Our latest on The Tech Academy

• Am I the Right Candidate for a Coding Bootcamp?

  Imogen Crispe10/11/2016

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  Should I do a coding bootcamp? This is a question we hear all the time, and for good reason. As more coding bootcamps launch (not to mention the rising media coverage), you’re probably wondering, “should I jump on the bandwagon and learn to code?” A recent TechCrunch article implored you not to learn to code unless you’re ready to put in the work to be great, whereas President Obama wants every student to learn computer science in high school. So what types of people are opting for coding bootcamps? And should you be one of them?

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• Instructor Spotlight: Adam Smith of The Tech Academy

  Imogen Crispe7/22/2016

  The Tech Academy

  

  In 2014, Adam was working as a business trainer in the restaurant industry, but kept thinking about how much he enjoyed coding as a kid. After going through the software development program at The Tech Academy in Portland, Adam was hired as an instructor. Adam tells us about his path back to coding, the learning structure and curriculum at The Tech Academy, and why he finds teaching so exciting and rewarding.

  Q&A

  Tell us about your experience before you became a teacher at The Tech Academy in Portland.

  In my prior life, I worked in the restaurant industry. I spent a lot of time on the road training owners and staff on the operations of the business. I came to the Tech Academy looking for a career change. It was fantastic. I think I am the poster child of code schools; with the right attitude and aptitude, I'm living proof that anything is possible in the tech industry. When I finished the courses here at the school, I moved right into a role as an instructor.

  How did you hear about coding and decide that it was the industry that you wanted to move into?

  When I was a kid, I had an old Texas Instrument. It was one of the first consoles that Texas Instruments brought out. I was really young, and I remember as a kid coding programs all day long and how much it kept my attention. I truly remember how enjoyable that was. I fell back on that when my friend told me about The Tech Academy. I was in a career where I was never home, and wanted to change the pace. The tech industry allows me to have that flexibility.  

  How did you find out about The Tech Academy?

  My friend was with a company that does placement in the tech industry, and she told me about this wonderful new school that opened here in Portland. I did some investigating on my own for what would work for me and my schedule. Here in Portland, we have several excellent bootcamps, but the one thing that stood out for me about The Tech Academy was I could do the courses in my own time. I had a very busy schedule and their philosophy was, “life happens”. If you needed to have a day off from school, you take it. For other schools, this was not the case. If I was not able to make it, I would get behind in my studies.  

  Tell us about your experience teaching or training before The Tech Academy.

  I taught people how to run the operations side of restaurants. I would teach employees and the owner or franchisees on how to run their business all the way from operations, to the build out, to food purchases. I also consulted with the architects in creating these restaurants throughout the nation.

  What is your role at The Tech Academy and what classes or lectures do you teach?

  I am the Lead Instructor, and I oversee a team of instructors. I make sure instructors are sitting down to meet with students and that our remote students receive answers and help with any problems that they're dealing with on a daily basis. We encourage each one of our instructors to sit down with our students. I also help with projects and job placement. 

  What have you found is your personal teaching style at The Tech Academy?

  My teaching style is not judgemental; I’m very goal focused. I also like to be humorous. I think my own personal teaching style is as such, because I have walked in the students’ shoes. I've gone through the course, and know the course. I also know that there are some struggles. I like to point students in the right direction and not give them the answers. If they're completely stuck, we like to get together as a team and really help them through the process. Sometimes it’s just about letting students talk about the problem and guiding them to the answer. Every single one of our students is brilliant and very dedicated to this program, it's so exciting.  

  How does The Tech Academy’s self-paced style work?

  Currently, we have the course set up with students that are beginners. The Python, C#, HTML, CSS, and database students sit together in a group, and we have instructors who are focused on them. We then work separately with the students who are moving at different paces. We have several instructors who are available at all times to actually sit down with the students one-on-one and work through any issues they might have.

  We use a learning management system where the whole program is online, so students can progress at different paces. And we're able to keep track of where each student is at, how they're doing, and see daily reports so that we know their main struggles. We’re also on the phone with our students daily.

  What's the structure of learning used at The Tech Academy?

  The learning management system is a neat process because it starts off with computer basics. There's a lot of learning in that first course and a lot of updates for people who are familiar with the system. The structure offers a good pace for learning as it walks you from one course to the next course. We take small steps. For example, we teach WordPress so that students are able to develop their own websites. It’s wonderful because people that are new to this industry have often never built anything. Then we have drills, which are tasks or exercises to reinforce the learning material. They show how the students progress and learn through C# and ASP.  There are drills in every course, including real life scenarios with Python and C#. It's pretty exciting.

  Do students come into the space everyday? How does scheduling work?

  It really depends on each student’s schedule. We're open from 9:30am in the morning until 9pm at night, Monday through Friday. We always have instructors on site. We're even open on the weekends for those that can't make it because life happens, or people have to work. The students have my number if they find any problems; we're always there to help them.

  Every morning at 11am we have a standup, and focus on any challenges or any problems that students might have with a particular course. We ask them what they were able to accomplish yesterday, what they're going to accomplish today, and if they have anything that's been preventing them from moving forward.

  Do you have a remote only option at The Tech Academy?

  Yes. We have students who are in Europe as well and a lot of students throughout the United States. They're able to Skype, or they're able to talk on the phone, pour things out, send in their code, send in their solutions, and they're able to follow the learning management system.

  How many instructors or mentors do you have at The Tech Academy?

  We have two remote instructors who are available specifically for our remote students. We have four in-house instructors including a live project instructor and then we have two job placement directors – one for the specific goals of remote students and the other for in-house students. Then there is me, the lead instructor.

  How many students does The Tech Academy have in a class at any one time?

  At any one time it all depends on the day. Here in Portland, it could be anywhere from 20 students to more than that. On average, it's 15 to 20 students in-house, and then throughout the remote student population it’s much more. We currently have over 120 students in our curriculum, with half of them being remote students.

  How long do students usually take to get through the whole program and how many hours do they normally put in?

  If they're able to put in 40 hours or more a week, they can get through our program in no longer than 15 weeks. That includes a live project that is a two weeks spread. If they're doing part time, it's about 30 weeks. Some people take longer than 30 weeks depending on their schedule. Some have fulltime jobs and a family. We accommodate all of our students, and want to provide an excellent service for everybody; that's our goal as instructors. For me especially, if they need to take longer, that's great.

  Can you explain The Live Project students work on at The Tech Academy?

  The live project is wonderful. We have a few clients who we develop applications for, so students are working with real clients. I think it's one of the best experiences for students because you’re building real life applications, but you're in an environment that is safe. If you break something it's not devastating, we're able to fix it, and it helps them get the background needed. Once it’s done, our students are able to post that code, a block of code, or something that they worked on in their GitHub accounts. They're able to showcase that, which I think is really wonderful. It's cool to see the passion that they have when their projects go live.

  Does The Tech Academy give assessments to track people’s progress?

  In each course, you have an essay on what you learned and then you also have these drills that have been created by the founders Erik and Jack. So we can see the progression from HTML, CSS, JavaScript to Python. Then with C# at the end of the course, you’re required to choose one of three items to showcase your knowledge.

  If a student at The Tech Academy isn't keeping up, how do you help them get back on track?

  The curriculum is designed to start you off on a pretty simple pace. Each course gradually brings you to an understanding at each point. If we find someone that has not passed a particular course or is behind in one of those courses, we as Instructors are able to see the daily progression. If the student is remote they're sending in their reports and if they're local we're able to sit down with that individual student, and walk through any misunderstandings. Because of the way the program is set up, we can actually go back to something that the student may have missed or not had a clear understanding of; and work through it with them.

  What's the application or interview process like for The Tech Academy?

  There's no coding challenge. There are two tests that applicants take. One is an IQ test and the other is a personality test. The process is a little different than when I was applying because we were a smaller school at the time, but I did the IQ test and the personality test.

  How does The Tech Academy help students find jobs?

  We have two dedicated job placement personnel. One is for remote students and one is for in-house students. They do roundtable meetings where they have coding challenges and whiteboard work. The instructors help them with interview behavior and questions, and we also have a fantastic course for the job interview and job placement. Our main focus is to get students an amazing job which they love in this industry. We take that to heart because there are a lot of people like me who wanted a career change. They wanted to do something different, and might have been stuck in their lives and unhappy. When we can place somebody in a job, it's exciting for everybody.

  What sort of jobs and roles are you seeing The Tech Academy graduates get?

  A lot of students become junior developers. Most are working with .NET, and C#. If they need to perform front end, back end, or full stack, we're able to help through all that. We've had students placed at New Relic, Platt, Salesforce, Mindtree, Nike, and HP. One of my favorites was a student who was placed in Disney, and his story was amazing. I was brought almost by to tears about how he was an Uber driver before he did our course. It's so incredible to see somebody move from being an Uber driver to working with Disney, HP, or Microchip. Those are the major ones that we've placed. Many graduates have been placed at startups and other small businesses around Portland.

  What meetups or events in Portland would you recommend to people who are thinking about doing a bootcamp?

  There's Calagator, which lists tech meetups here in Portland. There's one or two events every single day if not more that you can go to. Look at each school in the area, look at the offerings, and see if it's a fit for you. Ask all the questions you can think of, go to meetups, and talk to people. You can find a lot of bootcamp or college students at local meetups. If you're interested in doing this, make time to go out and find something that you might be passionate about.  

  Does The Tech Academy hold meetups that are open to the public?

  We have some on Friday afternoons where we give what we call a Tech Talk. We’ll have local students meeting with a business leader here in the area. We also do open houses so that potential students keep coming to see what we do. We're really settling down on doing meetups at night. Next, I think we're going to start working on a Python meetup open to the public. We're really focused on this industry and letting people know what we do.

  Anything else our readers should know about The Tech Academy or making a career change?

  If you have a passion like me, you don't have to have a background in computers. If you have the drive to learn new things, if you have curiosity, and an aptitude to understand of logic, go for it. There are so many people out there hiring junior developers. You can find a job, and you can be happy. If you have a passion, I would just do it.

  Find out more and read The Tech Academy reviews on Course Report. Check out The Tech Academy website.

  About The Author

  

  Imogen is a writer and content producer who loves writing about technology and education. Her background is in journalism, writing for newspapers and news websites. She grew up in England, Dubai and New Zealand, and now lives in Brooklyn, NY.

• Alumni Spotlight: Annandra Grace, The Tech Academy

  Liz Eggleston5/20/2015

  The Tech Academy

  

  Annandra Grace had an advancing career at an insurance company for 16 years, but was ready for a new challenge. She came across an ad for The Tech Academy while searching for jobs in tech and was immediately intrigued. After a campus visit that convinced both her and her brother, a self-taught programmer, she enrolled in the Portland .NET bootcamp. Now having completed the course at Tech Academy and taken a job at Prosper IT Consulting as a project manager, we sat down with Annandra to talk about that persuasive campus visit, her experience with the self-paced curriculum, and working on live projects for real clients.

   

  Tell us what you were up to before you enrolled at The Tech Academy.

  I earned my bachelor’s degree in Marketing and International Business Studies while I was working for a large insurance company as an underwriter. After I earned my degree I was promoted with that same company quite often. I led underwriting teams and customer service teams, ran compliance projects and then most recently, I led several countrywide call center initiatives as an operations manager. I decided to resign from my position after 16 years. It was a big leap of faith but I was completely ready for something entirely new and challenging.

   

  Did you ever take a computer science class during your undergrad?

  No, I didn’t. I took an information technology class, which was more of a basic overview.

   

  Had you done any self-teaching with resources like Codecademy or Treehouse?

  Nope. My younger brother is a senior developer and he really piqued my interest in the world of programming. He is a self-taught programmer, and I watched his struggle and all the effort he put into it - and his passion is what made him successful. I was a little concerned about whether I’d be able to follow in his footsteps.

   

  How did you find out about The Tech Academy? Did you research other bootcamps?

  I was looking online for jobs in the tech field and I noticed an advertisement for Tech Academy. I had no idea that these bootcamps even existed. I really did think I would have to go back to school for a computer science degree or struggle and self-teach. I immediately called the school for an interview.

   

  What did your brother, a self-taught developer, think about you doing a bootcamp??

  I brought my brother with me on my visit to Tech Academy because I wanted to be sure he felt I would be getting a good deal. He interviewed Erik and Jack with me and asked them questions. By the time the interview was over, even my brother was excited for me to sign up.

  With as much work and time as my brother put into his own self-teaching, he said “I wish I’d gone through a program like this when I first started.” Hearing him say that convinced me more so that this was the place to be.

   

  Did you have a specific career goal in mind when you started at Tech Academy?

  No, I didn’t. I wanted to be generous with myself. I had built up a financial cushion before I left my prior company so that I could take the time to figure out what I wanted to do in life.

  My only goal really was to learn everything I could about the technology, the programming languages, the industry and to network with others in the industry. I wanted to test myself and find out what I was good at and what I was most passionate about because there are still many different avenues you can take in tech.

   

  What was the application process like for you?

  The process started with a tour of the school. We watched a video of Erik discussing the school and the curriculum. Then I had the in-person interview with Erik and Jack. There was a filtering process that consisted of an IQ test as well as a personality test.

  The IQ test was just to confirm that you could read, write and comprehend. And the personality test ensured that you could effectively interact with others and that you’re the type of person that can be successful in both the learning environment and on a job.

   

  Tech Academy is self-paced. How long did it take you to get through the whole curriculum? Were you limited to three months?

  They’re very flexible. They estimate that 4 months is what it would take if you could dedicate 8 hours a day/40 hours a week. But many of the students are working a job already and everyone has different schedules. Some even get hired before they’re done so it may take a little bit longer.

   

  Since there isn’t a specific start date, do you interact a lot with other students at Tech Academy?

  I didn’t interact with other students at first or even through most of the prep work. The course is set up through a series of reading materials, video tutorials and practice drills that you mostly work on by yourself.

  During the live projects, however, you get to work with a group of other students.

   

  Who were the students that you worked on that project with? Did you get to choose?

  No; it depends on when the students are at a point in their course studies that they’re qualified to work on a live project.

   

  How many other people would you say were in the space at the same time with you?

  Since the time I started they’ve expanded tremendously. But when I started it was about 25 and most of them were onsite at the school.

   

  How many women were studying with you when you took the class?

  I think 5 including me, which was good. I really was wondering if I would be the only one!

   

  Did you ever consider doing the virtual version of Tech Academy?

  I like taking the class in person because of the energy and being around other people that are going through the same thing, even if I’m not talking to or working with them. It’s a whole different feeling of support, which is something I needed.

   

  Were there TAs or an instructor in the classroom with you in case you needed help?

  That’s one of the great things about being on-site. There was always an instructor available to give assistance at any point when you’re going through the program. They check in with you each day even if you haven’t reached out to them.  They always make sure they know where you are.  The instructors are also available and reach out daily to the students working virtual.

  I was a little concerned at first that there wouldn’t be live lectures. But I really feel that Erik and Jack put so much thought into the content- I never felt like I was missing something.

  In fact now, I feel like I may have missed something if there had been more live lectures.  What if I’d missed a day or wasn’t quite at a point where I could comprehend what a lecture was addressing?

   

  Can you take us through the curriculum at Tech Academy?

  The bootcamp consists of about 19 courses you take in a sequence, some of which are optional. The technology stack is .NET so we covered: HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP and Wordpress, Python and C-Sharp. I really liked Python and C-Sharp- the hardcore object oriented programming was fascinating and challenging.

   

  What was the feedback loop like? Were there things that didn’t work for you about Tech Academy and how were those addressed?

  As you’re going the course you submit a daily report which asks about your progress and successes, any gaps, struggles, or your suggested improvements to the program.  You get the opportunity to give feedback daily.

  We also meet in-person weekly to talk through any issues. The curriculum is continually modified as needed based on feedback.

   

  Were there exams or assessments that you did during the course?

  There are assessments throughout each of the courses and if you can’t demonstrate either through the practical drill or by articulating the concepts, then you don’t get to move on just yet. You are not allowed to progress too quickly without demonstrating that you understand.  If you were, the program wouldn’t work as well as it does.

   

  How many hours a week would were you spending on Tech Academy?

  I had a lot of work and study and intense focus going through the bootcamp but I never had to spend more than 30-40 hours a week.

   

  Can you tell us more about the live project you mentioned? What was the project you worked on?

  Everyone works for two weeks on a live project that’s actually commissioned by a client. It’s great because you have something really tangible on your resume other than course drills which you can highlight.

  I worked on a responsive website application that used JavaScript, HTML, CSS and various libraries. I started after a lot of the code was already written so I had to learn what the established code was doing, which takes some time and effort. I had to troubleshoot and add to it- my final contribution was inserting some page navigation and functionality, and working with a senior developer on the file download and upload functionality that worked with Amazon Web Services.

  Throughout the process I got to meet with the client in-person and take him through what I did. It was a real world experience that gave me even more confidence that I could succeed at this.

   

  Is that site live now?

  I wish! Actually the client is using it privately as part of a bigger initiative.

   

  What was the approach to job prep at Tech Academy?

  They are very focused on making sure that every one of their students is a success when they come out and that they find a job. As far as I know they’re still at 100% job placement for other students.

  There is a course specifically designed to make sure your resume is updated and that you get interview practice and soft skills training. They also gave us the opportunity to network with others in the industry by bringing in guest speakers so we could ask questions and get to know what’s really expected as junior level developers coming out of a bootcamp; how you can make a good impression and really get your foot in the door.

   

  What is different about the software developer’s resume and a typical resume that we might be used to?

  On a developer’s resume, you definitely highlight the technical aspects of what you do, the languages and environments you can work in, and the projects you’ve worked on. I also highlight my soft skills, my leadership abilities, etc.

   

  Did you get a new job after graduating?

  Yes. I work for a small software consulting firm called Prosper IT Consulting as a project manager. I also get the opportunity to work on developing the software applications that we’re actually contracted to deliver. I get the best of both worlds.

   

  Did you go through other interviews before you took the job with Prosper?

  Yes. I interviewed with two recruiting offices, but meeting people and networking in the industry was what proved most valuable to me in my job search.

  There are always meetups going on in Portland where you can network with people, exchange cards and ask questions. The more consistently you go to those meetups, the more connections you make and potential job opportunities you can find.

   

  Do you see Project Management as your long-term career?

  I haven’t decided long-term yet, so much still interests me, but I’m really enjoying working at Prosper IT consulting where I can both develop and lead projects and teams.

   

  Was Tech Academy worth the money and the time investment?

  Yes, absolutely yes. I honestly think that the return on your money and time investment is tremendous.  With all the care that the co-founders put into making this program work, signing up is a no-brainer as far I’m concerned.

   

  Is there a type of person you wouldn’t recommend it to?

  I wasn’t sure about the types of backgrounds and skill levels I would encounter from the other students as I came into this- there was such a diversity of skill levels. I can’t think really of anyone that I wouldn’t recommend this school to, except maybe those who don’t have a sincere interest in learning software development.

   

  Learn more about The Tech Academy on Course Report or by visiting their website. 

• Founder Spotlight: Erik & Jack, Tech Academy Portland

  Liz Eggleston1/14/2015

  The Tech Academy

  

  Erik and Jack are the minds behind Tech Academy Portland (formerly Prosper IT Academy), a software development bootcamp that has grown and evolved over the past year. We talk to them about the importance of professional preparation in finding jobs for their graduates, their impressive placement rate (100%!), and the need for diversity and flexibility in the growing bootcamp market.

   

  Aside from the name change, how has Tech Academy Portland evolved over the last year?

  Jack: In terms of the curriculum, we’ve added HTML5 and CSS3, Wordpress, and Python. The main reason we added Python is because it’s really in heavy demand right now and when you have graduates who know the .NET framework and Python, the job placement successes are incredible. We also have a mobile development course.

   

  Erik: One of the things we’re happiest with is that our curriculum is a dynamic object – to be a bit of a programming geek. We’re picky about our students and who we let in the door; as a result, we get really bright, friendly people on the floor and some of the coolest things that we’ve been able to implement in the curriculum have been based on feedback or ideas from the students.

  Other things we’ve added to the curriculum have been a strong emphasis on PHP, simply because the LAMP stack is so common. Wordpress developers who can build custom themes and custom plugins and work on the back-end are valuable and that comes out of PHP and MySQL.

  We’ve also really fleshed out our live project program in coordination with a few consulting companies. The live projects are almost always with an actual paying client, working for them on a real production application with a deadline. Our students are rising to the occasion and they’re handling complicated MVC analysis projects and really challenging, unusual web projects for some interesting business sectors. That live project is really proving to be the point where students are putting their skills together.

   

  How is job placement going?

  We’ve added a job placement course which basically teaches the students how to do a job interview, be well-mannered and the soft skills they need. We can teach somebody how to code but they also need to know how to work in the environment, collaborate, what to expect as a developer in day-to-day life and how to interview.

  The thing we’re most proud of is that every graduate has been hired. That’s the biggest deal to us.

   

  The course is self-paced, but how long is it generally taking students to get through the whole curriculum?

  Jack: Because it’s self-paced, a lot of our students will come in and do their work here but then work on it more from home. People are getting through in about 15 weeks. It’s a lot to cover but when you clear your life and you go flat-out on it, it works great for people.

  We really stress the fundamentals so that when you’re learning these more advanced things, people blast through it a lot faster than if you throw them in their first day.

   

  Do students go through all of the modules of the curriculum that you see on the website or are they picking a specific path that they want to go down?

  Jack: We designed the program with a step-by-step approach. The fifth course will refer back to things we taught you in the fourth course. It flows really smoothly from one thing to the next because you don’t want to go from doing something like Wordpress to doing MVC or something – that’s a big jump.

  Putting everyone through the whole curriculum has worked best. Even those who have some past experience are finding that when you’re self-taught, you don’t know what you don’t know.

  Erik: Our approach is decidedly a “bottom up” approach rather than “top down.” A fair percentage of bootcamps have the philosophical approach to throw the people into a framework, start building immediately, and figure a lot of things out along the way.

  There is a certain degree of wisdom to that viewpoint, but I personally have found that this works well when one already has a pretty strong sense of the fundamentals so they can sort out important data and lessons, and they can make those logical connections much more quickly. When you throw people into it who don’t have any technology background, it can be overwhelming sometimes. Our philosophy has been to build the fundamental blocks before we give them a specific language. We teach on a gradient where students are learning simple scripting or markup language, then they start gradually implementing object-oriented programming and web development. But we do it on a step-by-step basis.

   

  You mentioned that you have been picky with your students. What have your students been like over the last year?

  Erik: There’s lots of diversity; we’re all over the map. It’s really cool.

  Jack: It’s great; we have all sorts of different ethnicities, we have several women attending, we have some older and younger people. I would say that 10% of the people that come in are pretty advanced, decent coders with technology experience but not able to get a job. They’re coming here to round out their skill set and get placed. I would say another 40% or so have dabbled in coding, and about half have no experience; they just know that being a developer is a smart career choice.

  Erik: In 2015 we’re adding a couple other really hot technologies to the program. One of the elements we’re really going to stress this year is security. With the whole Sony thing, security is a big issue.

   

  How many students have you graduated to date?

  Jack: in 2014 we graduated 20 of our people and they all got placed. The other 40 will be graduating over the next month or two, and some of them have already gotten jobs.

   

  What’s the philosophy behind the rolling start instead of having cohorts of students all working together?

  Jack: There’s a couple of reasons. One is that we hate turning people away and we found that when we did three or six-month cohorts, our scheduling didn’t work for certain people. We didn’t want them to lose out on the opportunity.  

  We’ve had a fair amount of people whose lives wouldn’t have allowed for this program if we didn’t offer open enrollment. Our main philosophy is that we want to make our program available for everybody. Also, we have five people currently doing the program remotely from their homes. We have a full remote setup; our instructors use Skype and screen share.

   

  Since the course is “self-paced,” could someone work on it part-time for 30 or 40 weeks?

  Jack: That’s a good question. We’re open from 9 a.m. in the morning here till 10 p.m.  Mondays through Fridays. We do have people working 40-hour a week jobs so they can come here on weeknights and work from home on the weekends and those students are doing great.

   

  What does a typical day look like? Is there lecture? Are students working one-on-one with an instructor or going through the curriculum on their own?

  Erik: It’s actually a mixture of all three of those approaches. Every single course has its curriculum and a series of steps that need to be completed in order, without jumping around. For example, when students learn HTML and CSS, they learn through a combination of recorded lectures, textbooks, code exercises, pair programming and practical assignments.

  What doesn’t happen in our course rooms is live lecture. We don’t do live lecture for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that if you miss one word in the middle of a live lecture, you’re in trouble. You can either keep interrupting the instructor, or you can hope you’re going to figure it out along the way.

  We do filmed lectures so students can watch when they need it.

   

  Tell us about a success story!

  We had a guy who just got a job last week- he's a young kid who was working as a bagger at a local grocery store. He had to go through a lot to get through this program; not just intellectually, but he also matured a lot and gained a lot of personal responsibility. The degree of change that happened in this man’s life over the last three or four months is profound.

  We make Tech Academy Portland as accessible as we can because ultimately, this industry opens up a really great life for the right type of person.

   

  Have you had many younger students or students who didn’t do an undergrad degree at Tech Academy Portland?

  Erik: Oh, yeah, there’s a lot. There’s a 24-year old kid on the floor who will be done pretty soon. His entire tech experience involves playing a ton of video games, and he had no post-secondary education at all.

  On the other hand, we taught a guy who got a CS degree, tried to get a job for six to eight months, wasn’t getting hired anywhere. He did our program and got hired two weeks before graduating. We really teach people the skills they’re going to need in the marketplace. Their resumes reflect what employers are looking for and they have real coding experience in these areas.

   

  How are you attracting a diverse applicant pool?

  Jack: We had some aspirations to network and market with diversity groups in our area but it hasn’t shown to be needed because of the signups we’ve been getting without marketing. I would say 40% of our students are under the age of 24, and 30-40% of them are over 40 and the rest of them are in the middle.

  Erik: We have seven women currently enrolled, and we really want to be a part of the women in tech movement that’s happening right now. We’re looking to get involved with the Chicks Who Code organization in 2015.

   

  What kind of jobs are students being hired into? Are they full-time developers now, freelancing, working for startups or enterprise companies?

  Erik: The most common outcome is that they’re getting hired full-time as developers - 40 hours a week at companies in the Portland area. Most of them are companies that have been around for a while. There are a couple of graduates who went to startups. The average annual salary is currently a little over $60,000 – which is higher than we expected. For the Portland market that’s a really good salary.

  Jack: I don’t think we’ve had anybody go into freelancing yet. We have a couple of students currently attending who say that they want to freelance when they graduate. But most of them are getting run-of-the-mill 9 to 5 jobs.

   

  Are you both mentoring and instructing, or do you have other instructors?

  Jack: Right now Erik and I tend to concentrate on curriculum and business development and we have three instructors. The instructors handle virtually everything; they’re all graduates of our program.

  Erik also sits down with each student at least once a month personally to interview them and see how they’re doing.

   

  How do you see the bootcamp industry evolving over the next five years?

  Jack: We’ve been involved with a lot of local bootcamps, and we have aspirations to be a national bootcamp. I think over the next five years you’re going to see five major national boot camps that are everywhere. And we hope to be one of the major boot camp names in America and to be a national company this next year.

   

  Are you planning to expand to other cities?

  Erik: We want to have classes being delivered in 10-15 of the major cities in America but we’ll be based in Portland. We do want to continue to offer that remote online option. We’re actually going to be running a bootcamp in Seattle starting in April! We’ll learn from that expansion and hopefully we’ll just continue emulating that plan throughout the US.

   

  Want to learn more about Tech Academy Portland? Check out their School Page on Course Report or the Tech Academy website here!

• Q&A with Erik Gross of Tech Academy Portland

  Liz Eggleston3/10/2014

  The Tech Academy

  Erik Gross took his background in classroom and practical instruction for the Navy and combined it with his expertise in .NET and Java. Add the clear shortage of talent in the booming Portland IT market, and Erik knew he had a recipe for success. He started the Prosper IT Academy (now Tech Academy Portland) in 2013. 

  We talk with Erik about their unique rolling admission model, how they team up with staffing partner CorSource, and what students learn during their ten weeks at Prosper IT.

   

  What were you doing before you started Prosper IT and how did you get into this space?

  My technical and education background both come from the Navy. While I was in the Navy, I was a Nuclear Reactor Operator and Electronics Technician, and I was also a classroom instructor teaching computer fundamentals, electronic, nuclear power, physics- everything you need to know to operate a nuclear reactor in a ship. I was also a practical instructor inside the ship, and I found that I loved it. All the way through my professional career, I have always had a mentor role with getting people up to speed on changing technologies.

  Fast forward to the last several years, and I’ve been operating in Portland. The IT market in Portland is really vibrant. We’ve got a strong .NET/Java enterprise community, and also a strong startup community. I’ve been part of the enterprise community for a long time, and I realized that there was a distinct shortage in talent. I was pulling in all of these side projects, and it was hard to find junior developers to work on these projects. So a buddy of mine and I started to create our own talent; we developed a curriculum and taught best practices to this group of junior developers. Everybody who went through that prototype program got jobs in IT- it worked out really well.

  Then about a year ago, my son came home from school (he’s 15) and said he wanted to do a developer bootcamp. The lightbulbs went off, I did all my research, and realized that my specific advantages were that I was going to teach .NET, because that’s the stack I know. We weren’t going to teach Ruby because I don’t know that stack- what I do know is how to be a well-rounded .NET developer. So I started putting together this course to create a well-rounded developer. We produce developers with the technical skills to be an entry-level developer, but also the soft skills with the ability to communicate well, handle stress, and genuinely network and establish long-term relationships with people.

   

  Why did you choose to teach .NET?

  It’s what I know, but also, it’s the area that we need talent. Everyone I pitched the idea to just lost their minds - there is a tremendous demand for .NET talent in this town. It’s mindboggling how many jobs there are relative to the number of developers - we have Intel, Nike, Techtronics, IBM, all of the major healthcare companies - and they’re all .NET stack. In fact, we work with a partner, CorSource, who handles all of the interview prep and resume building for us. They came up with 143 different companies in Portland that employ .NET developers!

   

  What are you looking for in potential students? Do students need to have any programming or IT experience?

  We have two different offerings in our school - one is for the experienced developer who has been on the job for 2-4 years and is well-established in the industry, but wants to get up to speed in a newer technology like ASP.NET MVC, test diven development, or unit testing. This is not a bootcamp environment; it’s 1-2 weeks long and is a crash course.

  The other is the bootcamp. The only requirement is that you’re very bright and have a good personality. To that end, the applicant testing isn’t about IT knowledge. We do an IQ test, which tells me a lot. Then, we do a personality test which helps weed out people who are unstable or are putting on a front. Because we weed those people out, our classes are really awesome, even though some of the students are smart-alecs! It’s a really great dynamic - they naturally form teams. That’s the kind of product we want in the IT community - a develper who is friendly, can take criticism well, is naturally inquisitive and isn’t insecure.

   

  So students can start the program at any time. Do they form cohorts or is this a one-on-one experience?

  For the first third of the program, a lot of learning is one-on-one with the instructor.

  First, we assess knowledge of computer science fundamentals with a pretty brutal, two-hour test. We don’t care if they do well or poorly on it, we just want to know how much they know about number systems, algorithms, data structures, basic computer architecture, and fundamentals of programming. Based on those results, we create a custom training program to fill any of those holes. Some people have to learn all five modules and others only have to do one or two.

  Next, you’re learning the fundamentals of development using JavaScript, because it has such a low learning curve. Again, a lot of that is one-on-one - learning how to create functions, execute programs, encapsulation etc. After this, you’ll already see teams naturally coming together, which is when we pair people together and give them a live project. They do one project in Waterfall and one in Scrum. Each person has a chance to be the Scrum master. A cohort forms naturally based on how fast people are progressing.

   

  How many students are in the space at the same time?

  6-10 at a time. We have 2 instructors.

   

  Are you getting a lot of interest in the program?

  Last week, we got 20 inquiries and 3 applications. We just kicked off a marketing campaign. I want to be able to deliver well - we just added another office so we’re ready for that.

   

  How selective are you with applicants?

  We are selective, but we spend a good amount of time interviewing. There are some people who I encourage not to even do our initial testing. But once a student gets through the testing, we’ve had 100% acceptance rate.

   

  What is the makeup of your cohorts? Do you do outreach to women and underrepresented minorities in the community?

  We have about 20% women and 20% underrepresented minorities right now, which is fine, but I’d like to get that up. One thing we’re doing is outreach in local education to tutor STEM subjects in middle and high school. I’ve worked in the enterprise IT environment for so long, where often 40% of the workforce are women. I have a phenomenal track record working with women in this industry, but most of the women I’ve worked with have been from India, because they’re really well educated in STEM there. Probably 90% of our applicants are men. We’d like to change that.

   

  Tell us about the soft skills that you’re teaching students and why that’s important.

  In-house, towards the end of their technical training, they go through a communications course. This teaches how to ensure that you’re being understood by another person, ensure that they’ve understood you, without getting upset. The communications course handles this well. The main reason I’ve been hired in the past is because I interview well and have gotten along with people - I want my students to have that. Then, our staffing partner CorSource takes over, and they get into the specifics of the interview process and handling difficult questions. They drill the students beforehand, so that they don’t fall down during their first interview.

   

  How does Prosper IT help students get jobs in tech once they’ve completed the program?

  They’re building a portfolio with the two or more live projects they do - I get people asking all the time about our students working on their projects. We have specific requirements about what we’ll accept. It must be a full-stack application and it must have a viable back-end component. We’re not just going to build a glorified brochure page for a real estate company, for example. It also must be public-facing, ideally viewable on the internet, or, if it’s an in-house proprietary app, the client has to be willing to let the students keep the code base so that they can show prospective clients their work. That is their resume.

   

  Do you have any examples of projects that your students are working on now?

  There’s a junior developer user group that just formed in Portland ,and our school is making the website for it. They’re creating the back end to be able to store historical data, keep minutes of the meetings, store membership data, etc., as well as the front-end of the site.

  Another one is a tool called the Parts Writer, for an Oregon aerospace company who needed the ability to take the materials for aircraft and determine which elements of those parts were new and revised versus parts that the company already has. So it aids them in building highly technical parts and repair manuals. These are live projects, not theoretical assignments.

   

  Tell us about your job placement stats and your relationship with CorSource. Does a student get a tuition refund or are there recruiting fees?

  We’ve placed 100% of our students, and honestly, we always will. One of the key components of our relationship with CorSource is that they organize talking tours, where CorSource arranges events with their clients – our students get to talk with the CEO and developers at the company- it’s the ultimate foot in the door. CorSource is working with us for free, but they want to place the students because that’s how they get paid. On the other hand, I’m forming relationships directly with employers and for those, I negotiate a hiring fee, and all of that fee goes to the student.

   

  If a potential student isn’t looking for a job, but maybe wants to start their own company or launch their own product, is that supported at Prosper IT?

  I’ve never had anyone bring it up. I have a couple guys now who are natural hackers and entrepreneurs, but their goal is to get solid training, work in the industry for a few years, and then launch on their own.

   

  Your website says that you will pay for the MTA (Microsoft Technology Associate) Certificate - have you had success with that?

  I haven’t had a single person test for it. I’m perfectly willing to pay the assessment fees, though!

   

  Do you feel pressure to become accredited or work with regulatory agencies in Oregon?

  I haven’t specifically gotten word of anything like that in Portland, but we’ve all been talking about it. I’ve talked with my students, and a couple of guys who run other code schools. That said,

  I really want to have my finger on the pulse of this - I want to know if anyone is going to either try to suppress this area or try to grab a piece of it, because there is money being made. I don’t mean to seem cynical, but I saw the article about the California regulations, and I know that’s not motivated by concern for the students or protecting them from fraud, because they’re all getting hired at $100,000 per year, so why do they need to be protected? I’ll try to be as far ahead of this as I can.

   

  Want to learn more about Prosper IT? Visit their website or their School Page on Course Report.