Tech Elevator

Tech Elevator thoroughly prepared me to enter the tech job market. They taught me the technical skills to be proficient in interviews and junior level positions as well as provided ample resources to find a job that suited me. The staff was very knowledgeable in their areas of expertise and demonstrated this effectively. They did a fantastic job of fostering a challenging yet supportive environment for all the students looking to make a new career in tech. My life has changed trajectory for the better thanks to the Tech Elevator program and the people I met going through it. I highly recommend Tech Elevator to anyone looking to break into tech.

Tech Elevator is a great experience for those who are wanting to change their career path and who are willing to put in lots of work. I worked in education for 11 years and had almost zero programming experience before applying. It's true that Tech Elevator's curriculum and instructors (speaking for the Columbus ones) are so good that you can go from complete beginner to actually building a full-stack app in 14 weeks. Frequently throughout the program, I doubted whether I would really learn all of the concepts, but I did. I owe it to two amazing instructors, Matt Eland and John Fulton, who are extremely knowledgeable, approachable, and invested in their students' success. I asked probably thousands of questions over 14 weeks and they were both so helpful and patient. Tech Elevator's style of instruction helped me internalize new concepts much more quickly than if I was doing self-study. Each day there was direct instruction/lecture on a concept, some guided practice during the lesson, and then a homework exercise to apply the concept. The three capstone projects, while very challenging and often stressful, were great opportunities to bring many concepts together and work with a team. Aside from the technical part of the bootcamp, the Pathway Program helped me get career-ready. The resume feedback and interview prep in particular made me feel more confident entering a new career field. Almost exactly two months after graduation, I started my new job as an associate software engineer. There is no way I would have been able to do this without enrolling in Tech Elevator. There were long days, stressful moments, and many feelings of self-doubt, but I would do it all over again.

I will be upfront and say that while this review may seem a little critical and unyielding in what I perceive to be some of the flaws in my experience and I do not want to convey TE as being a "bad" program. TE does a fine job of touting the positives of their program, as do many of their alum. My job here is to show you what I perceive as the negatives in my experience that I wish was relayed to me before I signed up as that information is far harder to come by.
So why signup for Tech Elevators' bootcamp?..
For me it was to gain insight from industry professionals, learn through an "industry proven" path, and most importantly, gain an edge in the hiring market, hopefully forming connections through hiring partners that would expedite job placement. Unfortunately, while there was many great parts to this program some of that quickly becomes overshadowed by the more important aspects that are lacking. Discrepancies that are touted as quite the opposite during the sign up sales pitch.
Lets be clear... Anything you can/will learn from this bootcamp can be gained from FREE programs online. That is no secret. 
The benefits, educationally, lie in the fact that you are provided a path which to learn (Java->Backend/Database->Frontend); are held accountable to completing the material in a given time frame(not necessarily understanding); and are able to learn and employ this knowledge alongside fellow students / industry professionals. In this respect TE has delivered fairly well given the time constraints of the program.
 Many students come in with little to no programming experience, and they "learn" quite a bit. I say "learn" because to be honest I do not feel the bulk have really came to grasp with the majority of the material, nor will they really be able to retain what they have learned without continued progression post graduation. This is a 14 week program... without prior understanding of CS concepts or technical experience there is no base to tie much of the information together or a way of grasping the nuance to why we are doing what we are doing at any given point. Learning is more, this is the recipe, employ it in this new situation. 
That being said the majority of the teaching staff is very adamant in doing all that they can to help you along the way. I do get the feeling that many of them genuinely care and want to do everything they can to get you through the material (without holding your hand). Unfortunately, there is a definite disparity in the teaching abilities among the staff. All of the teachers know the material, many are great programmers in their own right. This does NOT translate into making them good teachers! My teacher tried very hard and even attempted to adapt when concerns were raised about many in our class not grasping the material presented. Ultimately this did not help and myself, along with others in our class ended up having to watch recordings from other classes most days to get a solid foundation on the homework that had to be completed that day. On this fact alone, I have had many conversations with fellow classmates concerning the fact that we feel like we got ripped off vs other students. We were granted access to resources and the ability to ask for help from other instructors, but that does not give me back the 3 hours per day out of an already tight schedule.
It should also be noted that going into the program it is eluded that you will be "in class" for approximately 8 hours a day. The fact is you will only actually be in class for 3 hours a day. The rest of your day will be spent in zoom breakout rooms. You can ask for help from instructors / TAs but most of the time you will have to wait or no one is available. There is no one keeping you there for the "required time". 
That is only about 15 hours of actual class per week, or 210 hours of class over 14 weeks, or about $80 per hour (per student!) , however you want to look at it.
Let me clarify, while I have personal gripes about the educational experience, compared to other camps I have heard worse, and overall I feel like they realistically delivered with the time constraints.
Now for the bigger issue at hand...
One of the main selling points for TE and one of the main reasons people go to a bootcamp is to expedite employment. For TE this is the Pathway program (aka career program). 
 Like I said above, YOU CAN LEARN EVERYTHING OFFERED WITHOUT PAYING A DIME! People attend a bootcamp so that they can land an entry level tech position in a matter of months vs years, and furthermore so they can have reputable institution back them. This is a tall order and to be clear TE makes no guarantees, nor could they without the possibility of lawsuit. That is understandable. However, the way they pitch the pathway program and their "employer network" has been VERY misleading, at least in regard to my cohort.
I am two weeks post graduation and to my knowledge out of the 80 or so people in my cohort only 4 or 5 have secured employment, of which they did so through personal effort/connections! 
Throughout the program there are mandatory attendance "employer showcases". The unfortunate fact was besides the fact that not one of them are hiring entry level developers, most require bachelors degree or higher (regardless of ability and relevant skills). One employer, after being vague and beating around the bush, went as far as to say that they want some one with either a 4 year degree in CS or 8 years work experience in the tech industry! WHY am I attending a bootcamp if I have 8 years in the industry! At best it was a disappointment, at worst it was a waste of time that could have been better utilized studying or making meaningful connections. 
The main "employer matchmaking" event was a joke! Some students got two 30-minute interviews, some three, lucky couple got 4 interviews. The best part was these "interviews" were not interviews. Most got a 15 minute sales pitch about the company and then asked if there was any questions... which makes sense because none of them are currently hiring!
Beyond the employer portion the highlight of Pathway was they did provide some assistance with resume and LinkedIn profile construction. Albeit the information provided, while useful, was overly generic. Sure they had a couple personal one on ones, but if I am being honest it too was very generic. In fact, I actually received more pertinent resume advice from a recruiter during the matchmaking event than I did from pathway.
I understand pathway has to tend to the needs of 80 students, some of whom are lacking communication skills or are socially awkward, but for around 17 thousand dollars a head I expected better.
The economy is in shambles, tech is suffering, and the outlook for bootcamp grads currently is not bright, but if anything I wish TE had been more upfront and honest about what it can offer instead of making euphemisms, shallow promises, and wasting our time with "mandatory" events that had no relevance/usefulness to many of us.
Overall, I enjoyed my time with TE. I definitely feel I learned quite a bit, made solid connections, and hopefully helped others in the process. 
For those considering joining future cohorts, I implore you to look into it as much as possible and weigh your options. It is likely one of the better options when it comes to bootcamps, but it may not be the best option for you. Either way I wish you all the luck in the world! Stay strong and persistent and anything is possible! 

While this bootcamp is very challenging and time consuming it is one of the most fulfilling experiences I've ever had as it has equipped me with the skills to enter the workforce at a young age, as well as offer personal/career development. What distinguished this bootcamp from others in my mind is the fact that they offered this career development that allowed me to become better at interviewing, and selling myself as a candidate which is invaluable moving forward in the future as a 21 year old graduate from the bootcamp. Their matchmaking service near the end of the camp is another key factor in my decision to go with this bootcamp and it couldn't have paid off any better as I received my job offer from my company through their prearranged meeting thanks to Tech Elevator. While the curriculum is a great foundation and gives you plenty of hands on experience it is designed mostly to be easy to teach and learn about so you should be willing to spend the little free time that you have during bootcamp days to explore what interests you with coding outside of what they teach. Definitely a great experience and I would recommend it to any currently looking for a coding bootcamp.

I cannot speak highly enough about my experience with Tech Elevator.  I will write about my experience in a moment, but first I would like to detail my experience after the bootcamp since that is likely what anyone reading reviews is looking for.  Obviously everyone's experience with a job search will differ, but I graduated towards the end of December and had an offer by the beginning of March.  I firmly believe that the reason that it even took that long was that the beginning of a new year is generally before budgets and requisitions are approved.  I was able to get exactly the job that I wanted and my transition into tech took 6 months (started TE in September, got the job offer in March).  I attended this bootcamp specifically because several friends of mine had already attended and were hired quickly as well.  I know that people sometimes question the validity of bootcamp job placement rates, but I can attest to the fact that everyone I know who attended TE was able to get a job in tech and are still working.

I chose the Java track, but C# is also available.  Everyone who works at TE is incredibly dedicated, nice, and genuinely wants you to succeed.  After graduating from TE, my workplace has rated my development skills as "intermediate", which actually put me in the position to be able to teach back-end development (Java, SQL, RESTful APIs) to other new hires.  I cannot stress enough how little I knew about development prior to attending TE, so this speaks incredibly well of their abilities.  The technical knowledge that you gain is invaluable, obviously, but there are also other huge benefits to choosing this program.  The PATHWAYS program also helps you develop your resume, curate your social presence, helps you present yourself, and gets you mock interviews (and some real ones!) with real senior developers/hiring managers so you can get useful feedback going forward.  I should also mention that presenting your capstone project is great practice for the demos you will inevitably be giving once you start working.

You will see many people online suggest that bootcamps are overrated/overpriced, and that everything can be found online for free.  While that is true to a certain extent, I would make the decision to attend TE 100 times over.  I needed to treat learning like a job, needed the direction in what to learn and the scope of knowledge provided by TE, the practice pair programming, working within an agile structure, the confidence that comes from doing mock interviews and having a solid resume, and the support that I got while facing the inevitable mountain of rejections while applying for a junior developer role.  The sheer volume of knowledge that is available makes determining what is necessary/important incredibly difficult without direction.  If I had been able to make the transition successfully without TE at all, I can guarantee that it would have taken FAR longer on my own.  

I will also detail what this bootcamp is not:
1.  Easy - you will almost certainly believe that you made a mistake for at least the first several weeks of the bootcamp.  Impostor syndrome will kick in and doesn't really go away until you get your first job and work it for a while.  This happens to literally everyone, so don't let being nervous stop you from changing your life.  I was convinced that I didn't really know what I was doing right up until I started teaching what I know to other people in my position.
2.  All encompassing - part of transitioning to development means understanding that learning is just part of your day now.  TE will provide you with the building blocks of a career in development, but the day you graduate is the day you have to start learning on your own to keep focused and growing.  This is probably the biggest determinant of being successful in the field, so please know that going in.  

Also, some advice unrelated to TE for anyone considering transitioning careers:
1.  Hackathons are really, really fun.  They seem very daunting at first, but you need to understand that people from all levels of knowledge and tech stacks will be involved so it is a great way to practice working with a team, get exposed to new technologies/ways of doing things, and presenting your work to people who will question you.  I let fear of embarrassment stop me from doing them for a while and I regret it.  They are a blast.
2.  Algorithms.  Assessments sites like LeetCode, Hackerrank, Codesignal, etc. are the gatekeepers to a lot of jobs.  Despite the fact that a junior developer will absolutely not need to be well versed in algorithms to do their job (this is also true of most senior developers), a lot of companies have started using these assessments as a way to cut down on the number of applicants they need to review, so start practicing these early.

Signing up for Tech Elevator was a huge leap of faith. It was a scary commitment and a lot of effort. However, with the amazing support of everyone at TE, the days inched by until I accepted a full time offer on our very last day.

The instructors were both very knowledgeable and encouraging. They took the time to explain concepts and assignments in detail, always emphasizing to not be afraid of asking questions which is an absolute must in the industry. They genuinely care for the growth of the students, even setting time aside for optional sessions to dive deeper into certain topics. Everyone at TE was exceptional, I never left an interaction feeling disappointed or under supported.

I signed up for the Full-Time remote Java course and looking back, I believe TE made a great decision on the cadence and order of their curriculum. The initial process involved a short online assessment, followed by an interview. The process was simple and seamless, no issues. Upon acceptance, about two weeks prior to the first day, we were given a number of introductory assignments (variables, conditionals, loops, etc.). Once in full swing, the days consisted of class time during the first half of the day followed by coursework and other events on the second half. If I recall correctly, main topic segments included Java/OOP, database, and front-end in that order. Often times, those new to programming are introduced with basic front-end topics like HTML and CSS. While simpler and still important, it's misleading as they don't capture the reality students are stepping into. I appreciate TE jumping straight into Java and programming logic, as it gives a better view of the abstractness and complexity developers deal with day to day. 

A very important part of the TE curriculum is the Pathway program. Absolutely take it seriously, practice what's taught repeatedly, and do everything being asked even if it's optional. At the end of the course comes Matchmaking day, arguably the most important event. It's the day where students will have first round interviews with a number of different companies. When it comes to first time applicants, landing first rounds is the most difficult part. It's not unheard of to only hear back from one out of a hundred cold applications. Being able to pick a few companies for first rounds is an opportunity that should not be taken lightly, even by those with plenty of interview experience. 

The pace is brisk and there is a lot to cover. It's also important to not get complacent and think doing the minimum to graduate is enough. The more you can hone your technical and interview skills, the more likely you'll reach your goal. And at the end of the day, students will get out what they put in. On your own time, besides reviewing and digging deeper into the topics covered, it would be helpful to regularly commit to coding exercises from LeetCode/HackerRank. While they seem like brain-teasers, being comfortable working with those assessments will help when interviewing with companies that use that style of technical screening.

Overall, I had a very positive experience from Tech Elevator. Yes there is only so much you can learn in a span of a few months, the course is not some miracle pill. It will take a lot of effort on the students' part, but I can honestly say students will receive what they put in. Everything I've learned from TE has been applied regularly in my day to day and the curriculum sets a solid foundation for new developers to further build upon. If I had to, I would certainly do it all over again and with Tech Elevator.

Tech Elevator worked for me! I even landed a job at a global technology company before finishing the 14-week program! 
The curriculum is solid, well organized, and taught in a way that really helped me absorb and retain the information, even at the accelerated pace it was being provided. There are a couple of topics I would have liked to go more in-depth on, but Tech Elevator does a wonderful job of teaching you to "learn how to learn", so diving into those areas is much less daunting than before.
The instructors are all amazing, knowledgeable, supportive, and fun people. They are all passionate about their students' success and go out of their way to ensure you understand the material and have all your questions answered. There is also a fantastic group of academic fellows that are always around to help on those long homework sessions or just to chat for a bit and decompress.
The same goes for the Pathway Program folks who do a stellar job preparing you for the job search with resume/LinkedIn reviews, practice interviewing, discussions about job search strategy, and plenty of opportunities to network and connect with current industry developers, recruiters, and TE alumni.
Meeting and working with all the other students was a joy and I have made some great friends along the way. Attending Tech Elevator was easily one of the best decisions I could have made for my career!

I have so much good to say about Tech Elevator, and a handful of things I wish had been done differently. I'm going to share my thoughts on, 1) TE staff and support, 2) curriculum, 3) the Pathway program (career prep/counseling), and 4) the overall purpose of a short-term boot camp and how I feel TE stacks up against that.

First, I want to express just how amazing all of the TE staff is. I truly felt that everyone at TE was both competent to teach the material and genuinely wanted me to succeed. On many occasions, staff members met with me personally to go over concepts I was struggling with, or work through interview and job application anxieties. In my experience, the only time you will ever be lacking assistance is when you don't ask for it. My instructors and Pathway program directors (career counselors) were amazing and I will forever be grateful for the time and energy they devoted to us, students. I believe the staff support is the best thing TE has going for it, and is the program's biggest draw.

Second, the catch-22 of transitioning to software development is that it is hard to know what curriculum to follow when you have little or no prior exposure to the tech world. I assumed that any tech stack a legitimate boot camp was promoting would prepare me for the current job marketplace. In retrospect, I wish I had been more thoughtful about that decision. Here's what TE does a good job at:

• You will have the fundamentals of object-oriented programming (OOP) drilled into you, and this will give you a solid foundation from which to build a great coding skillset regardless of tech stack.
• TE does a good job of grounding you in Java, which is great if you want to work in Java. Having more exposure to other languages now as a working developer I have learned that Java is a very verbose language, meaning you have to write a lot of boilerplate code that is handled for you in other languages. This is not a bad thing, just something to consider. Java is still one of the leading languages in terms of available jobs, and in fact, landed me my first job. So I shouldn't complain, right? (I'm personally hoping to move away from Java going forward.)
• You will have a decent understanding of SQL (relational databases, very marketable), API's (accessing data from a server, specifically with the Spring framework, also marketable), and a high-level understanding of how full-stack applications work.
• The sense of community and connection TE achieves in a remote environment is truly awesome. It does not entirely happen on its own though. I know I had a better experience in this regard than some in part because I reached out to my assigned study group on Slack immediately once we were assigned, and began setting up study sessions from week one. Now, I consider all of those people friends.

Here's what I did not think TE did a good job at:

• Front-end development in general.
• As preparation before your TE boot camp begins they will have you do some Free Code Camp courses on JavaScript, which I think they're expecting will set you up to cover JavaScript in the third and final module of the boot camp in just about a week. Not to make too big a deal out of this, but literally, everyone I spoke with in my cohort felt underprepared to jump into the Vue framework after this week. A solid foundation in Vanilla JavaScript (that's the term for plain old JavaScript) is essential to learn any JavaScript framework, and we did not have that. My caveat to this is that the best learning happens when you get your hands into the code and start using it, but it makes for a very stressful final capstone project as you feel like you still don't understand Vue when you have to use it to build a front-end UI from scratch.
• A note on Vue: I understand TE's reasoning for teaching Vue is that it is easier to teach and learn than other JavaScript frameworks (see Angular and React), from which point you can more easily learn other frameworks. However, in my experience, and by all of the job numbers I've seen, Vue is the least marketable JS framework of the three mentioned, with React being the most marketable, followed by Angular, and then by a large margin Vue.
• If you're interested in front-end development (building out the UIs that people will interact with) I would consider looking elsewhere.

Third, the Pathway program. The one-on-one instruction and career counseling I received, along with mock interviews with TE staff and outside professionals were incredible! The curriculum on the online textbook was good, and the two-to-three times a week hour-long zoom classes covering that material were, honestly, a big distraction from what I felt I really needed to focus on, the coding. Often times these sessions felt like a total recap of what I had already read in the textbook. Probably half of the employer showcases felt like they were from companies that wanted to take advantage of young devs, or regionally specific, which as someone with a family unwilling to relocate was a complete waste of time. However, the other half had some truly stellar companies that I would be excited to work for. The problem is none of them offered me a job... :P Overall, I think the pathway program should refocus its attention on one-on-one development sessions, and cut a lot of the fat.

Fourth and finally, I believe the ultimate purpose of a boot camp should be to make their students the most prepared, and marketable they can be in the time frame they have. As mentioned, my two biggest qualms with the TE program were the unnecessary Pathway program events that got in the way of my studying and learning the technical skills (making me prepared), and the poorly implemented front-end development module (making me marketable). If TE could figure out how to cram more JavaScript into the 14-week schedule, and then teach either the Angular, or preferably React framework on top of that I would consider it a five-star program. As is, they're not doing a bad job. In fact, I landed my first dev internship a week to the day after graduating. Others in my cohort landed jobs upon graduation, and still, others landed jobs a month, two, three, or six after graduating. 

There seems to be some randomness as to who lands a job when, regardless of preparedness and marketability. Ultimately, you just have to take that first step of learning to code. For me, it was Tech Elevator, and it worked out in the timeframe I needed it to. For that I am grateful. This program is expensive, though, and I recognize that I could have taken other steps that may or may not have made me more prepared or marketable for less money. It's impossible to know for sure. I believe you would do well to choose TE, but there are other great programs out there. Do your research and take that step. It's so worth it!

When I started at Tech Elevator, I did not know what to expect. However I knew I would be challenged. 
 
Not only was I challenged with coding, but I was challenged mentally to see how I could push myself through a rigorous program for 14 weeks. I was able to to do this not only from the support of the students who were also in the program with me, but from the support from the staff. Whether it be the Pathway team, the instructors, I never ever felt alone when struggling. 

Tech Elevator was certainly life changing. I met amazing people whom I still stay in touch with. I was able to break into tech which I wasn’t able to do before I joined Tech Elevator. But most importantly, I was successful in completely a bootcamp in which had me learn a couple years of coding into 14 weeks. 

I highly recommend Tech Elevator. I even miss the bootcamp sometimes!  

Tech Elevator was a big step to helping me transition into a career in tech. Previously I dabbled in some basic web development but I knew I wanted to get more serious about it. I researched coding bootcamps and Tech Elevator was recommended almost everywhere I went. Between their reputation on different forums and from the statistics of previous graduates in the CIRR, Council on Integrity in Results Reporting, I went through the process to enroll and take the bootcamp. It gave me a great foundation and prepared me for interviewing. This in turn helped me land my first dev job where I am loving what I do.