I chose Jigsaw Labs after dozens of BootCamp interviews because Jeff outright nerded out about his research and curriculum, he wasn't selling anything just sharing the state of data and where we fit in that world. I joined this course having absolutely no background in programming or computer science, part of me didn't believe I could come out the other end as a skilled engineer but I have and feel confident in my skills. I could not recommend this course highly enough. 

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.   

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.

Jeff obviously puts a lot of work into curriculum development. His explanations, readings, and labs are all really top-notch. I also think the curriculum itself is very strong, and he's made a good effort to ensure that the students actually use the tools that are taught (Python, AWS, Flask, Streamlit, PostgreSQL, Docker, Kubernetes, Redshift) when they build out their final projects. Docker and Kubernetes are possibly more DevOps- than Data Engineering-centric, but they're in huge demand, and once I put them on my LinkedIn profile I starting getting all kinds of relevant outreach from recruiters.

Most important, he gets a really good idea what the skills of the students are, and their interests and desires, then goes out and does a lot of legwork to get the students the interviews they need. He's a fantastic advocate. I got several interviews through him, and one of them turned into a job.

Oh, one more thing: he's very generous with his time. There are lots of one-on-ones in class and he provides office hours outside class—and strongly encourages students to use them.

My only con is that I wish he'd spent a little more time on PySpark and possibly NoSQL.

I highly recommend the Data Engineering program from Jigsaw Labs. When I started the school, I had been trying to teach myself how to code with books and online tutorials for months. I quickly got up the learning curve with the excellent teaching and curriculum by Jeff (the instructor and founder of Jigsaw). Jeff cares so much about each student's progress and I like how the smaller class size allows for a more personalized learning experience. The curriculum builds a really solid understanding of the fundamentals and then grows this by covering a lot of topics at a quick pace. When I tell my software/data engineering friends what we're learning, they're impressed by how much the curriculum covers. 

Jeff provides amazing mentorship and instruction on the journey into Data Science.  This was actually the second data science course I was involved in as the topics can become very complex very quickly.   Jeff's understanding and ability to break down these topics made this course extremely enjoyable. To put it simply there are a lot of data science classes out there, but not many Jeff Katz.   

The curriculum covered in this class can become overwhelming quickly so I would recommend making sure you have time in your life to focus.  

Hands down the best curriculum and instructor to introduce you to data engineering and cloud deployment. Jeff's personal approach shows you the intricacies of the industry and the tools needed to make you a sought out candidate. There is no substitute to hands on the keyboard and doing. If you're looking for a fast, highly technical, and relevant course, Jigsaw Labs is the school for you.