Codeworks

I found out about Codeworks via the relations with my University. Coming here was the best thing I could ever do. I completed my knowledge about coding and now, just after 3 months, I'm able to create Wonderfull projects (some are deployed already!), and I feel ready to hit the job's world. The environment here is amazing, everybody is so motivated that push you so hard. I suggest Codeworks to everybody that really wants to start coding and have a career in this field.

P.S. Barcelona is the right place where to do this.

At Codeworks, you hit the ground running and accelarate all the way to the end. I began coding five months before Codeworks. Had I continued at my self-taught pace, it would probably take me another year before I could even think of applying for junior positions as a developer. After three months at Codeworks, I have the confidence to apply for jobs that list two + years experience as a requirement. But the best thing is that now I can develop my own apps. This is the most empowering thing. If I have an idea, I know I can make it a reality, how amazing is that? 

The lecturers and teaching assistants at CW are excellent. Each have their own strenghs, and I learned and grew a lot as a developer by working beside each of them. This is something you cannot get by teaching yourself coding at home, alone. When you get stuck at Codeworks, you get to work with a pro and see how they think about your problem and how they help you come to the answer yourself. Eventually you begin to see patterns in how good programmers frame their problems and you learn how to frame your problems. This, I think, is the most important trait of a programmer, being able to ask the right question. 

The lectures, excercises and live coding sessions are also excellent and very well thought out. Especially the excercises to teach algorithms and data structures. Implementing a hash table is a lot more fun than reading the Wikipedia article about hash tables. Believe it or not. In the junior part, we nailed how to set up a server in one week and front-end frameworks in two. The lecturs and excercises are designed so you get to see the big picture from the very start, unlike many other coding resources online which only show you techniques to achieve a desired effect. Here, you understand how all the pieces fit together so you can use all the tools in a very flexible way. 

I look at the demos of other bootcamps, and I think the apps that are developed at codeworks have a larger variety in terms of what they do and the technology used. In my batch and the batch before me the apps worked on were 1. Facebook Events App 2. Slack Bot 3.Chrome extension with Google Maps 4.ECommerce with the Twitter API 5. File transfer on IPFS ... the variety is huge. Some other bootcamps have apps that are more or less some version of a website that does standard website things. I think this is because CW students are able to use the technology more flexibly because we actually learn development in a very deep way. 

Its definitely the most rewarding experience of my life, and also extra stars for their effort to address the gender gap in tech. 

Word of warning: if you want to join Codeworks because you want to sightsee Barcelona, look elsewhere. 
The intensity of this course is BRUTAL. 
Me and most fellow students thought that the "6 days per week, 12 hours per day" advertised on their website was probably marketing speak. Well we were in for a surprise! 
Not only did we follow this schedule, we also usually stayed longer (usually one hour more, sometimes several) and came on Sundays to make sure we finished the exercises and were ready for the weekly assessments. 
There is no "work/life balance" concept in Codeworks, your life has to become work otherwise you will fall behind. 
If like me you have a family and your spouse is not self-reliant, you're going to have a hard time.

But if your personality type is "whatever it takes" and you *do* dedicate yourself 100% to this course for 3 whole months, you will become a GREAT developer.

Most students didn't have a programming background before the precourse, but at the end of the bootcamp they can teach you about down-to-earth JavaScript concepts (redux stores, context, ...) as well as Computer Science concepts (data structures, algorithm complexity, database structures).

JavaScript has a bad rap because of the hordes of self-called "developers" (aka one-trick ponies). 
Brilliant JavaScript developers are hard to come by; brilliant developers that can teach are a lot rarer. But brilliant developers that can not only teach but also *mentor* (which is what you should be looking for when joining a bootcamp) are like unicorns. And you will find TWO of them in Codeworks.

I'm not too keen on relocating for a job because of my family, so I've looking for jobs in my area, even though it's quite small (french part of Switzerland). But before the end of the final week, one of the cofounders of the bootcamp had prepared a list of 10 job offers for me to apply. 
I finished less than a week ago, and I've already started interviewing for 3 positions (frontend and fullstack) less than 5km away from my place, and every day I've got new contact requests from recruiters on LinkedIn. 
It's also the first time I can look at a job offer and say "Yep, I actually match ALL of the requirements on that job offer" (and I'm 38 years old btw so I've seen more than a couple)

Let's cut the BS : yes this is a hard bootcamp, yes the job market is tough, no they can't guarantee anything, yes they do all they can to help their students. 

Started in November 2022, repeated half of the bootcamp (for free !), graduated in April 2023 and landed a job at the end of May 2023 at a mid-level position. Literally life changing in my opinion. They deliver what they advertise, and even more in my opinion. I did the in person Software Engineering Immersive course in Barcelona and the campus is really nice. Free fruits and coffee (that you will need a lot), some fridges and nice spaces to chill out when needed. Unfortunately, no masseuse available when I was there, but hopefully they hired a new one since then. 

The first half of the bootcamp give you all the basics to become a software engineer, and I mean a software engineer - not a web developer or web integrator. With some perspective now, most of the modern technologies used nowadays have such a high level of abstraction that learning them can be done in a few hours with some excellent free tutorials out there. So why spend 12k in Codeworks ? They don't teach you to become a mere executor, they teach you how to become an engineer. And this is the absolute difference. Again, learning how to write some JS/HTML/CSS or use a Front-End framework can be done in a short amount of time with YouTube. The entry barer is a little high, you need to be already comfortable with the JavaScript syntax and do some exercises that require you to use some complex logic. Once the main course start, you understand really fast that it is indeed needed to be comfortable enough with the language to be able to advance in the course. Why spend money on a bootcamp that will take three weeks to teach you some basics that you can learn on your own for free online ? Codeworks takes the plunge of putting students into a difficult journey where you're immediately tackling complex challenges. This approach is all about deep understanding and problem-solving skills, not just coding. The second half of the course ramps up with advanced topics and real-world projects. You're not just learning code; you're learning how to think and solve problems like a pro.

The support system is impressive. Tutors and mentors are always ready to help, and the career support team is relentless in helping you land that job. They push you hard, but they're also your biggest cheerleaders. Now, to be fair, some tutors are better than others. Funny enough, this is not necessarily linked to their actual industry experience, but more about their helping style and their capacity to convey properly the information. Having some instructors that are freshly graduate can sound weird at first, and this is definitely an issue with some of them, but it is not a general rule to gauge them as two of the best instructors of the bootcamp, in terms of how educational they were, are graduates of the bootcamp without prior experience. And you have also some really senior instructors that have some extensive knowledge of the tech scene for decades and have contributed to a lot of open source project. 

The only real issue for me with the course was the curriculum. Don't get me wrong, it is great because again, you are learning how to unleash your problem-solving skills. And even the exercises that are aimed at learning a specific technology are really well thought (and are fully made by the team for the students, not a rip-off of some online documentation like I've seen elsewhere). However, despite it being extremely well constructed, I arrived at a moment where it showed that some exercises were not really up-to-date. This is not an issue for most of them, as when they are about complex theoretical concepts like data structures, we don't really care about it. However, when it comes to industry technologies, some exercises need to be updated to match the latest updates of the given tech. Some of them were in the process of being updated while I was there, so I think the team knows it, but there is also some lacks of material regarding some important concepts like cloud and devops. Obviously, you can explore those subjects on your own during job search and the projects, but depending on your teammates etc... It might not be possible. 

In the end, you're not just paying for a coding course. You're investing in a transformation. You come out not just with coding skills but with a whole new way of thinking and solving problems. That's the Codeworks difference. It's tough, it's intense, but if you're committed, it's a life-changing experience.

I see more pros then cons, the course is very well structured and they have a huge number of instructors ready to help with any queries you might encounter. The subjects are direct and their platform is friendly. The only draw back for me specially is, in regards to the business, i mean I’d like to see more and get more involved with the business part of the tech industry, like how much it would an app cost to a client taking into account the size of the business and their respective field, also it would be great to see more encouraging for freelancing. However, we can’t forget it’s a coding bootcamp, for such is a great bootcamp.

I was looking for a career change when I came across Codeworks. I'd been researching the software development bootcamps in Barcelona for a while, and there are a bunch now, and among others, Codeworks was added to my list to explore further. Luckily for me at the time, I was living with 3 other developers with who I discussed my options at length.
It seemed that the only thing the other courses had over Codeworks was that they're cheaper. Codeworks had the more complete curriculum, allowing you to gain some insight into different frameworks and programming paradigms, so you can make your own decision in terms of where you want your first role to take you, whereas other courses just taught the one, so you'd have to look for a job using those technologies. The job support of Codeworks was also far more comprehensive than that of other bootcamps. I have a couple of friends who opted for Le Wagon, and I've found work in a company that I really enjoy working with in far less time than they have. Some are even considering reverting back to their previous careers.

One thing that I was a bit hesitant about before committing was the way that the lectures are run. On paper it seems a bit unorthodox to be studying on site, but all lectures are over Zoom. Thankfully I didn't let it deter me, and quickly realised that it actually makes a lot of sense, allowing you to work with more students and be exposed to different ways of thinking and different ways of looking at solving problems. It wasn't disruptive to my education at all.
Finally, the projects in the senior half really give you a (little) taste of the full scope of developing an application, including providing some good experience of issues that you'll likely run into in a commercial environment.

The hours are quite demanding, but I was really surprised how quickly I got used to it.

Overall, I couldn't recommend it enough. If the cost is a potential issue for you, I would encourage you to try to make it work. there's a reason it's more expensive, and you really get what you pay for with these bootcamps, so don't skimp on your future. Plus, they provide a bunch of different payment methods to accommodate every student.

I recently completed an 8-week Web Development Immersive coding bootcamp that was truly transformative. The program was incredibly intense, with 12-hour days dedicated to mastering coding skills. The rigorous schedule pushed me to my limits, but it was worth it. The challenges presented during the bootcamp helped me grow immensely as a coder. The daily coding challenges tested my problem-solving abilities and allowed me to apply what I learned in a practical way. Overall, this bootcamp was a demanding yet rewarding experience that significantly enhanced my coding skills and prepared me for real-world development projects.