Skill Distillery

Everyone at Skill Distillery is amazing. The knowledgeable and experienced instructors provide lessons that are clear and easy to understand. The instructors, teaching assistants, and other staff members I had the honor to learn from, are the most passionate and patient people I’ve ever met. Everyone at Skill Distillery truly wants to see you not only graduate, but also find employment at a place you truly love. 
I'm so glad that I chose Skill Distillery. It has truly changed my life.

I attended Skill Distillery with about a couple years of (hobbyist) programming/scripting experience and no knowledge of web development.

Preparation
The course was mostly backend oriented at the time of my attendance, focusing on a Java Apache server with just a bit of Javascript/Typescript/Angular towards the end of the bootcamp. I’d highly recommend basic familiarization with the above technology. 
If you want to be more comfortable with Java: you should be familiar with syntax, types, and general object oriented patterns (if you work with any object-oriented language such as Java, you will be forced into these patterns most of the time) at a surface level. Any multitude of the first steps in a Java course (free or paid) can give you this knowledge. Understanding the tools at your disposal is far more important than anticipating where you need to use them.

With Angular and Typescript/Javascript, it’s not hugely critical but helpful in your search for employment. I had no knowledge of these but worked with other dynamic programming languages and frameworks prior. I believe just a cursory understanding of Javascript and using npm packages with your own code will be enough to give you a decent boost.
Also knowing how to use Git (and Github) to: push, pull, make a branch, make a pull request, merge a pull request, and lastly how to deal with merge conflicts, are practical skills that will help you in the course and beyond no matter where you work in the future. It may seem like a lot, but just having a slight understanding of what happens when any of these actions are performed is more than enough.

The Work
Days were about 10 hours in length but decently paced with approximately ten minute breaks at the end of every hour and about an hour for lunch. 
Lecture was most of the day with some small asides to work with things we were learning about on our own or every now and again with one or more other students. These were largely informal and allowed us to (attempt to) exercise what we had just learned in a few minutes. 
There were small projects to accomplish most weekends and one paired project at about the midpoint of the course. Additionally, we had two group projects; a “midterm” and “final” that were significantly more work and involved at least three people creating some form of full-stack web application over several days. These were very practical endeavors in retrospect and certainly what I would say were the most valuable experiences I got from the course.
I felt the program was well balanced and overall about the right amount of time (a few months) for a full-time course if maybe just slightly short, though I didn’t have finances to worry about while attending for any longer than that.
I will say that I immediately began working on serverless architecture with a NOSQL database, which is essentially the opposite paradigm to what I was taught during the course. However, I believe in the long run I was better off learning how to setup my own server in the long run as I understand more of what is "under the hood" with cloud services such as AWS or Google. The transition was not a problem in the slightest.

Conclusion
Skill Distillery gave me a solid foundation for web development. They introduced me to Test-Driven Development, pair-programming, databases, web frameworks, Typescript, Angular, the list goes on. I used Java and TDD to help me get my current job, and I use TS, Angular, and collaborative programming daily as well as numerous other skills I picked up during the course. 

Like many others attending coding bootcamps I was tired of my previous career and was looking for a rewarding change of pace. After doing a lot of research into bootcamps I decided to go with Skill Distillery. I was lucky to be able to use my GI benefits and take advantage of the VetTec program that covered my tuition to SD. From my initial screening phone call to post-graduation the support from the staff and other alum was outstanding. The course is difficult, and you will get out of it what you put into it. Don't be afraid to speak up and ask questions, the staff is always happy to answer questions. Post graduation the instructors will still provide support with mock interviews, setting up a resume, tweaking LinkedIn pages, and providing any advice towards the job search. The alum channel is active and there to provide referrals and advice to fresh graduates. I was able to land multiple offers 2 months after graduation and the skills I learned at Skill Distillery set me up well as a Jr. dev. I would recommend SD to anyone looking to get into the world of programming. 

I was very new to coding before I started at Skill Distillery (had done some courses through freecodecamp, mostly html and css). It is a very intense, very extensive school, but because of the in-depth curriculum and the dedication of the staff, you will be prepared to get a job with your new skills right away. They have Saturday hours where they help you with your projects and are always available for questions or help even after you have graduated. You will be amazed at the things you are able to accomplish if you persevere through the hard times in class. Lean on your classmates for help! My cohort was amazing and we made sure to help so everyone would succeed. 

Life changing is the best way to describe Skill Distillery. Prior to this bootcamp I was an EMT, looking into healthcare degrees. Burnt out from working healthcare, I was looking for the next thing. Before Skill Distillery I knew nothing about coding, after the 16 week program, I felt extremely prepared to apply for jobs. I landed a job 6 weeks after graduation. I love my new job, it’s flexible, pays well, and provides a lot of new opportunities for me. It feels crazy to look back less than a year ago and see where I am now, totally life changing. I highly recommend this program.

TL;DR - If you're going to invest the time and money into trying to change your career, Skill Distillery is bar none the best investment. 

I'd been thinking about trying to attend a coding bootcamp for quite a while when I made the decision to start interviewing at a few places in Denver. I interviewed at Skill Distillery and was pretty shocked at how welcoming and accommodating they were, especially after talking to several other bootcamps and seeing how they operated; I'd assumed I'd just be one number among many many students. But that's not how Skill Distillery works. The staff goes above and beyond to make sure students are getting what they NEED out of the program. They genuinely want every single person that attends to go on and better their lives. They're truly invested in you as a person, not just as a number on a sheet. The instructional staff is accessible, kind and patient. The material is incredible, you'll learn more than you could possibly imagine. It's crazy to watch your understanding of something grow so quickly over the course of just a few months. Whether you're interested in learning front end or back end development, this course teaches something for everyone. You learn Java, which is an amazing way to be introduced to programming, it sets a great foundation for further learning. 

The last thing to say is that it is genuinely hard work, it takes a lot out of you. And the more you give the more you get out of it. By the end of my cohort, I felt that I had really given 100% of what I had, which was a really fulfilling experience, personally. They prepare you for job hunting, help you set up your resume and LinkedIn, and continue to reach out to contribute to your job search in whatever way you might need. Seriously, 10/10 experience, wouldn't trade it for the world. You end up learning so much more than just code! 

I finished the SD31 cohort earlier this month, and had a fantastic experience.
Application process: I worked with Briana to enroll, and she was always very responsive and I never felt like I was getting any copy/pasted answers from her. I appreciate her quickness and helpful information.
Material: Skill Distillery teaches primarily Java and Javascript languages, as well as other important coding information. Looking through the job market after graduating, I can see why. It seems like nearly every job has Java/JS as requirements, and angular preferred (which we also learned). The coursework is challenging, but felt fair at all times. You definitely have to commit to the course, but it is well, well worth it.
Time commitment: It's almost 50 hours a week, and nearly every single weekend has homework. Once class is over for the day, I never felt the need to continue working. I was able to work every Sunday throughout the class, and never felt as if I couldn't complete all of my homework on Saturdays.
Instructors: Fantastic. It's so rare to get a group of people together who genuinely want their students to learn the material. They were clear, thorough, patient, and encouraged questions to a level I've never seen before. They also really, really know their stuff, and bring humor into all of their lessons. 
Overall: I strongly recommend Skill Distillery. Within two weeks of graduating (some classmates began the job search during class, I didn't), I have a job making over $40k more than last year. The value for what you're getting is incredible. I had a fantastic 4 months working my butt off, and I really believe the effort that you put in multiplies what you get out. 

 Hello prospective bootcamper,  [Im starting with some general talk about attending a bootcamp...skip down a bit to read about this particular school]  ******************* deciding whether a bootcamp is right for you ********************  Hopefully I can help you decide whether this bootcamp is right for you. As a disclaimer, I had access to VA funding to complete this course so the cost to me was simply an opportunity cost of time, and the loss of a future benefit to be used elsewhere. As someone who finds the slow pace of university learning unbearable...I was happy to use up some GI Bill for this type of course. If you're plunking down some hard-earned cash...you will just have to make sure you get a job afterward (at this school, the numbers are very, very much in your favor) and the rewards of starting a software career should make the cost a write-off within a year as compared to the median salary in the U.S. As I'm writing this, I cant imagine any of my coworkers going to work as a newbie developer for less than 60k. My brother took a 55k starting salary after a less rigorous bootcamp in Ohio but he took a job in Ohio which probably ranks on the lower end of salaries. But his first raise was to 70k after just one year, so yeah...you can be optimistic about your pay prospects.  Alright, let's talk about the elephant in the room...the C.S. degree that you're not getting. Im sure you've done a fair bit of reading thru Reddit and getting disheartened by some negativity about boot camps. I am a C.S. degree dropout. I started at ASUs software engineering program and switched to University of Alaska's C.S. program when I moved to AK. Not a super prestigious pair of schools but they are both ABET programs so they're legit. I have absolutely no regrets about not finishing my university program. It was too slow, I didn't give a single hoot about advanced calculus and physics, and only really enjoyed the courses that directly employed coding and/or circuit/computer design. Actually I did really enjoy discrete math as well. But for every course I enjoyed there were 2 or 3 that just severely annoyed me with their lack of practicality in the workplace and excruciatingly slow pace. Keep in mind I was 34 years old when trying to complete my degree and I already had sufficient professional writing, problem solving, and teamwork experience from my prior military time.  ******************** My experience with Skill Distillery *********************  This course is absolutely high-quality. It is not perfect, but no course will be that aims to instruct more than one person simultaneously. There will always be compromise for different learning styles and to educate the highest number of people for the highest number of jobs. However, they continuously integrate student and employer(!) feedback to improve the course. It's DIFFICULT. And it is really long. I will admit a loss of motivation about 3 weeks from the end because my brain was just tired of learning new stuff. This course will whoop your a** and you will be exhausted at the end. This is how it should be though. The whole reason a course like this exists is to pack in as much knowledge and experience as possible to maximize the value of time and money spent. I have no regrets choosing this school and when my brother was able to compare our respective course syllabuses and length, it was obvious that Skill Distillery was a much more in-depth and higher quality course.  It never felt like a money-grab. I have never experienced such a patient and caring group of instructors. In four months you will feel like part of a small family. They really care about making you succeed. There is ample help with developing your projects, crafting your resume, job-hunting, interviewing, etc. The staff is very empathetic to your learning and career struggle and many of the staff members are former students. They are experts in their fields and the more senior members have tons of collective experience. They also seem to do a pretty solid job of choosing who is admitted to the program because everyone was fairly sharp and able to learn quickly enough to keep the course moving forward. Of course, I can only speak of the experience of my cohort. Also, I should mention the alum network...it seems rock solid. There is a lot of interaction in the job hunt thread of Slack and there are plenty of job leads coming in. Skill Distillery is quite a mature school so they have a large list of historic employers and those employers have been able to experience the quality of SD grads. This is very valuable with such a large pool of bootcamps out in the world of various quality.  The main aspects of this course that I did not enjoy were mainly due to my lack of research on what full-stack development is and not having time to polish up projects to my liking before moving on. I also struggled to learn concepts on team-based assignments vs the ones I could complete on my own (your experience will likely be different, I'm just such a read the book and do it myself type of learner). And there is a lot of team-based work, but this is what employers have communicated wanting in grads so I had to basically just suck it up. But here I am, one of the first grads to secure a job in a mainly Java-developing role so in the end, none of it mattered too much. I am a bit of an outlier though, I had 10+ years of telecom experience and the job I secured really was a carbon copy of my past experience and the course material. If you are coming from a non-tech background, you are going to have to do the interview grind for a while...maybe up to 2 months so just mentally prepare for that and manage your expectations. 

P.S. You don't need a bootcamp to get a software job, but its hard for me to imagine pushing myself to the level that this course did and within the same timeframe. I say go for it! Good luck!!!

After working for one year as a software developer, I can say with confidence that my life would not be the same without attending Skill Distillery's full-stack Java bootcamp. Sure you can take online courses or even other bootcamps, but my knowledge and experience would not be the same without their 16 week program. I know this because I complete an online bootcamp and other courses before attending Skill Distillery. Those courses didn't even come close to what you learn in the first month in their program.

Skill Distillery provides the foundation that you will need to get into the industry. Java is still very relevant in today's job market and once you learn a core language like Java, you can learn any other language. At some point, you will become language agnostic and deciding which language or stack to learn won't even be a concern. But if you are concerned about languages/stacks, the huge advantage Skill Distillery has over other schools is that they are focused on an enterprise stack. Most mid to large companies use Java or an OOP language similar to Java, which makes the job hunt easier.

Instructors are very knowledgeable and provide daily feedback and support. All senior instructors worked in the industry for 20+ years. The class size is also great: small and plenty of staff to have hands on with everyone as needed. Job assistance is there for anyone who wants to use it throughout the course. You can schedule mock interviews with staff and they also set up luncheons with recruiters. 

It only took six months to completely change my life. I started the 16 week course on September 9th, 2019 and graduated on January 9th, 2020. My first day of work as a software engineer was on March 9th, 2020. My only regret was that I didn't start sooner. And if you're having doubts about family or responsibilities, just find a way. While attending the course, I still had family obligations to my wife and 3 year old. I still worked a part-time job at an Amazon warehouse. You can get through it. Find a way. There is a completely different life waiting for you on the other side.

I cannot fully express how wonderful and helpful the instructional staff are. Every single one of the staff members go above and beyond to make sure all of your question's are answered. With that being said, there is nothing easy about a Coding Bootcamp. 16 Weeks of fast paced material. Skill Distillery does an excellent job at instructing material at a pace you can learn. I went from 0 coding experience and a medical background, to completing full Stack Web apps. Love Skill Distillery and their staff and cannot thank them enough for everything they have taught me. 

After a 12 year career in Finance, I was looking for a challenge and a new career to go into that would be more engaging. I looked for many options but was impressed on the accolades seen from fellow veterans that had attended the school. This was before the Vet Tec Program, I used my Post 911/GI BILL and the VA worked well with Skill Distillery.
Pros: The classes were taught by people in the industry, the depth and level of knowledge they bring would only be recognize by me until I started working. From day one I knew what was being talked about at my first job as a developer, thanks to the staff at Skill Distillery. You get a thorough breakdown of concepts that seem trivial at first but it's all part of a bigger picture and its not limited to the school environment. I went from having no formal technical training to having a grasps at concepts that would later transfer into a new field, and I had the confidence to take on new challenges at work because I got the core I needed at Skill Distillery. The course is challenging but they give you the tools and resources to reach the goals that sometime seem unattainable.
Cons: This is a full time course, meaning you could be putting in some 10 hour days. The course is heavily backend based but with just enough on the front end to gain an appreciation for it.