Full-Time (12-week) Software Engineering Program

I graduated from Hackbright a month and a half ago, and I already have a job. I have no technical background, and I've been home with my young kids for the last almost 3 years and I still felt like I was entering the job market with a competitive resume. It was a big time commitment, and it was a lot of work, but Hackbright is such a supportive environment, and in an industry that's desperate to attract women I think it's a plus that's it's a school specifically for women. I highly recommend starting with the Prep class to make sure it’s a good fit since it’s a substantial financial investment, but if you like the Prep class and you want to change careers, you should absolutely enroll. It’s the single best career decision I’ve made in my 15 years of working and my only regret is that I didn’t do it sooner.

I was really lucky to have been a part of the first Oakland Cohort of Hackbright and have nothing but great things to say about the instruction and the process.  Both instructors were clear and patient as I learned the ropes.  Both took time to answer all my (many) questions and reframe responses until I understood fully (even when it took a long time).  The instruction and process was clear and direct.  Perhaps the most important thing I learned is that there is so much more to learn, which seems critical to the nature of the industry.  The culture was respectful and encouraged diversity and thougthful conversation.  I feel incredibly blessed to have learned alongisde such an amazing group of women and from a dedicated faculty.  

Before I started Hackbright, I was skeptical. It seemed like a lot of money with no guarantee of successfully landing a job. However, I stuck with the program and graduated about three months ago. It paid off - I was hired as a software engineer several weeks ago!

For me, the most valuable aspect of Hackbright is the community. The staff, instructors, fellow students, mentors, and alumnae are incredible. The alum network is amazing, and the staff really does their best to support you. I loved everyone in my cohort and I know I've made friends for life! 

Pros:
The Curriculum: Python, Javascript, SQL, Git and a great selection of frameworks! There is also a good amount of interview prep and whiteboarding practice.
The Community: Instructors and mentors are amazing, the staff is supportive, fellow students and alumnae are incredible! 
Hackbright Connections: Companies love Hackbright! There are many events, study sessions, interview prep discounts, hack-a-thons, networking opportunities, and job opportunities that are exclusive to Hackbright Alum! 

Cons: 
Cost: It's expensive! However, there are some scholarships available: https://hackbrightacademy.com/blog/announcing-the-code-reddit-scholarship/
Pace: If you have prior coding experience, the pace of the program might feel slow. If you are brand new, it will feel fast and overwhelming. Also, Pair Programming is a huge part of Hackbright, so you will occasionally work with people who are not at the same skill level as you
Bay Area Only: If you want to work outside the Bay Area after Hackbright, you will greatly limit your network and job opportunities

General Expectations:
If you are considering attending a coding boot camp, you should:
1) Have enough money for the program, money for housing and food during the program, and money for housing and food for possibly up to 6+ months to a year after the program ends while you are searching for a job.
2) Genuinely LOVE to code - you should have 20+ hours coding experience before applying to the full-time program. You don't have to be an expert, but you need some experience. 
3) Realize that graduating from a boot camp is NOT a job guarantee - you will need to spend a lot of time and energy post-program networking, refining and developing skills to get a job. It could take up to a year! In my experience, the post-Hackbright work was more challenging than the program itself. 
4) Understand your first job probably will NOT be your dream job! I know several Hackbrighters that have ended up at companies like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Google, but they were either accepted to an apprentice program, had prior experience, or they worked at other jobs first. The first job you get might not be at your dream company, but it will be a great experience! 
5) Know that there is a lot of competition for entry-level jobs and apprentice positions! Hackbright does post apprentice and junior level positions on the job portal, but there are a lot of people applying to jobs that require less than experience.
6) Accept that you will not have a social life for 3 months - Personally, I spent 40 hours a week at Hackbright, 1-3 hours doing homework and working on my project each night, and occasionally up to 10 hours every weekend working on assessments or your project.
7) Acknowledge that you will keep learning after Hackbright and continue to learn on the job. The learning never stops!

I honestly believe Hackbright is the best decision I've ever made - If you want to be a software engineer, GO TO HACKBRIGHT!

Attending Hackbright Academy was the best decision I have made (besides getting my dogs, of course). I had tried going back to university in Florida to pursue a degree in software engineering--I got through a year of taking classes part-time before becoming fed up with how little useful information I had learned and how long it had taken. I heard about Hackbright and was impressed with their curriculum, reviews, and graduate statistics, so I quit my job and moved across the country to attend.

While attending Hackbright, I was continuously blown away by the amount of practical information they were able to instill in us in such a short amount of time. The biggest learning tool for me was the individual project that each student creates. Developing a web application from scratch was an exciting way to go over the technologies and tools we had learned while also exploring new ones.

The education team and support staff are some of the most knowledgeable, genuinely helpful people I've ever met in an education environment. Everyone is super accessable and really seems to care about the success of each student. I was offered a software engineering position very quickly after graduation because Hackbright's curriculum really does make its students competitive in the job market, and they also spend a good amount of time preparing its students for the ever-daunting technical interviews. I would recommend this program to anyone who is interested in a software engineering/web development career.

I have a non-traditional, non-traditional background, graduating with a CS degree and then deciding to go into a bootcamp, but I can honestly say that Hackbright has made the decision worth it. Hackbright gave me what my CS department at uni couldn't, a supportive and empowering network meant for my growth and post-graduation success.

In terms of content, Hackbright focuses on the prepping women to be full-stack engineers so you learn both backend and frontend concepts. It is a little more focused on the backend as the first half of the program is spent learning Python and databases with frontend Javascript lectures nearing the busy project weeks.

Lectures are packed with information and well laid out. Instructors are friendly, encouraging, and always open to questions. Instrcutors also hold plenty of office hours to answer any questions, programming related or not. They provide an enormous amount of technical and moral support. Hackbright also has field trips for their students and has plenty of opportunities to network with engineers in the field. They have designated "Career Coffee" lectures every week to help you with the not-so intuitive skills and resources needed to be successful during your job search post-bootcamp.

All in all, I felt like Hackbright had an incredibly wholesome approach to the "software engineering bootcamp" and I came out of the camp feeling well-prepared and ready to tackle the job search with an added bonus of an incredible group of like-minded and supportive friends.

I absolutely loved my time at Hackbright. It was a unique experience to be in a room full of inspiring women who enjoyed solving problems as much as I do. The instructors really cared about their students' success, and would consistently go the extra mile to make sure you mastered a concept. Above all - it was fun! I looked forward to coming to class everyday. 

The curriculum is good, but what's even better is the emphasis on grooming you for the work force as a software engineer. At Hackbright you learn things you never even thought about during your self study, such as testing and following style guides. Going into Hackbright, you vaguely understand the importance of good variable names and writing notes. After Hackbright you can't help but cringe when you see a function with a missing docstring. 

Another reason I would recommend Hackbright over many other bootcamps is because of their superb mentor matching program. Each student gets paired with two mentors. Each mentor has agreed to donate at least 1 hour/week of their time to the student, and must have person software engineering job experience. My mentors proved invaluable in solidifying some of the more abstract concepts. They also practiced whiteboarding with me, helped me plan my project, and offered suggestions and inspiration. Both of them kept working with me for months after Hackbright ended, which kept my moral high during the difficult job hunt period. Whether you decide to go with Hackbright or not, make sure you choose a program that offers this type of mentorship! A lot can be learned through diligent self-study, but there are so many items that are made 100x easier by having a good mentor.

Hackbright offers an incredibly supportive environment, and this doesn't stop after graduation. The career team schedules one-on-one meetings with each student, and encourage you to schedule as many meetings with them as you want. There definitely is a lot self-motivation needed to keep up with the work necessary to find a job after graduating, but they are there with you every step of the way. Hackbright also sets up various networking events to help the students meet the right people to get them jobs.

Hackbright gives enough foundation and exposure to concepts to teach its students how to continue their education. Even before you secure a job as one, you leave Hackbright a software engineer.

Hackbright has a very supportive environment. I am glad I joined Hackbright and thankful to everyone. Even after I finished, the staff is still very helpful with any questions I might have plus there is a mentor that comes twice a week at the alum lounge which I think is awesome and definitely helps during job searching time. 

There is just too many amazing words to describe Hackbright.

There are full-time and part-time positions available. I took the Full-Time and my experience with Hackbright was so good. Because the culture they bring in is not competitiveness but growth on support. The most I liked is pair Programming

As a working adult and parent, it was a difficult decision to quit my full-time job and attend Hackbright. I made the switch strategically by first attending their weekend boot camp course and then their prep course to get a feel of how they structure their coursework and teaching style. From the very beginning, I was blown away by their supportive and nurturing environment. They are really passionate about changing the ratio in tech and this mission is reflected in everything they do(i.e. teaching approach, opportunities for women, mentorship, etc). I am forever grateful to have spent the past 5 months (prep program + full-time program) with amazing women who are on a mission to become awesome SOFTWARE ENGINEERS! The passion to learn is contagious at Hackbright and I love it!

Prior to attending Hackbright, I had been at a co-ed (mainly male) coding program that lacked the education and career support I needed to succeed as a software engineer. I ended up choosing Hackbright because of the post-grad support and emphasis on balance. There is a technical mentor on staff twice a week, career staff available to help, study sessions every month to continue learning, an amazing alumnae, and many career events. The importance of balance in the program was huge, because I truly believe you cannot learn without some type of balance. We were often told not to stay up until the crack of dawn cramming CS topics. I found their way of teaching most effective for myself to solidify web development and computer science.

I did not realize until during the program, I would make long-lasting connections with my cohort mates and staff. I always had someone from the ed staff to turn to for technical issues and emotional support during this hard journey. I was able to go to my advisor for any questions or concerns related to curriculum, personal matters, imposter syndrome, and career advice. The career team was able to help us prepare during the program and after on the job hunt. The field trips we were able to attend really helped solidify what I was looking for in a company and what the industry was like by meeting many other engineers, particularly women in the industry. The mentorship program is not perfect, but I was lucky to have an amazing mentor that provided technical and emotional support. Overall, I would highly suggest Hackbright to someone looking to break into the industry who knows they need support during/after the program and balance/guidance. 

I cannot thank the Hackbright staff and my fellow cohort enough for my experience attending this bootcamp. Throughout my 12 weeks, I felt extremely supported by everyone I came into contact with, and the instructors readily make themselves available to help your software engineering journey in anyway they can. I feel this same support even after graduating and going into my job search period. If you are considering attending a coding bootcamp, I 100% recommend Hackbright.

Hackbright surpassed my expectations in all aspects. The curriculum was well developed, giving us a solid understanding of Python, JavaScript, and CS fundamentals that can be built upon later after graduating and while studying for job interviews. We each built impressive projects that could be put on our resume and discussed during interviews, which definitely helps since we don't have prior software engineering work experience.

Hackbright took us on company visits, which helped to give us insights into what it would be like to work in tech and also helped expand our professional network. We were also matched with mentors who work in the tech industry to help us throughout and even after the program. 

Career support was more than I expected, more than I recieved in the two universities I had attended previously. Additionally, the alumni network is large, pretty spread out (not just restricted to the Bay Area), and super helpful. Every alum I have contacted to ask about job opportunities has been responsive, encouraging and supportive. I graduated Hackbright with a strong sense of what my next steps should be in terms of how to approach the job search and what projects/technologies to work on next. Thanks to the amazing career support, I was able to receive my first job offer less than a month after graduating.

At the beginning of the year, I decided to leave my decade-long career in Customer Support and attempt a transition to Software Engineering. I considered multiple bootcamps but ultimately settled on Hackbright Academy after the admissions interview.

The main thing that stood out to me in the admissions interview was that the questions focused on how I might support my cohort throughout the program. What I took from that conversation was that Hackbright uniquely cares for its students and aim to provide as many avenues of support as possible. That feeling was reinforced time and time again as I was going through the program. The instructors and extended faculty support their students every step of the way, positive affirmations written on post-its adorn the walls of the school, and if a student has a bad day, the whole cohort gets together to support them. In addition, a couple of weeks in, each student is matched with two volunteer mentors from the industry who dedicate an hour per week to offer advice and support.

The curriculum is very well-paced for students who have had a prior introduction to programming. More advanced students may find some of the material in the first five weeks to be a review; however, every lecture and exercise comes with additional material for further study which I found to be invaluable.

After the first five weeks, the cohort breaks apart into individual projects. Students pick their project with assistance and guidance from their advisor, then start development from scratch. Independent projects cover database design, to back-end server development, all the way through front-end design and deployment. The purpose is to reinforce the skills developed in the first five weeks through practical implementation. In the end, students demo their projects in front of a visiting panel of companies followed by an evening of networking.

Finally, the last two weeks are focused on career development. Cohorts visit tech companies in the area, practice interview skills and get guest lectures from hiring managers and alum.

Throughout the program, Hackbright staff asks for frequent feedback. Feedback forms are sent out after every lecture, the data from which is used to help tailor future lectures.

Upon completion of the program, the school continues to support students through the job search. Career development staff will check in with students to offer advice and assist with connecting to hiring managers. Instructors host bi-weekly study sessions for alum and can provide additional practice interviews.

Circling back on my personal experience, I found several companies from our project demo night reached out to me to offer interviews. After interviewing with several companies, I ultimately chose to accept a job offer from one of the companies who visited our demo night.

I honestly couldn't be happier with my choice to attend Hackbright Academy. Everyone from the instructors and career development team to the extended faculty genuinely cares for their students and are passionate to #changetheratio. My experience was a transformative one that couldn't possibly repay. I can't recommend the school enough to anyone looking to make a positive change in their life.

I can't imagine a better place to start a new career.. Before applying Hackbright I had a very few coding experience and confidence in my skills.. It was such an intense program with updated curriculum which prepares you to the actual engineering field. The instructors were amazing, they were so eager to teach, help and very patient to us. I always felt their full support and belief in me during the bootcamp. At the beginning of the program I didin't take the career development sessions that serious but after a couple of weeks, I realized that how these people are working hard for us to build up our carreer, network and future with us.. So what is different after Hackbright? I definitely learned how to program.. Now I have a project that I build by myself, I learned a lot of technologies, algorithms.. I am building up a network on this field, I am still connected to my instructors, friends, alumni group and ofcourse career team..  And the most important one is that now I believe in myself during my engineering career.. The instructors, career team, their curriculum, their partner companies are all amazing.. As a graduate, I can definitely say that this was the best decision that I make in my career..

The most valuable resources you need making a major career switch is a strong network and support system. The community at Hackbright is unbelievable. I started school with a competitive mindset and just wanted to make a quick career switch and get sh-t done. At Hackbright, I learned how to build community and what it means to empower others, especially women. I felt more accepted than I ever had by a group of peers (besides my best friends from childhood). My incredible cohortmates inspired me daily, and the alumni network was very supportive in my job search. Hackbright also has an excellent mentorship program (2 mentors : 1 student ratio), and a network of industry partners that regularly host job fairs and whiteboarding sessions to help you shine in the job market.

I could easily write 20 pages about how much I loved Hackbright but I’ll try to keep this a little shorter than that. Just as a background, I might not be the traditional Hackbright student in that I came to Hackbright directly after getting my degree from UC Berkeley.

Overview:

The program starts off with two lectures and two labs per day. You give anonymous feedback after every lecture which they use to improve the course. Then there’s a few weeks to work on a final project and the last two weeks are career focused. You get an advising group where you and three other students have a specific advisor who helps guide you in your quest. Fridays are fun.

Instructors:

I have never seen such dedicated and caring instructors. All of the instructors went way out of their way to help me. On several occasions I had instructors send me a follow up email to something I had asked them about with more information and sources. During project season I got so much help and always felt so encouraged by them. They’d also do that thing that really great teachers do where you ask a question and then somehow they make it so that you figure out the answer yourself like I don't know how they do it but it's magical.

Career Services:

At first I was very overwhelmed by anything career related. I came in totally clueless when it came to that area. However, in the last two weeks (that were totally career focused) that changed. They set up guest speakers, workshops, field trips, taught us how to network with other people (so scary!) and more. I always felt like they were there to support me and help me with everything I needed help with whether it was with my resume or just a pep talk. Finding a job is a lot of hard work but they don’t just send you out into the wild. You can talk to career services at anytime after you graduate and they also send out weekly check in emails as well as emails that have all the future events, alumn talks, etc. I never would have imagined that I would successfully negotiate my salary offer over the phone (it was so scary!) but career services gave me the help and confidence I needed to do that.

Lastly, here are just some of my favorite parts of the program:

1) Turns out your brain actually functions better when you get a full night sleep (who would have guessed…). Hackbright’s mission is to make you learn a ton of stuff in a short period of time so they encouraged us to get a full night sleep and make an effort to take care of ourselves. It worked.

2) There was no competition. I felt like every student wanted to help each other and build each other up. It was so great to learn in an environment when nobody was trying to prove they were smarter than you (cough, uc berkeley)

3) I felt supported by students and staff. During the program I had two close family members pass away within a day of each other and Hackbright was such a comfortable and supportive environment that I was able to get through it. 

4) And for my favorite part of Hackbright: All the confidence I came out with.

I had very little, if any, confidence going into this program. I never would have imagined that going to Hackbright would change that. And unlike while I was at Berkeley, I was able to gain confidence without desperately trying to compare myself to other people. In just 3 months, Hackbright was able to build me up and give me confidence I never would have thought I could have.

Conclusion:

I went into this program thinking I’d learn how to code better and yeah I came out with all these sweet coding skills but I also came out with a huge support network, a good understanding of the industry and interview process, I learned how to talk to strangers, and I have more self confidence than I’ve had in my entire life. I’m now doing things I would have never imagined I could do before.

I would highly recommend this program to anyone who is willing to put in the effort and work hard.

My experience at Hackbright really exceeded my expectations for what a bootcamp could offer. I thought the curriculum was really strong and focused on the right areas to help me land a job as a software engineer. Although Python was the main language we learned, the program didn't spend the 10 educational weeks on making us experts in Python at the expense of learning other languages and frameworks. Instead, we learned enough Python to be comfortable, productive, and most importantly, be able to continue learning and teaching ourselves after the program. This allowed us to spend time on other critical topics like Computer Science fundamentals (memory, data structures, algorithms, runtime, etc.), JavaScript / jQuery / AJAX, and new technologies like React.

Besides the curriculum, the other area I think Hackbright excels in is the teaching staff. They know the material extremely well and care so much about the success of their students. This, combined with the caliber of students that Hackbright admits, who are all kind, supportive individuals, makes for a very supportive learning environment.

I applied for engineering roles before Hackbright, but I rarely heard back from recruiters, and I couldn't succeed in on-site interviews.

Hackbright Academy gave me the skills, confidence, vocabulary, and connections to excel at interviews and land my first software engineering role!

The atmosphere at Hackbright was superb. I felt supported every step of the way—by the instructors, by career development, by my mentors, and most of all, by my cohort! Even the learning areas are fantastic, as they're not a row of desks but fluffy soft shaggy carpeting, floor seats, and generous couch seating, in addition to a row of tables and chairs. Support staff (i.e., stuffed animals) are spread throughout the room, and named adorably.

Hackbright gave me the opportunity to pair program with my colleagues, which not only reinforced the exercises, but it helped us learn to verbalize our ideas about the functions and algorithms we wrote. Hackbright also matched each of us with two mentors, who met with us weekly to reassure us, build our confidence, teach us, and help us practice to prepare for interviews.

Hackbright's alumnae network is invaluable for mentorship and for networking throughout my career, and probably the most valuable part of Hackbright.

Overall, Hackbright offers a comprehensive curriculum for web development and core computer science fundamentals. As a bootcamp, the emphasis of learning is on practical tools, which can be immediately applied in a work setting. Specifically, we learned Python (its built-in data structures, object-oriented programming), Flask, Jinja, jquery and more. The instructors are incredibly capable and humble - sometimes we encounter coding problems that may take longer to debug, but the instructors manage to show us how to become good problem-solvers and continuously learn.

In terms of structure, the first five weeks involved 2 lectures each day followed by 2 labs with a partner. Pair programming helped refined students' abilities in communicating about code and software, reinforcing the lecture concepts. The next five weeks were dedicated to projects, which was a great application of the skills we had learned.

There were subject areas that I wished we had investigated more, such as algorithms and data structures. Or at least, it would have been nice to have more structure to the coding challenge section. However, the bootcamp is limited time and must also teach students to independently study these concepts as they leave.

Overall, I chose Hackbright for its emphasis on balance and community — the bootcamp 100% lived up to the expectations I had in these two areas.

Balance: In terms of my personal work habits, I knew I needed ~some~ structure, which Hackbright provided during the day for 8 hours. Basically, I needed someone to point me in the right direction day-to-day and teach me about practical tools. In the evening, I felt free to google away about whatever sparked my curiosity, like concurrency or playing a CLI game. This approach doesn’t work for everyone, but it did for me.

Community: For background, Hackbright is a bootcamp for women and has a clear focus of changing the ratio in tech. Beyond anything else, Hackbright impressed me with its ability to cultivate and sustain a supportive community. Now that I’ve completed the program, I know it’s true from firsthand experience: post-bootcamp, I’ve seen or chatted with a fellow Hackbrighter almost every day since. In fact, I’m going to a Hackbrighter’s birthday in a week! The sense of community doesn’t stop there — I feel incredibly lucky to have friends, colleagues, fellow SWEs that will share resources, teach me a new concept and empathize with me.

After having worked in semi-technical field for a couple of years, I wanted to move my career forward and learn programming. I began with online javascript courses, and one fine day bumped into a Hackbright ad online! I was amazed with the #changetheratio mission, and the academy's purpose of empowering women via Tech education.

 
I was new to Python, hence I joined the part-time program first, to get a feel of the culture and curriculum (and I wasn't disappointed at all!). From the takeaways that I got during part-time education, it was easier for me to decide that pursuing a full-time program at Hackbright was  the way to go forward. This was indeed one of the best decisions I've made for my career advancement.The teaching style of having theory and lab assignments together in each session helped me remember the concepts clearly. I was able to apply them practically in my take-home assignment as well as my project. The staff and lab instructors were quite knowledgeable, and provided answers to our queries, both in theory class as well as in the labs, with a smile! 

Throughout the program, I got to interact with every fellow student from my cohort, and was inspired by how women across different backgrounds could motivate and help each other learn and grow! Because of the friendly and supportive environment, I felt encouraged to persist in an attempt to learn something totally new as Python programming, and ended up successfully building a web app and deploy it. Also, the field trips and various talks from the industry experts / volunteers (organized by the career team) helped gain more practical insights into the industry. I learnt a great deal of soft skills and networking skills which I was able to apply during my job search. 

The Hackbright community also values your personal time, and ensures that you get a balance in between the intense nature of the program. The schedule and the program structure is very flexibly designed (with no compromise on the quality / content of the curriculum) and that helped me complete the program successfully, despite every day commute all the way from South bay. 

Also, both the ed team and career team take your feedback very seriously, and you could see them constantly working on making their process better. Even after graduating, the team has been welcoming, and helpful with your queries. With Hackbright, I was exposed to a very open network of women willing to help you anytime. The 12-week immersive program at Hackbright was definitely an all-round personality development experience, than just a curriculum-driven educational program.