. It's more than worth the time and money.

Graduated May 2017. Working with a great, small company and all after I moved to minneapolis with nothing but a duffel bag and a whim.

The biggest strength about the Sofwtare Guild over most bootcamps is, in my opinion, the help you get finding a job after the fact. They (and by 'they' I mean the employement manager Kipp) stick with you until you get that job. Not to toot my own horn too much but I am a smart, friendly guy who had a pretty good time with this bootcamp. But that doesn't do you any favors if you don't have any work experience. The Software Guild is built around the idea of getting you ready to work as opposed to just passing the class.

Honestly, I can just whittle this whole review down to one thing:

I moved halfway across the country for this bootcamp. I don't regret it.

The Software guild was a challenging and rewarding experience.  The overall experiecne was great. I took the Java track in Akron and lived in the Lofs.  Living at the Lofts was super conveniet as the buiilding is nice and it's a quick walk to school. The Software Guild is selective about who they let in, so if you make it through their screening process you will be surroundded by smat, like minded individuals. The Guild is no joke, and you have got to be willing to put the hours in or you will be left behind.  I came in with a failrly strong background, having been through FreeCOdeCamp and having taken numerous courses on Udemy, but that only gave me a good start until week 2 when the Object Oriented Programming began. If you want to do well and get all you can out of the course, plan on 10 hours a day minimum, especially on the weekends.

My instructor Pat is a great guy. He is very enthusiastic about Java and teaching. He keeps the class lively and exciting. Their are also a lot of other instructors available for you to ask questions to, but it is up to you to seek them out when you need them.

The curriculum is good over all, but I felt the material that was provided for first half of the course was batter explained and laid out than the material in the second half. It would have also been nice to have more group or pair projects.

My main mission was to get a job straight out of the guild, and I was able to do that. There is a careeer advisor available to help you and you can ask any of the instructiors to help you prepare by giving you mock interviews. I definitely felt prepared once I started intterviewing and I was able to answer technical questions well.

All in all if you are looking to get into tech as I was and you want to do Java, come to the Software you won't be disappointed.

Before I came to the Software Guild (TSG), I had a deep 20+ year experience in technology specifically infrastructure.  However, I had a little functional appdev background and no object oriented.  I went through the .NET bootcamp and learned a ton.  I feel confident with OOP skills now and have built several apps.  After graduating from the program, I went on to .NET Core, Azure, etc.  TSG gave me the background required to go forward.  I just took a position at Fortune 100 and part of the reason they hired me is my application skillset.  Thanks to Randy Hash, my TSG mentor, Kipp Graham, my support in recruitment and Matthew Gozel, a fellow classmate.  There are also several people in the background that made this possible.  I would recommend this program to anyone that wants a future in programming.

I attended the Software Guild's 10 month online Java Bootcamp from Oct. 5, 2020 until Feb 2021 while working full-time. I found full-time employment with a company within a month of graduating from the program and have been employed for 3 months. It was a wonderful, life-changing experience for me. I enjoyed the self-study, self-paced aspects of the program and felt supported by my lead instructor as well as open office hours. I highly recommend The Software Guild to anyone who is interested in a career in software development.

I absolutely loved my time at the Software Guild. I did the .NET/C# self-paced track online. The flexibility of doing it online worked really well for me. I was able to do the coursework around my schedule and keep working full-time while enrolled. It took me about 10 months to complete the program.

The curriculum was well-balanced and prepared me well for interviews and for working as a software developer building business applications in the corporate sector. My instructor was very knowledgeable. The program was also great at teaching me how to fish. Upon graduation, I had the skills to be able to continue my education, to know how to find answers and to understand which directions I needed to grow. Coding is and always will be a life-long learning process. I felt the Software Guild gave me the skills to continue to develop on my own.

Upon graduation, their support in my job hunt was second-to-none. They offered guidance on my resume, LinkedIn, networking, basically everything. They have a very strong network of employers they work with. They were able to help me get interviews, do interview prep and walk me through the entire interview process. They don't do everything for you, you still have to work at it, but they were very supportive the whole way through.

From the day I finished the program to the day I got my first job offer was a little over 6 weeks (in the middle of a pandemic). The Software Guild was a great investment for me and my family. I absolutely recommend their program.

The Guild jump-started my career as a software engineer. I opted for the online C#/.NET cohort and it changed my life! The instructors are friendly and push you to achieve your goals. They are knowledgeable and do a great job to answer any questions you have. Their system of delivering you information is organized and easy for tech beginners to understand. The Software Guild covers a lot of real-world coding styles and solutions that are relevant in the modern tech world. Upon graduating the Software Guild, I still got plenty of assistance when it came to finding a job. This prepared me for the real-world coding interviews that can be very intimidating to newcomers. I highly recommend the Guild journey to anyone interested in furthering their career as a developer. 

I came to the Software Guild because I had some experience in coding, but couldn't get a job in it with just my non-computer science degree. With my background knowledge and prior self-teaching, some parts of the course were very easy, but most of it introduced me to higher-level topics that I probably wouldn't have been otherwise exposed to. I went from writing simple algorithms and console applications to building full-stack applications in 6 months. The material was very approachable, yet challenging. My instructor was always readily available to answer questions. I would recommend the Software Guild to anyone looking for a bootcamp. I really enjoyed the self-paced online learning and it was probably the most reasonably priced bootcamp I've seen, but it's still very highly regarded by many employers in my area (Twin Cities, MN). I actually got my job offer right as I was finishing my course.