Coder Foundry

I attended Coder Foundry to obtain new skills, and to learn the industry in order to begin a new business. I was absolutely pleased with the course. The staff's integrity drips from it's leadership. The technology is bleeding-edge.

CF has created a focus and drive that cannot be obtained individually on your own. It has educated me on technologies that will allow me to serve a narrow, yet growing section of the IT marketplace: ASP.net, MVC, AngularJS, over hosted and cloud-based services.

We now live in the connection economy.  Traditionally safe careers are now dead ends. Coder Foundry offers you a chance to spend a quarter of a year jumpstarting your world. Most settle for unhappy, and the myth that they are secure.  CF offered me a window into a chance to live a better story.  If you are up for the challenge, this is the place to do it. 

As a recent college graduate with degrees in both Mathematics and Computer Science, my greatest concern was that the education I received had not prepared me for the marketplace in my immediate area. With a great deal of theory, but very little practical programming experience, I did not feel as competitive as I could be as a job seeker. Coder Foundry offered me the practical experience and intensive training in a wide variety of powerful languages, platforms and tools that I needed to help push my resume to the next level. Professor Jensen developed an exceptional curriculum,  years of teaching experience at the university level was especially appealing to me. Very few programs I looked into offered the kind of academic rigor and programming experience I desired. 

The program itself was incredibly challenging. The workload was unlike anything I experienced during my education at UNCG. I spent, on average, 60 hours a week working on programming assignments and the major course projects, and I loved every minute of it. I'm pretty sure I learned more in 3 months at Coder Foundry than I did in the 4 years I was working on my bachelor's degree.

And they lived up to their word. Every single Master Class graduate was placed within the first two months. 

I was thrilled when they invited me to be a part of their team. It gives me the opportunity to share what I have learned, while still maintaining active development projects.

If you are considering making a career change, I would definitely recommend a coding bootcamp. And if .Net is the platform you're interested, then Coder Foundry is the place to learn it.
 

I took the apprentice class in 2014.  i learned so much. I studied the tutorial information that Coder Foundry supplied for a month before the class started. The apprentice class does start from a more basic approach than the master class, but it still requires an understanding of basic coding concepts. I had done some coding prior to the class and this background helped greatly. The apprentice course does cover a lot, and it is an aggressive curriculum for the 12 weeks. Be prepared to put a lot of time in.  It takes a lot of time out of the classroom as well. The instructors and mentors would spend extra time with us one on one and that helped greatly. I am pursuing coding and feel like with this class I am prepared to do the Master class now and i am actively coding projects now. 

I am a recent Comp Sci graduate and chose Coder Foundry to obtain the .Net coding skillset.  With Coder Foundry, you get more personal attention than you'd ever get at a university. Whereas you have limited office hours available for a professor at a university (often overlapping with other classes you might be taking), you get access to an instructor and several mentors throughout an entire working day at Coder Foundry. This gives you immediate access to many different founts of knowledge, which can be important if you're stuck on a problem or even just curious about an approach. It is rigorous and a lot of work both in and out of the classroom but in the end I  was extremely satisfied with the program. At graduation Coder Foundry recruiters placed me into my current job. I will note that everyone in the Master's class was placed into coding jobs. It was a great experience for me.

The instructor Andrew was highly knowledgeable and very helpful and patient.  He was the bright spot for me in this course and he taught me a ton.  

The rest of the course, however, did not hold up to that standard.  There were many things that going in we were told would happen and never did.  We were not taught how to use github nor did we do presentations regularly.  We were rushed through our final project because the class got so far behind, most just couldn't keep up, and that was not the instructors fault.  There was no system in place to maintain a schedule there were no benchmarks for progress.  Towards the end we were just given massive amounts of code to finish the project. Almost like they gave up and just wanted us to get something working. The impression going in was that finding jobs or getting interviews were going to be consistent opportunities.  That is not the case.  The field is full of highly skilled professionals and companies want experience.  That comes down to me doing a whole lot more then attending a boot camp, which is fine, now I know. I do not feel the course is worth the very high price and the marketing of it is a little misleading.  As I've learned the same information can be found for much much less.

We were the first class through so naturally there was going to be a steep learning curve and I understand that.  I know that they have since fixed many of the issues that plagued our class.  It did light a fire in me to become a developer and to continue to build on what I know.  I have so much more to learn but Coder Foundry did give me a foundation and an early lesson in what it takes to make it in this business.  My time was not wasted.

Coder Foundry has been such a valuable and enjoyable experience learning .NET, C#, MVC, SQL, and more, so far. The instructors are very knowledgeable and helpful in so many ways. There is nothing more valuable than hands-on, workshop style setting classes that incorporate important insight into what companies are looking for when hiring employees. Everyone at Coder Foundry is very helpful, and the one on one time with either the instructors or developers is always available. For anyone interested in learning this particular skill set, there is no better place than Coder Foundry for wisdom, job preparation, and most importantly, career opportunities.

1. It taught me the fundamentals (and beyond) of an entirely unfamiliar technology stack. I went into the program having a good foundational understanding of OOP. Coder Foundry got me up to speed on an exhaustive list of technologies - C#, SQL, SQL Server, HTTP, IIS, JS, HTML, Bootstrap, JQuery, Visual Studio, LINQ, MVC, Web API. The hands on, learn by doing (learn by failing at times) methodology transmogrified documentation from theory to functional, productive skill. And, just as important, it taught me how to interview, which was arguably my most crippling weakness at the start of the course.

2. It got me a job  - and more than a job, a career! At double my old salary, none the less. Natosha did an excellent job of bringing job openings to my attention. She supported me throughout the interview process by coaching me on my presentational skills, reviewing and editing my portfolio, priming the employers' expectations (really, really important) as well as my own, and facilitated rapid feedback from employers after interviews. She's a world class pusher. She got my foot in the door, then got my butt derriere in a fine leather office chair...which is exactly where it belongs.

3. It helped me grow my network. Since attending Coder Foundry, my LinkedIn connections have grown by a factor of ten! More connections means more exposure to the IT industry, which means more job opportunities for years to come. More still, the Coder Foundry network has been a great support group, and the relationships I built during the program are priceless.

What more can I say? ...oh, yeah! My instructor was both immensely skilled and knowlegeable, not to metion devilishly handsome. Free coffee, frequent free food, professionally photographed and edited mugshots portraits cooked up by the talented 'kitchen' staff,extremely comfortable chairs, constant access to mentorship from the instructor as well as fellow students...well, read the reviews. Coder Foundry changes lives.

When I went through the application process to attend Coder Foundry’s Master Class, I was required to take a programming test that consisted of 5-6 JavaScript problems. Two to three of my programs were incorrect. (At this point, I don’t remember the exact figures and I no longer have access to my test results, but I am certain that the percentage of answers correct was well below 100%.) Moreover, I had indicated that I had no actual software-developing job experience. The Coder Foundry reps evaluating my application materials had no basis to think I was some kind of coding genius. Nevertheless, during the Google Hangouts interview with Coder Foundry reps (which was the last step in the application process), I was told that I would make $70,000 per year after graduating from the Master Class. (Coder Foundry’s website at that time stated that the average starting salary for a graduate was $60,000.)  Further, I was told that it typically took three months after graduating for a new graduate to land a job. This was important information, because I was considering borrowing a CLIMB loan to assist with paying the $9900 price of the course, and part of the terms of the loan were that the borrower would be required to pay interest only for three months after the class, with full monthly payments required afterwards. I had researched other information. In particular, Coder Foundry’s website at the time stated that 95% of its graduates land jobs. All of these claims together suggested that enrolling in the Master Class would be a good investment. I thus decided to enroll and borrowed the CLIMB loan.

Unfortunately, despite my researching and asking questions, my experience has indicated that I was far too quick to trust Coder Foundry’s claims. I was not inflexible about a job’s starting salary; I was willing to go well below $70,000 per year. However, the reality of trying to land a coding position is *nowhere near* what Coder Foundry claimed *before* it had my $9900. This became apparent even before graduating from the class. I had one rep imply that I should expect a six-month period after graduation before landing a job. (I was told three months was typical during the interview, before CF had my money.) I found the placement department rather cavalier about actually helping me land a job. I was told by the first recruiter who was there that he and his assistants were going to *aggressively* market me. At the time, I replied that I would appreciate it, but I found zero evidence that any such “aggressive marketing” was ever done. I nevertheless worked to complete and successfully demonstrate all four Master Class full-stack application projects.

When I began actively searching for coding jobs, I submitted *countless* applications, both to companies seeking to hire directly and to recruiters. All of the replies I received (with the exception of one) stated essentially one thing: that lacking any coding job experience, I do not qualify for the position. (The common response to the CF projects which I offered to demonstrate is that school projects have very little weight compared to actual job experience.) In other words, something which CF claimed—before it had my money—would not be a problem, has turned out to be a major, nearly insurmountable problem. (The one exception was a company with which I landed a phone interview, and did not progress any further.) Developer positions that are truly entry-level receive hundreds of applications from applicants (mostly recent college graduates) all around the country. There is nothing that being a CF Master Class graduate has done to help me stand out among these hundreds. Further, CF’s placement department has hardly helped (and is presently not helping at all), despite the fact that I was told, before paying and enrolling, that after graduating from the Master Class, my lack of coding work experience would not be a problem.  I went through a three-month period where I received no interviews from the placement department. It wasn’t until I complained, pointing out the discrepancy between what I was told during the CF application interview before CF had my money, and what it was doing then, that the recruiter finally secured some interviews for me. But then the recruiter left CF and another was hired, and I had a similar experience with the second one, getting some interviews for me after my complaining, and afterwards getting no phone calls or emails from her, sometimes not even in reply to my messages to her. It is now getting close to one year after my finishing the Master Class, and I not only do not have a coding job, I have exactly zero leads for landing one. When I now contact the recruiter at CF, I get a reply with no specifics, such as: “I will inform you of opportunities as they become available.” Given the past behavior of the recruiters and the vagueness of these responses, it is clear that I cannot expect any further assistance from CF’s placement department, despite having been told, before CF had my money, that my lack of coding job experience would not be a problem in landing a job. And of course, if it is true that I am among only 5% of CF graduates who fail to land a job, I expect no clear explanation from them of why, or of the general discrepancy between what I was told before I paid and enrolled and the reality of the job search after having completed the course. The placement department, after I paid for the course, has been opaque, murky, and inconsistent. In terms of the big-ticket investments I’ve made in my lifetime, Coder Foundry has proved to be the worst.

If you are seeking to transition to a developer position from another field, I would not recommend attending Coder Foundry, especially if you have no prior coding job experience. There is plenty of information and evidence indicating that employers seeking to hire developers value open-source contributions very highly—perhaps even more highly than paid, on-the-job coding experience. I recommend following Aaron Boodman’s advice at http://aaronboodman-com-v1.blogspot.com/2010/10/wherein-i-help-you-get-good-job.html. There are plenty of open-source projects to choose from; it doesn’t have to be the one (Chromium) Aaron’s blog suggests. Yes, the process will be difficult, and will take years, especially if you have to do it while working to support yourself. There will be multiple, complex technologies, as well as industry standards, to learn. However, it is better to decide from the beginning to go through such a process—and eventually land a coding job—than sink $9900 in Coder Foundry’s course, go into debt, and find out it was for nothing and that you need to spend years going through the open-source-contribution process anyway.