Rithm School

My name is Hinesh and I attended Rithm as part of the 8th cohort. I was looking at some other bootcamps but a friend had attended Rithm and recommended it and from the first day, I could see why. The classes sizes are small and access to instructors is always there. 

The instructors at Rithm truly care about teaching and it shows. They are also extremely talented developers themselves. The curriculum is extremely well thought out and does a good job in balancing breadth and depth. They also really take feedback well and make changes to the curriculum for the better based on it. 

The internship experience is also incredible for 4 weeks and differentiates Rithm. You get to work with a large, real codebase and complete tasks which gives you an insight into life in software development after the bootcamp. 

If you put in the time and work hard you will succeed at Rithm because the environment, from the class size to the instructors to the job support after the program, will ensure that you do. It was one of the best decisions I have ever made and would make it again in a heartbeat. 

In short, my return was certainly worth the cost of admission - especially with the deferred tuition model. In four months, I went from not knowing a lick of JavaScript, to getting my Pull Requests accepted on production codebases with React Native advanced patterns. Technical expertise isn't the only thing I got from Rithm. They also taught me invaluable interprersonal skills as well as strategies for navigating the jobseeking process. I even got a job within the first few weeks of graduating by using one of my Rithm connections.

In more depth, the small class sizes made the instructors incredibly available - all of whom are skilled software engineers. With their varied expertise, I could get all of my questions addressed - no matter how deep I went down the rabbit hole. If I wanted to know why 'with' blocks function the way they do in Python, I could ask the guy who contributed to the Python source code. If I wanted to know about NP-Complete and how that relates to Big O, I could ask the one with a Mathematics pHD. Even if I wanted to know why "{ } + [ ]" returned 0 but "[ ] + { }" returned "[object Object]" in JavaScript, I could get my questions answered.

Their curriculum is always being updated on multiple levels. By asking for data from recent graduates about their job hunting experience, they can focus on relevant technologies while relegating less important topics to footnotes or Further Study. Additionally, every lecture has an option for feedback, and they definitely pay attention; the Callback Pattern exercise was substantially rewritten after they processed our feedback.

Their support continues even after graduation. They keep office hours every week specifically for alumni and assist in fine tuning the job search for best results. They're really looking out for their students' best interests.

Lastly, they understand the importance of work-life balance. The assessments are just challenging enough to solidify the lessons learned throughout the week. Even though the core requirements are designed to be completed in a reasonable amount of time, reach goals are included as well for the ambitious student. They also throw parties for significant curriculum achievements - such as completing your first sprint! There's often a group of people staying around after class to play a few board games. Although the schedule quite rigorous and challenging, the culture really makes it manageable.

All in all, an incredible experience

Bonus: The company dog is great, and they let me bring my own well-behaved therapy dog to class!

There isn't much I can say that hasn't already been said by the reviews below.

Kristen's TL;DR is a great example of what I mean. All of us feel the same way about Rithm. From the instructors to job assistance, it really hits it out of the park throughout the entire bootcamp.

The curriculum is insanely well thought out and executed. There is the right amount of lecturing and the right amount of project building (seriously, check out any of our Github accounts - there's a ton of cool projects we've built).

In addition, it's constantly evolving using feedback from previous cohorts in attempt to provide the best experience possible.

Not understanding a certain topic? That's OK - you have advisor hours with one of the instructors where you can go through certain topics and discuss what's tripping you up.

Not enough? That's still OK - the instructors will go out of their way to help you understand. They're there to do that, they love teaching and want to see you succeed.

That sort of environment fosters a lot of personal and educational growth which benefits both you and your classmates.

The instructors love teaching (that's why they're there), love seeing people succeed and love answering any and all questions. I recommend attending one of their nightly classes (or auditing a class) to see them in action.

Finally, finding a job post bootcamp. It's hard. Really, really hard. But that doesn't mean impossible (Setting that dramatic tone, no?).

Rithm prepares you for your post-bootcamp life by teaching you CS fundamentals and exposing you to real-world work. When you talk to recruiters, they'll want to see and know more about that real-world work and you'll have that in your back pocket.

When you talk to other engineers, they'll want to know how much you know. Those CS fundamentals will come in handy.

You'll be confident about yourself, what you know, and the work you've done. And then you'll get a job. And then you'll find yourself writing a review saying the same thing we're all saying, what a challenging yet rewarding experience this was (couldn't help myself. Love corny endings).

Good luck (and feel free to hit me up if you want to chat about Rithm or programming or anything really)!

tldr: Rithm wins for best instruction, curriculum, community, and job seeking support. 

Curriculum: All of Rithm's curriculum can be found online. They are continually re-evaluating and making sure they are teaching the most relevant and in demand topics while also teaching solid CS and engineering skills. The content is modern, relevant, and still full of the necessary foundational computer science and problem solving skills you need to be a successful software engineer. 

Internship/Company project: Towards the end of your program, you'll get assigned to a company project where you'll pair with fellow students and a Rithm instructor to make meaningful contributions to a real production code base. This is ran like an internship and nothing is more satisfying than seeing something you built go live!!! And when it comes time to job hunt, you'll have relevant experience to help guide those interview conversations. 

Instruction: If you want to teach yourself, just go watch youtube videos and read tutorials on medium or quora. If you want to actually have instructors that will patiently help you with ANYTHING that you're struggling with, go to Rithm. Code alongs, lectures with slides you can actually keep/reference back to, lab projects and sprints that involve pair programming and solo projects, stretch goals for advanced students and further study for students who need more scaffolding before mastering a topic. 

Community: So much of community depends on your fellow cohort members. Each cohort will have its own personality, but the staff will go the extra mile to make sure everyone is included, safe, and comfortable. Sorry judgy mcjudgersons, you won't find a home here. 

Job seeking support: At the end of the day, what every potential boot camper wants to know is "will I find a job." Rithm publishes their numbers transparently. The onus is you to do the job seeking, but they are there for you to provide the skills on how to job seek and where to look. The Rithm alumni networking is growing and we refer where we can. The instructors helped me with things like advice for negotiating once I got my job offer, editing my cover letter and resume, practice whiteboarding and take home projects. 

Rithm has all kinds of free coding meet ups. There is no better way to check out a school than to see how they teach these free workshops. Most of us alumni are also very findable on LinkedIn, so feel free to reach out to chat! Or better yet, just apply to Rithm and join our awesome community! 

A brief history--I majored in Film & Media Studies, worked at a Fortune 500 animation studio, as a nutrition & exercise coach, and EMT & Firefighter Intern before transitioning into software development. After getting my feet wet with some JavaScript prep work, I had my pick of the larger well-known boot camps in the Bay Area. Ultimately however I decided upon Rithm School for several invaluable reasons--each of the instructors was previously a developer with a passion to educate others, class sizes are intentionally small to maintain a productive student-teacher ratio, and Rithm networks with Bay Area businesses to provide each of its students a full time, one month internship working alongside professional engineers to develop features for production codebases. Without any direct mobile experience, I was able to join a team developing a React Native iOS event hosting app to beta for user testing, helping to create a mobile experience and additional source of revenue for a company with a pre-existing web version of the application. In just over three months after graduating Rithm School, with much credit due to my internship experience, the rigorous curriculum, and supportive instructors, I am employed full time as a software engineer on a mobile development team with incredible room for professional growth across the stack. I have a great deal of work to do to continue to earn the opportunities before me, but without a doubt I have been prepared to remain consistent and confident as I grow as an engineer because of my education with Rithm School. I was taught to be resilient and thoughtful--a problem solver first and foremost--with a wide range of exposure to full stack development/technologies, conceptual knowledge discussion, data structure/algorithm practice, and career coaching to support me. I went from zero coding experience to earning an excellent role within one year of committing to pursuing this path, and there are many other stories like mine. If you dream of working in software development, or are even considering it a possibility, I cannot recommend nor express my gratitude for Rithm School and its staff enough.

Going to Rithm School was one of the best things I've ever done for myself.  

As an individual who was unable to finish college due to some unavoidable circumstances, I was always so concerned I would never be able to pursue a career in technology.  I was wrong.

I spent a handful of years working in jobs that I didn't really like.  It always felt like something was missing. This led me to tinker with the idea of going to a coding bootcamp, and eventually decided to take the plunge and move forward.  I completed the Hack Reactor prep program remotely, and absolutely loved what I was learning.  I worked hard throughout the course, and at the end I passed the technical interview and was accepted to their immersive program.  I wanted to pursue other options in order to make the most informed decision.  One of the guys I met through the Hack Reactor course told me about Rithm School, and I also applied to Galvanize.  I was accepted to all three (HR, Rithm, Galvanize), and I had to make a decision.

Through word of mouth, I heard amazing things about Rithm School.  At the time they were a much newer program, and had only worked with 5 cohorts.  Their approach was much different than most of the other programs I looked into, and I liked what I saw.

The main reason I chose Rithm was because of their emphasis on small class room sizes.  I have never been able to learn very well in large classrooms.  I found the idea of working in a small intimate group much more appealing than being just another person in a massive room.

If anybody tells you that going through Rithm's immersive program is easy, they are lying.  I worked harder than I ever have in my life.  There is so much material to learn, and it moves quickly.  From day one I felt extremely welcomed by all of the instructors, and they served as an excellent source for me to get personal questions answered, which made a huge difference.  There were many times I felt like I had hit a wall.  I wanted to give up!  But those feelings always passed, and before I knew it I started to feel like an engineer.

Rithm does an excellent job at providing the necessary information and tools to be successful in the course.  It was obvious that they had a clear picture of what works and what doesn't.  The curriculum is well laid out, and each topic tends to build on the previous one.  

My favorite part of the program was the company projects phase.  I was able to work with an awesome start-up, and build deployable features for their application before I had even finished a bootcamp!  It was an awesome experience, and it really solidified everything I had learned in the first half of the program.

The last phase of the program (outcomes) was also crucial for my success.  There is so much I didn't know about the interviewing and hiring process for technical roles.  Over the course of just a few weeks I learned how to master technical interviews, take home challenges, phone screens, and even post offer negotiation.  I would've been screwed in my job search process without a lot of this information.
As the program neared an end, I had mixed feelings of both excitement and fear.  I was very concerned that I would have a super hard time finding a job without a Bachelor's degree on my resume.  I applied to hundreds of jobs, over the course of just a few weeks.  There were plenty of rejections, and it was hard work.  Amazingly enough, after a long interview process, I ended up getting offered an awesome position through a referral I had gotten from one of the instructors at Rithm.  All of the hard work was suddenly SO worth it.

Looking at my life today, I am beyond grateful for the opportunities I was given based on my decision to attend Rithm School.  I have built a strong group of peers (friends) through Rithm School, that I believe will remain a part of my network for many years to come.  I have a career that I LOVE, and I couldn't imagine myself doing anything else.  What more can I ask for?  I am so glad I chose to go to Rithm.

I'm naturally skeptical of a lot of things - Rithm at first was included in that.

After I decided to transition from being a photographer and designer to a software engineer, I began looking at bootcamps in the SF area. The ones that stuck out to me as the two most promising ones were App Academy and Rithm School. After attending App Academy's Bootcamp Prep - I opted for Rithm due to a variety of reasons.

Mostly: 

1. The word of mouth surrounding Rithm was exceptional. It was even recommended to me as a top notch program by my instructor at App Academy! It was difficult to find people who had anything negative to say about the program (again, I was skeptical, but read on). 

2. The month of real world company experience unique to Rithm's curriculum.

3. The small, intimate learning environment with real world instructors.

My instinct was pushing me to go to Rithm, and after attending their bootcamp prep program and meeting with Elie, I was sold. 

I worked harder than I probably ever have in my life but the amount of experience I was able to absorb in only 4 months was astounding to me. 

Rithm does a phenomenal job of giving you what you need to learn, demonstrating the value of it, and getting you moving on learning it immediately. At times I was worried that I was being fed things on a silver platter, but I later realized that it seems this way because they focus on essential patterns and best practices. They simply they don't dwell on inessential material. They save you a tremendous amount of time in doing so and you can always go back and experiment later on your own.

The trap I often encountered at Rithm was that because I didn't realize how much I had learned, I doubted myself. The skepticism was always lingering in my mind. Part of it was that I had little to no technical knowledge before attending the program, and another part of it was simply self-doubt. 

Now that I am on the other side, have landed a job, and am now integrating into a new codebase - I can honestly say that Rithm is ridiculously legitimate. A truly A+ quality program. Rithm takes a modern, adaptive approach to a modern, adapting industry - and the solution is pure elegance.

The beauty of their system is that it not only works, but it improves every time. They are constantly re-evaluating and sharpening their program and output. They adapt to give each individual person what they need to succeed and they listen when you have an issue. 

It's hard to believe at times that four months with the right people can so dramatically change your life if you let it. If you're going to be attending Rithm school: work hard, don't doubt yourself - if you do, never give up. 

TLDR: Rithm's ROI is more than worth it.  Go to Rithm.

When I first started thinking of making a career switch into coding, I was thinking about taking an online class and working at the same time.  I wanted to see if I liked coding and could do well at it, so I attended some free (yes, free) workshops at Rithm.  I learned a lot in those free workshops and realized I would learn much faster in person rather than online.  I still wasn't sure about Rithm because they were a bit more expensive than other bootcamps, but after attending some more workshops, I was sure that's where I wanted to go.  You get way more value for your money there.  Elie, Joel, Matt, and Michael are all very knowledgeable in addition to being excellent teachers.  I was impressed by their level of expertise, as well as their patience and skill answering questions and explaining concepts.  Four instructors for sixteen students allows you to get much more attention.  They took the time to meet with us one on one periodically to give us feedback and listen to our concerns.  It was clear they genuinely cared about what we were learning and were invested in seeing us succeed.  

Besides the outstanding instructors, which is sufficient reason to attend Rithm, they have a month devoted to a real-world company project that I could list on my resume when my job search began.  It was during the company project that I actually felt ready to be a professional developer and gained the confidence that I could actually do this.  

When it came time for me to find a job, they exceeded expectations.  All along, we were doing morning warm-ups in data structures and algorithms, practicing conceptual questions that come up in interviews, and practicing our problem-solving skills.  During the outcomes period, we practiced whiteboarding and answering conceptual questions in front of others.  And when I actually had phone screens and interviews, I was ready!  Everything we practiced was actually relevant and helpful.  Jeremy did an excellent job of explaining the value of reverse recruiting, how to reach out to people, how to negotiate job offers, and how to use the tools out their to find jobs.  It was not only helpful for finding my first job, but I'll have that knowledge throughout my career whenever I need it.

Not only did Rithm do an exceptional job of training me, but they actually found me a job just six weeks after I finished the program.  I applied to hundreds of jobs on my own, but Rithm got me the interview that landed me a job, a good one with a salary that I wouldn't have had the confidence to expect or ask for without their coaching.

In addition to all that, it was great experience and I had a good time getting to know my classmates and the staff.  So glad I made the decision to go to Rithm!

I was a university lecturer and legal-economic researcher before I decided on a career change. I attended Rithm’s 6th cohort and was very pleased with the education, the corporate project, and the job search support. I can only wholeheartedly recommend this bootcamp to anyone interested in switching to a career in software development.

You may ask why I attended a bootcamp, especially with so much college education under my belt as I have. I’m quite sure I would have been able to become a self-taught developer, given time, but I decided to attend a bootcamp for the time saving bootcamps can provide. I reasoned that a first-rate bootcamp would have a well thought out and well organized curriculum that distills the most important things I need to know to launch my career as a developer. I thought that the teachers would also keep me focused on these essential things, so I would absolutely not waste my time on learning unnecessary or low-priority things. Plus I hoped that the teachers would help me identify and leverage my strengths and identify and level up my weaknesses to be easily able to get a developer job after the bootcamp. In addition, I thought that the bootcamp would also provide a community of committed, like-minded people all of whom are in the same situation as myself, which can be very motivating and can help me through the rough patches of the learning process and job search.

I’ve been accepted to five bootcamps and vetted all of them before choosing Rithm. The reasons were the quality of Rithm’s curriculum, the commitment of its teachers, the company projects, and the included outcomes weeks and job search support. Rithm’s curriculum was very well organized, especially in comparison to the curricula of other bootcamps, where some of the elements even seemed ad hoc, as if grafted on as an afterthought. Obviously much thought was given to the design of Rithm’s curriculum, as it was building and expanding my knowledge gradually without major leaps or missing steps. Rithm has a permanent teaching staff with low turnover and an excellent teacher to student ratio; so I knew up-front who were going to be my teachers and what kind of teaching I was going to get. Other bootcamps have more temporary teaching staffs with high teacher turnover, so often they weren’t able to tell me who the teachers were going to be, not even how many of them we were going to have. During the bootcamp and even afterwards during job search I found the teachers of Rithm very professional, very committed to their craft, and also very committed to our success.

Rithm’s practice of contracting students out after 10 weeks of lectures to do real life company projects was also very sympathetic to me, and I haven’t seen this implemented anywhere else at Bay Area bootcamps. I thought of this as a final check whether I would actually be able to do the job and the final stage of actually becoming a real software developer. My company project also turned out to be a great conversation starter during my phone screens and interviews, and I suspect that my resume often got picked out of the pile because I had a company project on it. About the job search support I was a bit skeptical initially, because every bootcamp claims to provide some form of job search support. What was a bit different about Rithm was that the bootcamp had three weeks set aside specifically for “outcomes”, which was essentially education how to get a software developer job, from improving the resume to salary negotiations. This training also proved to be very useful and I even discussed my activities with the teachers and got advices after the bootcamp was over, right up to the point when I got an offer.

So I can’t thank Rithm enough: I really enjoyed the bootcamp and learned a lot in a very short time. And most importantly, at the end I landed an awesome job just five weeks into the job search. Thank you Rithm School

I attended Rithm and was part of cohort 5. At first I was a little skeptical about attending a boot camp since up until that point I was taking a bunch of online classes on Udemy. Why would I pay to go to school to learn something which I could easily learn online right? I couldn’t be further from the truth and a couple weeks in it was readily apparent to me that I still had a lot more to learn. 

The teachers are top notch and know their stuff really well. I did my due dilligence and went to a few meetups to see their teaching style as well as ask questions. They break down each topic into the fundamental parts and are able to answer most if not all my questions. They got me to where I needed to be and I was able to get a job shortly within a month of graduating. 

The reason why I chose Rithm over other bootcamps is the small class sizes and focus on company projects. I can tell you first hand how imperative it was during my interview process to talk about tangible work experiences and problem solving. This instantly gave me a competitive edge over other applications because I was selling myself as an "experienced hire".

Another reason was the small class sizes and tailored help. I asked alot of questions and I always got them answered promptly, even at night. I wouldn't get this type of support anywhere else. The teachers also provided ongoing support after graduating. I was going into Rithm as an alumni and doing takehome challenges and the teachers were more than willing to help.

Overall, my experience was really positive. I'd recommend this bootcamp. 

I was part of Rithm’s 3rd cohort (Elie, Matt, and Tim taught) and enjoyed learning there. Like many of you are doing, I was researching a lot before deciding on a coding school and spending hard earned money.

I hesitate to say like many others do that “it’s the best decision of my life” or “life changing” because everyone has had to make many smaller decisions up until the point in deciding to get into development seriously (or most any other career path, tbh). Plus, no matter what school/program you go through, it’ll be life changing— either you’ll end up with a job or you might give up and perhaps be in a significant amount of debt. You’re going to have to balance your skepticism, self-doubt, time, and energy to make it happen and trust the process. That being said, Rithm was a the best choice for me.

From the get-go from getting a call and then having a technical interview, Elie and the team were all friendly and gave specific feedback on how to improve as I whiteboarded problems. I really appreciated this, as Rithm’s interview process mirrors more of what it would be like for a job interview. Another school I had interviewed at before had me debug some code and though it is a needed skill, I’ve never had to debug code arbitrary code that was given to me during a job interview.

Here are some of my key takeaways from my time at Rithm as well as having mentored others who are starting to learn JavaScript (not at Rithm).

• You’ll learn faster with community. I was trying to do it on my own— Free Code Camp curriculum, many cheap/free online courses, community college classes, you name it— it’s possible of course (just look at all the Medium posts of success stories in X amount of months), but for the most part, you’ll be working on a team and many companies want to see that you can produce great work and collaborate with others, rather than seeing solo toy projects. The company projects and pair programming during the course helped build these skills.
• Teaching is iterative - every time you teach is another chance to improve the curriculum and explain things better; Rithm gets that. No teaching by watching video clips or teachers-who-are-really-students that just graduated from that very program. The material is relevant and up-to-date.
• Ask questions! This is crucial- the instructors are there to help and are responsive. I was too chicken to ask questions earlier on (I gave myself a time limit to try to solve it on my own), but I should have gotten over it sooner. Everyone at Rithm is trying to help you learn and improve. I also learned how to ask better questions by listening to others’ questions.

I didn’t include the job assistance rating, as this was primarily done through Outco. This is not to say that Rithm was not supportive in the job search before, but there was a clear division between Rithm (learning and practicing web development) and Outco (resume help, technical interview prep, and CS fundamentals). I think Rithm keeping this in-house will benefit all future cohorts, as there is a greater level of care provided.

Lastly, I just want to say that coding is for everybody. Don’t let a school, company (when applying for jobs), or setback tell you that you can’t make it as a developer, keep persisting and putting work in. Job searching is difficult, and though there is a 6-month job guarantee, it ultimately depends on what you’re looking for and your own confidence in your technical skills, which come from experience. Hopefully you can give yourself some additional time (if needed) to get the work you want.

I had a fantastic time at Rithm School. I was in the 3rd cohort in a class of 11 students. We had so much individualized attention that I was never waiting on a question for more than a few minutes, and the other students were very helpful, kind, and down-to-earth. It was not a cut-throat environment because we were not competing against one another; there were so few of us and there are so many engineering job openings that we knew that the most important thing was helping one another succeed and trying our best. We got experience pair programming, working on real features with startups in an agile sprint format, and building our own independent projects. The environment was fun (we all wore horse masks as the end as a prank to the instructors) but still intense (we moved very quickly and had to work hard every day to keep up). 

A bit about my background: I had a Computer Science degree that I completed in 2015 and 2 years of work experience at startups working in Business Development / Operations / Community Management. My software skills were rusty and my web development knowledge was out of date and shaky. I came in wanting to get the preparation I needed to work as an engineer at a modern startup, and I wanted to develop confidence in my skills. Rithm was amazing for both of those -- we learned all the common tools and practiced interview questions so that we would feel prepared when going out on our own. 

Job search afterward: I joined when Rithm had a partnership with Outco, and I did the Outco 1-month program in August 2017 right after Rithm ended. The partnership was very helpful because I got to work with some of my classmates and go through the process together, though now that job prep is in-house it will be even more of a tight-knit feeling. Whiteboarding every day was very helpful because that aspect of interviews became less intimidating. I had a bit of a weird path because I was strongly considering PM roles and applied to many of those, but ultimately when I wasn't having luck, I started working for my friend's startup in Community Management while searching for Engineering jobs. I knew I wanted to focus on Frontend so I could utilize my UX Design knowledge, and I lucked out in finding a UX Engineer role that combined Frontend Engineering, UX Design, and Product Management. Rithm was so helpful throughout the whole thing - I met with Elie every few weeks whenever I needed help and he was always available. It was so great to have the support of my cohort members, too, because friends going through the search alone shared how isolated they felt. I'm now 4 months into my role and really love it!! I know Rithm prepared me very well and I recommend it as often as I can to anyone considering a bootcamp!