Hack Reactor

Attending Hack Reactor was one of the BEST decisions I have ever made; it changed my life. I started my first job as a full stack engineer about a month ago, and Hack Reactor has fully prepared me to perform competently. I knew before beginning Hack Reactor that I would get a good education, but I was skeptical about outcomes; I worried I wouldn't be able to find a job. I have to say that, out of all the things Hack Reactor provides, I was most blown away by their outcomes support. My outcomes coach was there for me every step of the way, and I was able to find a job in less than two months after starting the job search. 

Before I begin my review of Hack Reactor’s remote program I think it would be beneficial to leave a brief personal background. I am a university student studying business and decided to attend Hack Reactor during the summer between my third and fourth year to get technical programming experience. During my business degree I have taken a number of computer science courses which helped me make the decision that I wanted to become a software engineer with a background in business and move towards developing business software as a career path.  With that as my goal, attending Hack Reactor turned out to be the best decision I could have made even though one of my other options was to complete a computer science degree at my university.

Now to talk specifically about Hack Reactor's remote immersive development program I will list and describe my pros and cons of the program.

Pros

1. The staff and their obsession with receiving feedback

The first pro I would like to write about is definitely the staff that makes the program one of the best out there. Each staff member (instructor, counsellor, recruitment advisor, teaching assistant…) understands the responsibility they have facing them and that the reason they have developed one of the best program’s among their competitors is because of their interest and perhaps obsession, with receiving feedback and then acting on such feedback.

Furthermore, since the remote class has (as I write) taught over 25 cohorts of roughly 25-30 students each, they have been able to develop a program that is incredibly effective at bringing in smart students with little development experience and turning them into software engineers with the skills to land high paying jobs immediately after graduation.

2. Your ability to become a software developer, not just a JavaScript software developer.

Before attending I was concerned that I was only going to be able to find jobs after graduation in JavaScript however Hack Reactor’s curriculum has been carefully designed to develop software developers while using JavaScript as the language to accomplish that goal. Many of my other cohort students have been finding opportunities developing software in other languages than JavaScript (i.e Java, Python, C…) in addition to the many students who did end up landing jobs in JavaScript roles.

3. The constantly evolving curriculum

One important reason behind Hack Reactor’s success in developing great software engineers is there ability and effort to stay on top of industry trends and change the curriculum when they see fit. Since the school takes responsibility for developing engineers who will have the skills to be able to find full time employment after graduation they hold themselves accountable for teaching students the most up to date technologies and skills. If they see that a new technology is gaining prominence in the industry they have the ability to work at getting new projects and lectures structured so that the next incoming cohort will be able to get that experience. Contrast this to university (mine in particular), where a change to the curriculum of a program takes at minimum 1.5 years.

4. Structured and challenging admissions process

This is another very important point that many other programming boot camps do not take as seriously as Hack Reactor. The admissions team does an incredible job at accepting the smartest and most motivated and energetic students who you will end up developing very close relationships with over the course of the 12 week program. Nearly all of the projects that you will develop at Hack Reactor are done in groups and never having to worry about who you will be paired with is one advantage which makes the school one of the best among its peers. In addition to being exposed to the best of applicants who you will be working with in your cohort, you also gain exposure to thousands of Hack Reactor alumni who are also as smart, energetic and motivated as you are who are always willing to spend time to give you advice or help understand a particular industry or company in which you are interested.

Con

1. Little time for rest and recovery

Finally I’ll take this opportunity to say that this program is not for everyone mainly for the reason that the course runs for 12 weeks, 6 days a week and a minimum of 10 hours a day. It is intense and not everyone will be able to handle it. When I first began I found it quite challenging to get acquainted with the intensity of the program but very quickly was able to get used to the course load. In addition if you are truly interested in programming and software development, time will fly by and you will find yourself looking forward to coming back to the computer on your spare time to continue learning.

To conclude I should mention one thing, this type of program might not match your learning style. If you’re someone who does not work well in a fast paced program and who may not be able to handle the heavy course load and intensity then you will find this program incredibly difficult. However, if you are someone who thinks you might be able to handle the course load you will excel and look back never thinking it would have been possible to learn that much in such little time. A truly great learning experience which has completely accelerated my career path and life.

Make sure to ask how much time you'll be spending coding because I assure you, with two hour lunches on the regular, it isn't as much as you would assume. Everything I learned I learned in the project phase, the largely self-taught portion of the course. The sprints are a waste, they move too quickly for one to absorb the content presented for the long term and the lack of instruction confuses things as they are anyway. Our Angular sprint for example was so bungled I'm still confused, months later. Paltry oversight from a 'tech mentor' who himself graduated Hack Reactor and doesn't seem to have done anything else. No professional experience, no help. HiRs (TAs) help with the sprints AND with most of the career-related stuff. What qualifications do they have? They gradutaed from Hack Reactor in the last 6 weeks and haven't found a job themselves yet. Very disappointing overall.

• Positives
  • You'll get job offers with high salaries and great benefits once you're done
  • You will actually know what you're doing when you start said job
  • Without question the best way to switch careers and become a software engineer in the shortest time frame possible
  • Fun experience if you love to code and build stuff
  • Extremely supportive, happy, and optimistic staff
• Negatives
  • They never sent me my Hack Reactor hoodie that they said they would send me after I finished >:(
  • The course is hard and you'll be stressed throughout a lot of it
  • You have no life when you're doing the program
  • Job searching after you're done sucks regardless of whether or not it's going well

This is a review after a couple of months graduating from Hack Reactor.

THE 6 MONTH HIRING RATE, THAT IS ON TOP OF 3 MONTHS OF BOOTCAMP AND AT LEAST 3 MONTHS THAT YOU SPENT BEFORE BOOTCAMP PREPARING. THAT IS A COMPLETE FULL YEAR... IN A COMPLETE FULL YEAR YOU CAN MOST DEFINATELY GET A JOB GRADUATING OUT OF ANY BOOTCAMP OR SELF LEARNING WHICH YOU WILL HAVE TO DO BECAUSE HACK REACTOR DOES NOT TEACH PROPERLY, ONLY A BREEZE THROUH (they call it congorour, I call it flipping pages in the book only reading headings) WHICH IS NOT ENOUGH TO GET A JOB.

Also more than half of students are already CS Grads or Engineering grads or have worked in the industry before so they bring the salary figures up. MAJORITY OF THE GRADS WITH NO PRIOR EXPERIENCE OR EDUCATION IN TECH DO NOT GET 105 THOUSAND IN SF WHERE AVERAGE BEGINNER SALARY IS AROUND 100K ANYWAYS. Other places have much lower salary figures.

There is nothing different or special about hack reactor apart from they take students who already know JavaScript to a very good level. 

All bootcamps teach the same material ie start from JavaScript revision then you build a front end then a back end and then you join them together.

Hack Reactor does not go over the foundations of any of these so you will be left with head spinning, knowing only partial picture of some stuff which used to work 4 years ago when there was such a shortage of developers that if you knew a,f,g,z they would give you a job thinking you will learn the rest. THIS IS NOT THE CASE ANYMORE.

THEY EMPLOY TRICKS LIKE OFFSHORE COMPANIES THAT SPECIALIZE IN WRITING FAKE REVIEWS AND THEY WRITE MANY FAKE REVIEWS THEMSELVES. YOU WILL SEE WHERE THERE ARE A FEW BAD REVIEWS THEY ARE IMMEDIATELY DROWNED BY FAKE GOOD REVIEWS PLEDGING ITS THE BEST THING THEY HAVE EVER DONE. I searched the profile of one in google review and they were based in China and writing 5 star reviews by the hundreds in a single day of resturants and busineess all over the world.

IF YOU DONT SEE THE WRITING ON THE WALL AND THROW YOUR 18000 THEN ONLY YOU ARE TO BLAME...

One of the biggest draws to Hack Reactor was the stat on their front page which said, 98% employed after 3 months, average salary, 96,000.  Now that's changed a bit from time to time but in March of 2017 Hack Reactor released updated, verified results that were much, much different.  

For the remote class, the employed percent after 6 months is in the 70s percentage wise, and average salary is 81k.  And keep in mind, this is after 6 months!  After three were talking 40 percentage wise.  

What happend?  Was there really that big of a shift, or were previous numbers fudged?   

Plus, once you subtract out of field jobs, the numbers get even worse.  

So, if you don't want to get a job afterwards, then the class is quite okay.  Keep in mind there are no real engineers that are teaching you, just previous students with no work experience, and all the materials used in class can be found in free books or on github repositories of previous students.  

If you're looking for a mentor that knows what they're doing, I would look elsewhere  

I graduated from Hack Reactor Remote program a few days ago. Hack Reactor is a great program, 17,000 dollars worth? I don’t think so.

If Hack Reactor cost 12,000 dollars the price would be right.

Hack Reactor helped me improve as a programmer in many ways but there was only one technical staff member and most of what I learned was during the project phase, during the second half of the 12 weeks; when Hack Reactor is no longer teaching students. Hack Reactor is very much a learn-it-yourself type of program. I think the 12,000 dollars is only worth it because Hack Reactor creates a rigorous learning environment, aka scheduled discipline, and because of Hack Reactor’s outcome team.

I wish Hack Reactor tried a little harder to increase diversity or change the status quo of the tech industry but at the end of the day, Hack Reactor is just another business trying to make money. If you are a woman, specifically a woman of color, I would remember that Hack Reactor is a boys club just like the rest of the tech industry so be prepared for a lot man-explaining and condensing attitudes from your male counterparts.

I had the largest female cohort of 8 out of 32 people, Hack Reactor typically has 2–3 women, sometimes only 1 woman, per cohort.

I would say pioneer on, work hard, and make sure you take advantage of the Hack Reactor remote women’s community; they are your greatest resource during the program (I can’t stress this enough). 

Hack Reactor was an incredibly rigorous few months of hard work, but from what I saw you gain exponentially with how much work you're willing to put in.

The curriculum is tough but doable. It felt at times like it was moving too fast and I wasn't absorbing things, but I wound up surprised at how much I know (and now have time to go over the finer details, or the confidence to know I can learn it on the job). There were a couple of curriculum hiccups, but they're always asking for feedback and making improvements so I feel sure that they'll be straightened out before the next iteration (though the next generation may have to go through some new issues for the sake of the future as well). I don't think they could be the program they are without this process.

The staff is knowledgable and caring, but they're training you to be independent engineers and you shouldn't expect a ton of hand-holding. You definitely have to be disciplined and motivated enough to push yourself through the tough times. And there will be tough times, but it's worth it for what you can learn and the people you'll meet. And that's really one of the biggest draws - I got to meet and work with all these amazingly smart, driven people from all over, that I'd never have come across otherwise but am so happy I did.