Hackbright Academy News

Anna Peery was in search of a fulfilling career, and after enjoying a bootcamp prep course, she decided to take the leap into software engineering at Hackbright Academy. Even though her career change wasn’t traditional, she landed a job as a software engineer at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory shortly after graduating. Anna tells us exactly why she chose Hackbright Academy, the Python curr...

Schools and universities may be scrambling to figure out remote learning, but coding bootcamps have essentially been preparing for this since 2013. Online coding bootcamps already use Zoom video, Slack, GitHub, and VS Code Live Share for pair programming, online lectures, and to connect mentors and instructors with students. Of course, you can learn to code online – but it doesn’t stop there! M...

Reyna Diaz began her career as a medical assistant, working in patient care and administration, but she soon realized neither were her dream job. She took her empathy and problem-solving skills to Hackbright Academy where she attended their Software Engineering bootcamp. Just three months after graduating from Hackbright Academy, Reyna is now working as a Software Engineer at Commure! We spoke ...

When mechanical engineer Celia Song launched a startup, she had to teach herself to code to build its website. That experience kickstarted her career change and Celia found all-women bootcamp Hackbright Academy and won their Phenomenal Woman Scholarship. Celia tells us how she landed a job as a Software Developer after the Hackbright Demo Day and shares advice for other women who want to work i...

Katherine Louie is a Technical Recruiting Manager for Accenture with a focus on Diversity & Inclusion, so she knows how important it is to hire diverse technical teams. Accenture partners with Hackbright Academy, an all-women coding bootcamp in San Francisco, and has hired five graduates into their Technology and Consulting Development Programs! Katherine was impressed with the students’ drive ...

Ruby vs Python vs JavaScript vs Java vs .NET – how do you choose your first programming language? Some experts will argue that fundamentals are more important than the language itself, and while we agree, you do need to choose a language in order to learn those fundamentals. We’re running through the pros and cons of each language, the average salaries to expect, and the job prospects for each ...

Stacey was a veterinarian, but started coding little apps to help her with calculations at work. She found she really enjoyed coding so decided to make a career change! Stacey enrolled at women’s coding bootcamp Hackbright Academy in San Francisco to accelerate her learning and learn how to build useful tools for vets. Read the article or watch the video to learn about VetCalc, the amazing (and...

Takia’s background involved biology, robotics, and automation, but she was ready to expand into coding as a career. She initially took Hackbright Academy’s Prep course, but decided not to pursue their full-time program as she didn’t want to quit her job. When Hackbright launched their part-time program in 2018, Takia jumped at the chance to learn to code, while continuing to work. Takia tells u...

Impressed with a new hire who had graduated from Hackbright Academy, VP of Engineering at Sharethrough, Rob Slifka, was inspired to get involved with the all-women’s bootcamp. Three years later, Rob continues to mentor students and guest lectures about how new engineers can find jobs they’ll love. Rob tells us what he loves about mentoring software engineers, why he would hire more Hackbright A...

This November has been super busy in the immersive coding education world, and at Course Report! We read about how Amazon’s new headquarters will impact the coding bootcamps in New York City, we celebrated successful coding bootcamp grads, we were sad to hear that a school is closing, we heard advice for being successful at bootcamp, and found out about new initiatives to improve diversity in t...

Heather Mahan is an instructor at Hackbright Academy’s South Bay campus – a community she loves building. We caught up with Heather to see what she’s like in the classroom. Learn about her teaching style (as a Hackbright graduate herself, she always remembers what it’s like to be a beginner), why it’s important for women to learn in a supportive environment, and the two qualities she finds in h...

After hearing requests from students, all-women’s coding bootcamp Hackbright Academy is launching Online Python 101, a self-paced, online course for women interested in learning to code and looking to get a taste of Hackbright. The new Online Python 101 course will start in November 2018. Senior Director of Education, Meggie Mahnken, explains who the flexible online course is meant for, how her...

Coding bootcamps like Hackbright Academy help women break into the tech industry quickly, but we can’t ignore that women leave the tech industry at a 45% higher rate than men. In order to stay in tech, women need to feel involved in the community – and I’ve learned a few lessons over the last 2 years post-bootcamp. You don’t have to be an extrovert to be an integral part of your tech community;...

So you’re thinking of hiring a coding bootcamp graduate, but not sure how to approach it. After speaking with 12 real employers from companies like Cisco, Stack Overflow, and JPMorgan Chase, we’ve compiled the best advice and lessons learned when hiring a coding bootcamp graduate. Following these steps will help you build a diverse, open-minded, loyal engineering team that finds creative soluti...

In the coding bootcamp industry in June 2018 the biggest trend we saw was coding bootcamps funneling grads into apprenticeships! We also saw two big fundraises by bootcamp-adjacent organizations, we heard about some interesting new legislation which could change how online bootcamps operate, and some bootcamp alumni launched exciting new careers. We also look at the effect bootcamps are having ...

Neha Gupta was a doctor in naturopathic medicine before realizing she wanted a career that enabled her to solve more varied problems each day. With family and friends who worked as engineers in the tech industry, she had a supportive network to help her transition to tech. See why Neha chose to learn to code at all-women bootcamp Hackbright Academy, how her bootcamp learning experience compared...

Manisha Patel has a background in fine arts and worked in project management at Apple, but she was always fascinated by the work of the engineers she worked beside. So she decided to enroll at all-women coding bootcamp Hackbright Academy to learn Python in a supportive environment. Now Manisha is a software engineer at Reddit, and is excited about inspiring more women to make the move into tech...

In our April 2018 technology bootcamp news roundup we saw four overarching trends – bootcamp acquisitions, employers putting their own employees through bootcamp, a continued debate between college vs bootcamp, and efforts to expand accessibility to coding education for underrepresented groups in tech. We also look at apprenticeships, the evolution of bootcamp curricula, life after bootcamp, an...

In our March 2018 technology bootcamp news roundup, we discuss all the industry news that we've been talking about at Course Report! We have some fun celebratory announcements, we looked at news about the positive impact bootcamps are having on individuals and companies, and the debate continued between coding bootcamps and computer science degrees. We heard about some great student experiences...

Not everyone gets into coding bootcamp on their first try. Even though Valerie Moy had been working in tech operations for five years, and had taught herself some code, she struggled in the Hackbright Academy coding challenge interview. Valerie needed stronger foundational knowledge, so she enrolled in the part-time Hackbright Prep program to strengthen her Python skills. Valerie tells us how s...