Jigsaw Labs

Before I start off, I first want to say that this is my third bootcamp class within the last 7 years and jigsaw labs stands at the top in terms of quality and execution.  Jeff is a consummate instructor and he gave all of his students a high level of attention, knowledge of the information, and an uplifting attitude to help you succeed. The data engineering program is takes place on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday from 6:30pm - 9:30pm and 12pm - 9pm on Sundays. Spending this amount of hours in class accelerates your learning so I really appreciated the format. The scheduling of class also allowed to you to take care of your affairs outside of the class as well. Jeff used pair-programming, project-based assignments, and studying material  as different ways to teach you the data engineering principles. Jeff was very patient  when teaching and helping us through our assignments. Another factor that I enjoyed about the class was opportunity to get an internship. The internship helped us put the knowledge we learned into practice and it also served as a portfolio piece as well.  Aside from teaching the data engineering concepts Jeff was there for moral support when concepts weren't making sense. He made it easy to schedule a 1v1 and talk through the problem you are experiencing. I was able to land two internships (one paid) in conclusion I am looking forward to continued strides I will continue to make in the future. In conclusion, the program has been a life-changing experience. It has   certainly helped me grow as a professional and a person in general. If you are looking for a program that will ensure you learn the info, hold you accountable, and provide you will guidance for the future, JIGSAW LABS IS THE PROGRAM YOUR ARE SEEKING!

I chose this course because I was looking for a place that had live teaching online that was well structured pedagogically and I was not disappointed.  Jeff is a phenomenal teacher and I used to teach for years so I don't just say that for anybody.  My experience with the externship part of the course was a bit rocky but I also learned a ton of javascript and new tools from it that I will totally use in my next role.  
I also took the course while working a pretty intense full-time job for the entirety of the course and I was able to do it.  I often wished I had more time to explore the additional resources or work on things outside of class (if you have the option to go lighter on work to focus more on the course that is great!!) but it is not a requirement for you to be successful.  You can do this course and have a full-time job - the schedule is built for that to be possible.  
This is not an easy course, you have to be present and work through your mental hurdles. It is also a super supportive environment so if you are game to put in the work you will keep getting better. 
Honestly taking this course was one of the best decisions I have made in my life.  I have felt so challenged and also so rewarded.  The job offers I've received post-course have been awesome.  There are not a lot of women of color in this field and even though I was definitely in the minority in the class I really felt super supported and connected to the other folks in my cohort.  Jeff is very kind and understanding and he really knows how to teach so if you are looking for a program where someone is earnestly thinking about how to break things down into intensive exercises this is your course. 

It's obvious that Jeff’s passion is teaching. He puts in effort to adjust to and support his students and will dive into problems (such as debugging your code) for however long it takes. Jeff is a patient teacher and I never had any kind of friction with the way he taught; it was totally fluid for me.

What sold me on the legitimacy of the program was that Jeff weekly iterates on the curriculum to reflect the requirements of current job listings. He is really focused on the primary goal of forging as painless a path as possible for his students to go into a rewarding career. He tailors the curriculum to the real-time evolution of the industry, making sure he is teaching exactly what students need to know to become data engineers in the present day.   Externship experience is one of the main reasons why the Data Engineering Career Course is a fantastic bridge for professionals pivoting careers or recent graduates. Having a solid externship under your belt with a supporting data engineering team and building-block projects to complete not only gives industry experience but also gives many other benefits. For example, if you were in a bootcamp that did not provide an externship or one that did not vet companies properly, you would have a much less convincing case for getting hired. Being able to walk into an interview and talk in a detailed manner about some major projects that you helped build goes a long way.   As for value and return on investment, I will probably never make a better major ROI decision than completing this bootcamp. Not only is the price lower than other reputable bootcamps in New York, but the 'pay after you land a job' option meant that I was reaping the full benefits of the bootcamp before I even thought about the course payments.

Transitioning into working as a full-time data engineer only six months after starting the course, I can say Jigsaw Labs provided me a highly efficient skills-focused education that gave me a tooth to bite with in this competitive world. I am grateful for the hard work Jeff puts in and for finding Jigsaw Labs the way I did. 

    I had been looking to get into the field of data and programming and took numerous short intro classes at several well known technical schools/bootcamps to see if it would be worth it to take their full time courses in data science and data engineering. 
What I found was that the instructors really couldn’t really be hands on because the class sizes were too large and many instructors just couldn’t teach. 
    It was too much of a risk in time and tuition costs (also possibly having to quit my full time job) to possibly be stuck with a bad teacher. I was not willing to take the leap into signing up for a long term bootcamp until I found Jeff Katz who's the instructor and founder of Jigsaw Labs. He previously worked at Flatiron school and created their data science program. 
    His classes worked around my full time M-F job schedule and the tuition was thousands less than what the other bootcamps were charging for similar curriculums. The curriculum is state of the art and focuses on teaching the basic concepts and the current popular technologies based on his research of current job market requirements for data engineers. 
    Jeff is very concerned about student experience. He has been very supportive, knowledgeable and a resource to all his students past and present. The students in my class were awesome people who were very motivated and great to work with. 

Coming from a "non-traditional" background (law) makes the lead instructor Jeff's mastery of a whole range of data engineering subject matters all the more amazing. 

For someone like me seeking to transition to data engineering from a "non-traditional" background (law and international relations), Jigsaw Labs' curriculum covering in-demand skills, coupled with Jeff's attentiveness (one-on-one office hours in addition to regular classes), has been a huge boost to my domain knowledge and morale. 

Another pedagogical feature, pair-coding, has been both effective and enjoyable. 

As the saying goes: "If you want to learn something, read; if you want to understand something, write; if you want to master something, teach." 

I solidified my learning by making small contributions here and there to the various pair-coding sessions; and learned still more from the amazing peers in my cohort, many of whom are very knowledgeable even beyond Python coding and SQL scripting (one taught me Linux bash and various command line tricks).

I was in the  Programming For Data Science class.  The course schedule was part-time (nights and weekends), which was a major reason I signed up. 

  The course is a great place to start if you are interested in data science. If you can't access and manipulate data, you can't be a data scientist. The curriculum is an intro to all the basics in programming one would need to produce and manipulate data sets. This is exactly what I needed to get started in this field. 
  Jeff, the instructor, is engaging during class and generous with his time. He was willing to stay after class for questions and very responsive to email. It's obvious that he cares about his students. 
  The only downside to this class is that the pace is very fast (meaning lots of topics over a short period of time). Overall, I would recommend this class to anyone that wants to get started in data science. You will pick up a lot of great information and meet a great teacher.   

Jigsaw Labs Data Engineering Bootcamp was a great experience for me.

I've been a Software Developer for many years, and was looking for a change and decided I would like to pursue a job in Data Engineering. 

After doing some research online, I contacted several Data Engineering bootcamps to feel them out and try to find a good fit. I wanted more than just the education, but a process for finding that first job as well. 

Most bootcamps, as soon as I started talking to them, when I asked them about help with job placement, they would say "We'll help you with your linked in Profile, spruce up your resume." I was looking for more than that, I already have a competitive resume and Linked in profile, I was looking for more.

As soon as I contacted Jigsaw Labs, and had my first Zoom meeting, I knew I had found the right place. The instructor, Jeff Katz, met with me personally, where the other bootcamps it was a salesperson etc. He interviewed me and we talked about my goals etc and experience. I was in class the next week.

Jeff is a fantastic instructor, he takes the content and really helps the students understand it, taking as much time as needed. The content is very comprehensive and focused. They do a lot of research on what Companies are looking for, focusing on those skills to improve your chances of finding a job quickly after graduation.

And did I mention they have 100% placement ? Thats because even though they help you with interview prep, you also have a 3 month Externship with a Data Engineering company doing real work. You graduate with experience to help with that all important job placement. 

In addition, you are not abandoned after graduation. They work with you weekly as you still meet with the class to keep your new skills current through practice and discussion, and of course with helping you with locating that all important job.

I heartily recommend Jigsaw Labs Data Engineering Bootcamp. It is thorough, and to be honest fun. Jeff and his instructors are great teachers, and great people, a joy to be around. 

The students were motivated and fantastic as well. 

I can't recommend this enough, and by the way, its much cheaper than the other Data Engineering Bootcamps out there.

Jeff and Jigsaw Labs have helped changed the trajectory of my life and career over the course of a few short months.  We went through the essentials of Python and SQL, and then we dove into intensive work with dbt, Docker, Airflow, Snowflake, Fivetran.  The paired programming was very helpful for the learning process, where someone could help you fill in the blank, and you can do the same for them.  

With the newly gained knowledge and experience, Jeff matched us with externships with companies interested in helping us get our first experiences of working in the tech industry, which is just something that isn't really offered anywhere else.  Even though the externship wasn't perfect, it was through this experience I've been able to get another internship with a potential job offer at the end of the term.  

The best part about the course is you'll find yourself with a supportive group, all of whom are looking out for your eventual success, led by an instructor who really, truly cares about his students.  

I would say this course provides you with the foundations to be an effective member of a data or backend team, understanding that you will be responsible for the majority of your growth once you've joined the team.  So, if you've been thinking about making a change, go for it! 

Jig Saw Labs Backend Engineering bootcamp was an incredibly rigorous, challenging, and rewarding investment and experience. I'm a former middle school principal so I know a few things about good instruction - in particular, good online instruction since the last two years forced us to determine how to effectively provide online instruction tantamount to in person instruction. Beyond his genius as a developer, Jeff is an incredible instructor, which is fueled by a holistic and rigorous curriculum that he wrote. Jeff strikes an excellent balance of providing direct instruction in conjunction with sufficient opportunities for practice and review in the form of labs. 

Jeff does an excellent job of building community amongst the members of the cohort because we were required to have our cameras on and share our screens as we pair programmed in class, which effectively supported our learning as we were able to build with one another in a really robust way. Most programs out there don't set the expectations for online learning to minimize the isolation feeling of learning how to be a developer, which inevitably decelerates learning. Jeff's format is the most effective way of learning in an online environment. 

The curriculum is sequenced in a way that is career focused toward backend/data engineering. Beyond the technical curriculum, Jeff's curriculum also addresses the mindset of being an engineer, which was pretty uncomfortable at first. It's like learning how to walk, which takes time and consistent effort. 

Enrolling in the program guarantees you an internship that will jumpstart your portfolio and give you experience for your resume, which is HARD to come by (the catch 22 - you need experience to get experience). Companies are literally fighting to get interns from this program, as Jeff informed us he had to turn down several companies in the process of placing each of us. My internship with Meltano put me on the map for recruiters and led me to scoring a job as a backend software engineer at a financial tech company.

Finally, I'm convinced that this is the best program (because I've started in others and stopped because they weren't executed well or aligned to my learning style) because there is a high level of support for job search (beyond the internship), preparing for the coding interviews that plague many new developers, and he makes himself available whenever you need. This program is made for you to succeed, and Jeff is just as invested if not more invested than you will be in ensuring your desired career path is realized. 

I give this program a 20/10 because it truly changed my life professionally when I wasn't sure if a job in tech could actually happen for me.
Pros:
- Tons of practice in the format of labs- Access to historical curriculum
- Recorded classes for your review
- Nonjudgmental, high accountability, high support learning environment
- Free online curriculum for you to explore
- Excellent instructor with a WEALTH of knowledge, experience and a passion for the work; full accessible for whatever additional support you need outside of class
- Curriculum is ever changing for improvement
- Fully remote yet LIVE online
- Cost is cheaper than some of the bigger named programs (payment program is offered as well)
- Small class sizes- Guaranteed internship
Cons:
- Cost (for some); but it's worth every penny- Sunday class is 9 hours - but this is the reason why you learn so much so quickly 

I had a wonderful experience with the Jigsaw Labs career course, and would strongly recommend moving forward on it!! Jeff did a superb job of distilling complex topics into manageable concepts and tasks. I believe there might be only a handful of instructors/camps available that have both the competence and pedagogical know-how to communicate these topics well. The consistency of labs, where you apply hands-on experience, and thoughtful layering of the topics, provided an amazing accelerant for my learning curve and had me feeling very competent by the end of it and ready for more projects! Right after the course ended, through Jigsaw's externship program, I worked with a former Amazon data scientist veteran to help build an Ecommerce application that improves business operations for store owners.

Take this bootcamp if you are seriously considering a Data Engineering career. Jeff will challenge you to grow, but also offers a lot of guidance if/when needed. A lot of the topics covered have helpful labs, and the class structure promoted pair and individual practice as well as support you need when making a career change.  I got my job offer though his career services, but you have to do your part in studying and preparing. He strategically vets hiring managers and recruiters your way.