Sabio

Attending Sabio has been one of the best career decisions I've made. I used to work in facility maintenance and after just 6 months, I jumped into a career as a software engineer working with one of the top military contracting firms in the U.S., nearly tripling my previous salary.

Sabio curates their coursework that almost identically mimics the actual day to day of software engineer. This could come as a shock to some, as it isn't necessarily a completely hands on approach to teaching, as they slowly ween you off of lectures and teach you to self research and also utilize what they call the Q, a process to which you can speak one on one with an instructor to receive guidance. I almost found this annoying at first, but you learn that this is what the day in life of a software dev is, and that's utilizing every resource you have to solve problems given to you by an employer. I have spoken to a lot of different bootcamp grads all different schools and Sabio consistently comes up as a school that not only prepared the developers in getting a job, but outperforming their peers in the workplace as they have the experience to take care of problems that are given to them. They also stand out by selecting developers to work on an MVP for real entrepreneurs, increasing your confidence on working with a real development team. This helped greatly with the interview process, as you're given real life experience that you can speak on and show off.

I used VETEC to pay for the course, but I've seen some reviews that state Sabio is harsh on VETTEC users, but I do not want those who use the benefit to be thrown off. The VA has strict guidelines that Sabio has to hold developer accountable to. I know this as I initially had an issue for an academic probation, but after speaking with the VA, I was explained of the strict rules that the bootcamps are held to. As long as you follow the curriculum and what is asked of you, you will have absolutely no problem utilizing any VA benefit with Sabio.

Sabio Bootcamp has been one of the best decisions I have made. I came out of this bootcamp as a full fledged software engineer, with a job offer in hand. Sabio gives you the skills that are needed to start a career in tech, and significant support during the job search and after graduation. I am still actively participating in an alumni mentoring program to help others with their job search. I would highly recommend this course to anyone who is looking to become a software engineer. I favored a boot camp over a college degree because it was less time and I would leave the program having applicable skills for a job. This bootcamp is for those who are motivated and dedicated, as it is a big commitment. The course itself is 17 weeks (with a 13 week option if you can pass the entrance test). The time commitment is full time, 6 days per week. It is fast paced and at some times overwhelming. The instructors are very intelligent and helpful, and give great direction while working on coding problems. They are no-nonsense, but also really care about your success. Unlike other bootcamps, Sabio provides experience working on real projects. I was part of a brand new start up that our team built from the ground up. We did daily stand up meetings and code reviews, exactly like I do in my current position. This has been an extremely rewarding experience.

Don't walk, RUN.
This is THE best boot camp on the west coast (possibly the country). If you're a veteran looking to break your way into the tech industry and start making a salary of $80K in less than 6 months, look no further. No prior code experience needed!! No degree needed!!

I'm a Navy veteran and found myself at home with Sabio. They specialize in helping veterans transition into tech careers. They have veteran staff members and are very knowledgeable in GI Bill assistance. This program is tough, but fair. No hand holding here. This is a learning environment but treated like a work place. THIS IS HANDS ON LEARNING. YOU WILL DO! No studying textbooks or writing about concepts! You will be given the tools needed to succeed and pushed to your limits every day. This was the hardest thing I ever did academically but it paid off big time. 

Within four weeks after graduation I had received two job offers- both at $80k, one had stock options of $20k, and an offer for a full time internship with Sony. I work remote now and was able to move closer to family. I work for a company who is currently paying me to learn! Making me more valuable and knowledgeable. 

Three things that set this bootcamp apart from others:

1. You will work in teams to develop code for a real company.
You'll have regular practice on integrating your code with others (welcome to the world of git), you will talk about code and how to communicate what it is doing (very helpful when it comes time to interview), and code review sessions that will help you learn to read code you didn't write (also helpful during technical interviews). Towards the end of your training you will be selected to develop a real working web application for a real company. This means REAL work experience!!

2. The community. 
Sabio alumni regularly help current fellows when it comes time for the job hunt. It's one thing to have a Sabio staff member say you're job ready, it's another to hear it from someone who just graduated and landed a position. Alumni help in fine tuning resumes, mock interviews, and overall accountability and support.

3. Up to date on demands from the market.
Sabio teaches a full stack software development stack that is in high demand. This translates into more interviews and multiple job offers. They have partnerships with big time companies (Amazon, Microsoft, Google - to name a few) with multiple graduates receiving job offers from these partnerships monthly. That's right, you could be working for FAANG with less than 6 months experience being a software engineer.

Who this program IS NOT for:

- Anyone who cannot dedicate themselves to a full time program. I'm talking 12 hour days Monday-Saturday. It's a big time commitment. Tell your family and friends you're changing your life and you will be dedicating yourself to this for at least 6 months. No vacations, no happy hours, no weekend getaways. It's a sacrifice but it pays off!

- Anyone who thinks they can do the bare minimum and get the big pay off. Coding isn't rocket science but it does take time to learn. Sabio has endless resources to take you from zero to hero but it's up to you to put those resources to use.

- Anyone who isn't coachable and adaptable. You MUST trust the process! Everyone at Sabio has the intent to help you. Remember, it's tough love here, but it's all love.

- Anyone who does not like to learn. Technology is ever changing. You will never know everything there is to know. Talk to any software engineer- they've learned how to learn and it makes them more valuable (aka more money!).

Sabio CHANGED MY LIFE. It can change yours too.
You don't need to be a super geek or computer nerd to succeed here. I was never at the top of my cohort, I didn't grasp concepts quicker than anyone else, I'm not a genius who found their niche. I'm a regular person who knows how to work hard, who never gives up, and shows up every day with an attitude to learn and better myself. That's all you need to be successful in this program.

Use your GI Bill or VETTEC benefits to have your learning paid for and collect BAH. No military background? No problem. Sabio offers scholarships and financing. This is MUCH cheaper than getting a four year degree in Computer Science and finding out you can't get hired because you have no work experience.

This company is very transparent and will answer any questions you have. Visit their website to attend a Q&A to speak with an onboarding specialist and most likely a recent graduate. You'll probably meet me there because I can't tell enough people about this amazing place that changed everything for me.

RUN.

Attending Sabio completely changed my life. I was self employed before Sabio and working long hours. I decided to take a risk and attend Sabio. I was nervous about this since I did not know anything about Software Engineering. I was a complete beginner and did not understand HTML nor CSS. I completed the 17 week course and they prepared me to be a successful Software Engineer.

The course material was given at appropriate intervals. The bootcamp is challenging and should not be taken lightly. The beginning can seem overwhelming at first. Once you are used to routine, it seems like everything gets easier. I loved that you complete an application for an actual business versus a personal project. This provides you the experience of working with a real business and provides a team experience.

Sabio prepared me more than enough, that I was able to accept a position with Amazon as a Software Engineer. I would have never thought/believed that I would be an engineer for Amazon. Overall I am very happy with the results that Sabio provide.

I have been working in tech since I graduated from Sabio in 2018.  I definitely make more than the median that is listed for Sabio graduates.  I changed careers much later in life than most people, as my college major was Communication.  I had done some highschool coding classes in Pascal, and done another certification for programming in some quick tech school, but that was years and years ago, before the advent of the modern paradigm of MVC and JVM's.  And Sabio helped start my new career in tech and all, so I do owe a great debt of gratitude.  So, you may ask, why the not perfect scores?  I'm glad you asked.

This was in the spring of 2018, I joined the Sabio bootcamp in Culver City.  At the time, there was a pre-course of javascript before you joined the actual cohort.  The problem that stuck out to me was at the end, when we first encountered asynchronous operations.  That should have been a good teaching point to end the javascript pre-course, but that didn't happen.  We were left to wonder why were our ajax calls coming back in some crazy order.  Maybe even hint to us to look for the MSDN for "promises."  Nope.  So, I was just this frustrated little ball trying to figure this puzzle out on my own.  Whatever.

On to the real cohort.  We had a choice:  .NET or Node.  If i could go back in time and pick one, I probably would have picked .NET.  Technology wise, they were about the same.  The problem lay in the magic behind Sabio.  Sabio Instructors are AWESOME.  They have tons of experience in the technology field.  They're smart, charming, and John Darragh was especially handsome.  None of the stuff Sabio did matters, if the instructors weren't as awesome as they were.  And this is also where the problem lies.  If the instructor was thrown in last minute into a technology he's not 100% in, it's going to be a problem.  I don't fault John for making the attempt; I blame Sabio for putting us all in that position.  Someone made the decision to go through with the MERN stack cohort.  It would have been a lot simpler to have two cohorts of .NET.  I made friends with people in both cohorts, and I was able to see the difference between instructors.  John was doing his best and he's awesome, and his experience in the tech field really shone through.  On the other hand, in the .NET cohort, because there was a someone who was much more familiar with the tech stack he's teaching, it allowed that cohort to become more ambitious (which ultimately bit them in the butt) and comfortable.

John's experience carried our cohort:  we were less ambitious and our focus became that of deliverables.  Our cohort was awesome, because, once things picked up, we definitely got going.  Thinking back to our MVP, we could have used a little more time architecting out our app, and could have looked at the algorithms we were going to use and optimized it.  But, at the time, we were still struggling to deal with asynchronous operations.  That and that steep learning curve from JQuery to React.

Another critique was during our morning stand-ups, we should have been pushed into deadlines.  ie, we should have been guesstimating how long our features were going to take to build.

Oh... and the curriculum?  We kinda did the work, ran into problems, and problems became the curriculum.  One thing sooorely lacking at the time was code review.  We merged our code into main almost willy nilly.  This would have been VERY frowned upon in 3 of the 3 companies I worked for.  Usually the senior guy, or a peer would need to approve the merge.  Not in this cohort, lol.  That code review could have very well been part of the curriculum.

At this time, even if the instructors would stay from 9-6, some of us would stay waaaaay later than that, to get more code in.  Literally, the security guards would have to kick us out from the classrooms at night so they could lock the doors.

Then came the day of the presentation.  Both the .NET and Node cohorts had list of features that were unimplemented or incomplete.  Come to find out, there was another cohort in the OC that barely got anything done (there was some drama).  Remember I told you about the ambitious .NET cohort?  They had a ton of great features, but it lacked the polish our limited scope of a Node app had.

Btw, it was months before I found anything.  months.  I had relocated to be near the school, so I couldn't take advantage of going to the nearest Sabio (I lived in San Diego) location.  Eventually, I did find a job... but in a totally different tech stack...

Overall, would i recommend Sabio?  Hell yeah!  Having said that, this course is very, very driven by the amount of work YOU put into it.  It is very, very easy to slack off during the day, because no one is supervising you.  If you need to take couple hours off, no one will bat an eye.  If you don't complete a feature, it doesn't get merged to main.  You'll still complete the course.  Sabio will gladly take your money and give you a certificate.  The environment Sabio puts you in is very much the environment you'll find in tech.  You're expected to figure it out.  The seniors might not have the answer (or could be flat out wrong).  You.  Yes, you.  Its okay to not know, but it's not okay to not deliver.  Copy that code, change the parameters.  Get the output you need.  Get it working 1st, then when documenting, figure out why it works.  Don't get hung up on the how/why, implementation comes first.  If that bothers you, Sabio probably is not for you.  There isn't enough time to teach everyone theories of Computer Science, but there is just barely enough time to drill implementation steps of a technology stack.  You'll learn all that other stuff, with enough time and effort.  (Think Big O, data structures)

TLDR;  Tech stack, technologies don't matter in the long run.  Get to know your instructors before jumping into the cohort.  They will make or break your experience in Sabio.  Focus on IMPLEMENTATION.  If it workas, and passes tests, it's good.  Wonder why it works later.  Sabio will make you uncomfortable, and you have to be okay with it.  What you learn, and what you eventually put in your resume is completely up to you.

Attending Sabio was the best decision I ever made!! 

The curriculum was superb, they teach you real life skills. The coding part is only the beginning, they teach you to ask questions, work together as a team, how to speak to product owner, and in the end they give you the fundamentals to take with you to interviews. The way the curriculum is structured is the way your everyday work life will be structured. 

All the instructors are extremely knowledgable, have worked in the industry for years, and are extremely patient. No question is a dumb question. In fact, the more questions you ask they more likely you are to succeed. 

Once you are done with the bootcamp, they don't just kick you out the door. There is a wide range of alumni at your disposal that are either trying to get you into their company or are helping you with mock interviews and what to expect along the journey. Liliana, one of the founders, was always willing to lend a therapeutic ear when I felt down on myself. There are not enough words to tell you how grateful I am for this community. 

Two months after completing the bootcamp, I signed an offer letter to work with a company that not only values their employees but also encourages them to learn and grow in their field. The money I invested into going to Sabio came back twofold in the amount I increased my previous salary. 

If you are on the fence about what bootcamp to attend, or if you want to attend a bootcamp, I strongly suggest attending one of their information sessions. There they will answer any and every question. Literally the way they are in the information session is the way they are through and through. One of the deciding factors for me was their Latina in Tech scholarship, they believe in closing the gap in tech and helping a Latina like myself change careers for the better. 

I love Sabio, and if I had to do it over again, I would do it in a heartbeat. 

Making a career change is nerve racking as it is exciting. My biggest concern was will I succeed as a professional in this new field. I’ve learned  everything I need to know, now what?  Where do I start?  What calmed some of my fears was my experience with Sabio. The curriculum is based on in demand skills that employers are seeking right now, which definitely gives you an edge as a candidate. Whether it’s an instructor, alumnus or classmate there is always someone online to answer questions, help you get through a tough spot on a project or give interview pointers. You can self-teach and find resources to learn how to code everywhere. Sabio’s value lies in the support you receive as a student, an alumnus during the job search and as a professional. They are committed to your success. Sabio is more than just a coding bootcamp. It’s a community, a professional network and one of the strongest support networks someone can have when starting a career as a Software Developer.

I have been genuinely shocked at how dramatically my life has changed. Thats probably how most of these cheesy reviews start. I expected "okay" results coming into this. At least I would come out knowing more than absolutely nothing about software development. Nope. This program set me up. Starting with the fundamentals to the job search process Sabio is the complete package to break into the industry. I landed a full-time role as an Application Developer. I loved it so much I post all the jobs that come my way in their slack jobs channel. Many other alumni do this as well. If your looking to break into the industry this is the way. One caveat, this program will consume your life for the duration of it. Give it serious effort and you will reap the rewards. Slack off or expect to be spoon fed information and this will be a waste of your time and money.

Before the course, I had always had an interest in programming. I have always dabbled in a few languages but the way things connected eluded me and I had no idea how to solve even the simplest programming task. I did the Remote Fullstack course and now I am literally about to publish the first web app ever, and I did the programming for the frontend, middleware (c#.net) and the backend. I feel extremely confident in my abilities. The instructors have a big emphasis on self-learning, so be aware that you will not have someone giving lectures or holding your hand the whole time. But you will learn the process of troubleshooting complex programming issues and digging through documentation and programming. The teachers are always there to help give guidance and feedback along the way. 100% recommend!

I was in the military for seven years and had a job lined up that would allow me to finish my degree in Management in Information Systems. It was a great plan- till COVID 19 hit. A lot of things changed, and the job I had lined out at separation fell through. I decided that I need to make a hard pivot and make a change. I looked through my VA benefits and found that I could receive funding for technical training. I explored my option, and while researching, I found Sabio. I did an info session and quickly decided to put all my chips into this career path.

You do a free Pre Work course that ensures that you have the base level skills to do well in the program. At the end of the Pre Work, you do an assessment. If you do well, you are chosen and accepted to participate in an incredible and intensive program.

Ensure that you have all your personal affairs inline because for the next three months, it is 12 hours days Monday-Friday and an 8 hour day on Saturday. You'll be pushed to learn a great deal of stuff in a small window to perform challenging tasks. It sounds like a lot because it is. However, do you want to change your career into a high paying job with a bright future? Then it is worth it.

At a certain point in the program, you will develop an application for an entrepreneur. They'll have demands and needs that you'll have to fulfill. Doing work for an entrepreneur is great because you are now essentially working as a contractor on a real product and working in an Agile environment.

There is assistance during and at the end to get into employment. Just because you finish the program doesn't mean that your time with Sabio is over. They continue to engage with you. There are other opportunities to listen to speakers, enroll again for certifications, and be surrounded by dedicated programmers. Sabio Nation is incredible.

I got my first job as an Associate Software Engineer position 11 days after graduation. This position provides for my family and puts me on a path for many different opportunities. I can't express the amount of gratitude I have for Liliana and Gregorio. I went from no options after the Navy to being a desirable worker in the tech space. 

For those of you looking for a quick summary, Sabio is... a bust. You're lured in with excellent marketing, a plethora of well produced testimonials, and, if you're like me, the rap video starring the school's cofounder and CTO is the straw the breaks the camel's back. "This is the perfect coding school for me," I thought. But, just like a damsel awaiting her prince in shining armor, my expectations were too high. 

Things started off well. I was a VA student using my VOC Rehab benefits to cover tuition, and Liliana and Gregorio were eager to have me on board. They made exceptions for me, allowing me an extra month of Prework and access to the Irvine campus while it was supposed to be closed (Covid-19). I found myself a bit frustrated with the Prework process and lack of access to live instruction, but they assured me that once I was in bootcamp, my instructors would be available to guide me as much as I might need. And so I pressed on through the Prework, taking them at their word, passed the entrance exam with only one incorrect answer, and was excited to start the bootcamp that following Monday.

Monday came, and I was ready. I'm the type of student that's eager to jump in, is the first to speak up when asked for input, and I'm not afraid to encourage and support peers who need encouragement and support. I'm confident that if you asked any person in my cohort (C88), they would agree that, up until the final month of training, the characteristics I've assigned myself are true. But slowly, along the way, I grew increasingly discouraged, and as much I've tried to find my own fault in it, I cannot, at this point, deny that Sabio's failure to provide patient, positive, and meaningful instruction, as well as their tendency to intimidate and bully student's who're unhappy with their pedagogy, ultimately drove my discouragement to disillusion.

The first time I spoke up, it was too late. It was July 6th (nearly 4 months into my time at Sabio, counting Prework), and I sent Gregorio a private message on Slack, detailing my growing sense of despair. Instructors on the Q did not take the time to ensure I understood a solution to a problem, rather they solved it for me or gave such vague guidance that I found myself more confused. On the Q, instructors frequently seemed bothered by my questions and lack of understanding, and I was met with condescending tones often after waiting an hour or more to even ask my question. The Wiki (online reference guide for code) was more a collection of code snippets, rather than something I could turn to for deeper understanding of things I needed to grasp. I felt, strongly, that while others may have been able to work through these barriers, I was "slipping through the cracks." And those were my words to Gregorio. I pleaded for the instruction that I needed, deserved, and used invaluable time and resources to attain, and the response I got? "I told you so."

Gregorio went pointed me back to the orientation videos in which he tells you to prepare for feeling like you can't do it. But if he'd at all took the content of my message seriously, he'd have clearly seen that I was confident in my ability to make it, confident that I could learn the skills they claim to teach and confident that I would be, in less than a years time, a Full Stack Developer with no prior background in tech. But rather than asking that his instructors be more patient, rather than asking that they adapt their attitudes and approach to teach briefly, to support a student who wanted to learn skills they possessed badly, I was told that I should drop the course. "Listen," Gregorio said. "If you're not confident that things are going to work out by now, then you should just drop the course." He went on to explain all the ways in which he felt I failed as a student. I didn't ask questions well. I didn't make sense of the Wiki the way I should have. I shouldn't have been so sensitive to the instructors passive-aggressive, dismissive, and belittling tones, because people in tech have strong personalities. I felt ambushed. I felt defeated. I felt that in asking for help, I would receive it. And instead I was scolded and rebuked. But I'm one to always put a positive spin to things. I tried to see it from Gregorio's perspective, and convinced myself that should I head his advice, I could still come out of Sabio with the knowledge and ability to creative beautiful, responsive, scaleable web applications and land my first gig as a Web Developer.

Fast forward to August, I've headed all of Gregorio's advice, and find myself essentially in the same place. My graduation date is set for the 14th, and I can build components in React, but not build a React App. I can tell you what I need to build an API on .Net, but I can't actually build it. The only place I truly felt like the training clicked, was in building databases in SQL, and that's really not much more impressive than learning to count to 10. And so, when Gregorio sent me an email on August 11th asking why I hadn't been very active on the slack channels or morning standup meetings, I told him that I had not made progress. That I felt disappointed in the quality of instruction and training I received, and that all the same issues I'd said were contributing to my sense of despair in July had consisted, and prevented me from completing my training with satisfactory competence.

And that's when they really let me down. Without my knowledge, Gregorio and Liliana contacted my Voc Rehab counselor, requesting that I be removed from the program. They claimed that I had communicated to them that I could no longer participate in the program, something that was not remotely true (particularly as there were 4 days left for my cohort). I confronted them in an email which CC'd my counselor, informing them that their claim was not factual, and clarifying for my counselor what was actually said. I then received another message from Gregorio, separate from the string in which my counselor was CC'd, which claimed I was in violation of Sabio's attendance policy, and that they had grounds for dismissal. I reviewed the policy, found that I was not in fact in violation of it, and responded to Gregorio asking that he explain what exactly qualified me for dismissal. I asked that he ensure any further communications include my counselor, to ensure that no further accusations were made without proper representation being present to witness. I never received a reply, and the next day, with 2 days of training left, my access to Sabio's training site, as well as my cohort's slack channel and all other lines of communication, were cut off. I emailed Gregorio asking that he clarify whether I'd been dropped from the program or not, and again did not receive a reply.

Tomorrow is my graduation from Sabio. I participated for the entirety of the program until my access was blocked. I contributed to the "Client Project", and my work can be seen on the site still. They'd already sent a copy of my Certificate of Completion to my counselor, and yet, I've been dropped from the program. This, without any explanation or further communication from any person at the school.

I truly hope that my experience here has not been anyone else's, and that if Sabio is successful, it's because they've recognized their flaws and corrected their course. I do not recommend this school to anyone, though at one point I even helped them promote the school on my personal social media. Sabio was, by far, the worst decision I've made in my academic and professional career to this point. Do not make the same mistake I did.

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