Full Stack Weekday - REMOTE

Liliana and Gregorio took advantage of me in my time of need. I needed time off to attend to an emergency which they granted. Gregorio then had me choose what date I would return. When the time came for me to return though he ignored my emails and slack messages, and Liliana said I was no longer a student and she started ignoring me too! I have the emails as proof still but can't get any of my money back because of how far I had gotten in the program. They robbed this opportunity from me so I posted all over my tiktok, YouTube, and Instagram about this experience.

When I got out of the Navy in 2020, COVID shutdowns were at their peak, and I struggled to find work. I jumped around random, low-paying jobs just to pay my bills for the next two years, unable to find a career despite having a bachelor's degree and military experience. In August of 2022, I found out about the VA's VetTec program, which pays for veterans' opportunity to attend a job-seeking school in the tech field. Through the VetTec website, I found Sabio, who is a preferred VetTec provider. I started the bootcamp in September, graduated in January, and within 2 weeks of graduation, I received 3 job offers to work as a Software Engineer.The bootcamp is fast-paced and challenging. You are placed in a cohort and given access to pre-recorded videos to watch/code along with, presented by the cofounder, Gregorio. Gregorio's videos were recorded live and seemingly improvised, which can lead to some confusing moments during the video, but it also allows you to see him make mistakes, which he explains and then shows the process of correcting the mistakes. For more complicated concepts, these videos can be quite confusing, but Sabio's "Queue" is meant to help fill the gaps. The Queue is a virtual line you join when you want to ask a question to one of the instructors. When your name is picked up, the instructor sends a Zoom link and you can meet to discuss questions/code bugs. Most of the instructors are phenomenal, with only one or two that I always hoped I wouldn't get because those one or two always seemed bothered by my presence and were never helpful. The rest of the instructors were always willing to go the extra mile to explain something, and I like to ask lots of follow-up questions, so that means a lot to me. Occasionally the Queue lines can be very long, waiting up to an hour and a half for a response, but with lots of work to do, it's relatively easy to skip something and move on while you wait for clarification. Other times, you just have to take a break while you wait for someone to pick up your question.The most useful and important part of the bootcamp is the Apprenticeship, or what we called, the "Prod [Product] phase". Prod comes toward the end of the bootcamp, after you've learned the fundamentals of full stack coding. You are assigned to a real life startup company and begin to build features for a web application for that startup. This is where you get to apply your skills and make sense of the last 3 months of your bootcamp life. You work with a set of senior developers (also instructors) who give out assignments, organize demo meetings, and provide feedback on the work done. The prod instructors are phenomenal, especially Mr. Snow. Mr. Snow always took the extra time to discuss complex concepts if I pushed him for a little more. I was assigned to work on quite a complex task in Prod, and Mr. Snow was my lifeline. The Prod phase is what makes Sabio so worthwhile in my opinion, because you're finally getting hands on work with real product, not just student projects. This is what set us apart as job applicants when applying for work - we actually had real life experience working on a dev team already.Throughout the entire bootcamp, we receive a little bit of career coaching, mostly with prepping LinkedIn. In the last month or so, the careers team starts doing resume reviews and a mock interview. With two weeks left in the bootcamp, students are given the go-ahead to apply for jobs. During the job-seeking period, there are weekly meetings with career services and an alumni who serves as a mentor. While this was never my personal expectation, there are some bootcamps that have connections with companies such that upon graduation, it might be easier to get a job with one of their partners - this is not the case with Sabio. You will venture off freely and look for a job like everyone else in the world, but with 2 weekly meetings with Sabio people to help you stay focused and on track. While my story seems like a fairytale to me, I do have close friends from the bootcamp that never found jobs, and it's now 7.5 months since I graduated. It's hard for me to say why they didn't, as I can never know if they were following Sabio's guidance perfectly, or if they were slacking off, or if it's just dumb bad luck. I worked exceptionally hard during the bootcamp. I was at #1 on the WakaTime Leaderboard (a coding time tracker) for most of the bootcamp, and I was one of the top performers in my cohort, so I was able to learn a lot more in my time there than someone who just skated by. I'd recommend everybody try to be #1 if you want the best chance at a job. It's probably the smartest choice I've made in my life, as my life has changed 180 degrees. I'm making more money than I've ever made, with tons of PTO, I live at the beach now, and I get to hang out with my dogs all day since I work from home. Thanks Sabio!

I recently completed the full stack program with a focus on React and .NET at this bootcamp and overall, I had a positive experience. The program materials including videos and exercises were current and up-to-date, which allowed me to stay current with the latest industry trends. Additionally, the opportunity to consult an instructor in times of need was beneficial in allowing me to delve deeper into concepts that I was struggling with.
One notable aspect of the program was the inclusion of interview training and a product phase, which provided a practical work experience simulation. This phase also offered practical tips and guidance for job seeking. In my opinion, this experience was highly beneficial for my career growth.
Overall, I highly recommend this bootcamp to anyone interested in gaining practical knowledge and experience in full stack development.

Sabio is a wonderful program to learn coding and gain the necessary skills to land a job in tech. They are also super veteran friendly and take VETTEC (what I used) and other VA benefits to pay for the school. I took the 17 week program but they have a 13 week option you can test into if you are in a crunch for time. It was a challenging experience and they don't play around with expectations. Be prepared to give 80 plus hours a week to learning and applying what you learn. It sounds like a lot because it is but it is not busy work. They care about all their students and want to see you succeed and get an awesome job. All they ask is the same commitment. So prepare ahead of time to make that commitment. They also pair you with a startup company to give you real world experience you can use on your resume and talk about in interviews once you are ready to apply for jobs which is usually around the last two weeks of the program. Good luck and thank you again Sabio!

I managed to achieve really fast results. While it can be intense at times, this helps me discover my maximum potential and have to give my best. The assistance from instructors is really good. I also appreciate how it prepares you for real-world working environments. Highly recommended. 

Before coming to Sabio, I had several years of product management experience in mobile, but I had never touched code inside an IDE. Sabio may seem difficult at first, but it is the reality of the software development world. To succeed is to work hard, learn quickly, and to carry the mentality and attitude that Sabio instills in you as a developer. This is more than just a software bootcamp, it is an education on people management in the software development world, and the reality is with most jobs that they keep you or hire you because they like you.Don't kid yourself that this will be easy. It's not. You will work 12 hours a day 5 days a week, 9 hours on Saturday and take one day off, and if you're not in LA timezone you will have to adjust. I did this from the Philippines  with a schedule of midnight to noon every day, and I certainly got out what I put in. The teachers are smart, they pick up on those that are there to succeed, put in the effort, and will work with you to achieve your goals. If your goals are small, that's what you'll get out of this program. But if your goals are a good job, and you put in the effort to match, you may just find what you are looking for.I'd like to add that I spent a considerable amount of time researching bootcamps before I chose Sabio. I took a test for one bootcamp, had interviews with maybe half a dozen, and waited months to make a decision. I read all the reviews I found, good and bad. There are haters out there for Sabio, but the reality is that Sabio has strict guidelines for success, and if you don't cut it, the same standards are applied to everyone, the school is not singling you out. Don't expect to succeed in this program if you half-ass it. My cohort started with around 80 in the pre-bootcamp section, 50 at the start of real bootcamp, and around 30 at the end of bootcamp. This is not a gimmick, a marketing ploy, a game for your money, and the school is not trading you money for a useless certificate, but rather is trading you the opportunity to live in an immersive training environment that parallels the real world of software development, and you have to find a way to make the cut.Other software development bootcamps offer you network training, if that's your thing, sure. Do it. Some offer Mac book training, if you want to do that also, go for it. But I'll tell you from my experience that once I got my job as a lead mobile developer after Sabio, that it wasn't difficult to add in using a MacBook on top of my windows experience, and working in the windows environment made me a much better developer in the Mac world. Why? Because I could work in Visual Studio, Rider, Visual Studio Code, Jet Brains Equivalent, SSMS, add Docker in there to make a SSMS image on Mac. Mac likes to build on top of windows things, and doesn't have much additional you need to use except in my case for Mobile learning XCODE on Mac for iOS development, which with React-Native also again just piggy-backs on a Windows compatible system that you learn in the bootcamp, React, which also leads to React-Native for Android.But I digress.Go to Sabio if you're willing to put in the effort, willing to learn, dedicate your time, learn to work well with people, and believe in achieving something great in the software development world. Don't say you weren't warned if you don't follow this advice and want to write a bad review later.

This is a terrible bootcamp, I'm not even going to waste my time writing about it because all the 1 star reviews are the legitimate ones. Most of these 5 star reviews are paid for by Sabio. They pay the individuals who graduate to leave them a good review. If you're a Vet trying to waste your VetTec benefit then join Sabio.Don't pay attention to the last reviewer saying tell you family you're changing your life, one person I knew got dropped because their child got sick and this individual had nobody to take care of their child so they could work on a Saturday, no remorse from the co-founder though. Easier to take the VetTec money and let them go.This company is NOT transparent, they pay for good reviews, change expectations during training and send notices after making them. You'll only speak to Alumni that they choose to have speak with you they're also paid for the "success story" interviews.The only word I agree with in that last 5 start review was the last word that person wrote... "RUN". I would just add AWAY after it, RUN AWAY.

I'm a Navy Vet and began this bootcamp in May 2022 using the VetTec benefit. Generally, any organization wants to make a good impression so they post everything positive going on, give you a good intro to what you'll be getting into and paint a wonderful picture of what it could be like in the end. To anyone wanting to enroll in a software developer bootcamp, I HIGHLY recommend you do not choose Sabio UNLESS you have a decent amount of experience, you just want some extra help and have no kids, no spouse, family, nothing to worry about. I'm talking 1 + year experience as well, not 2 weeks of html and then you start this.You're expected to get on their "Q" a minimum of 2 times a day where you ask questions if you need extra help. The problem is, it can take up to two hours to get a question answered. When you do get on the Q, most likely someone from an older cohort will answer it for you and you end up more lost then when you got on. I literally prayed I would get specific Instructors (4 to be exact) to answer my Q because the others would just waste their and my time and I'd come out worse. If you didn't get your 2/day, you get your notice of probation.You're expected to code 25 hours a week minimum and out of those 25, 2 hours minimum need to be done on Saturdays. I have no issues with this, If you didn't do your time then you got a notice for this as well.The first 4 weeks of Sabio were decent, just your basic hmtl/css/javascript. You get your lectures every week and you're following the curriculum. After that, it's tough! The lectures dissappear and you really need to rely on your cohort to help you out. It's like after the first 4 weeks they expected us to be these competent devs, they gave minimal help and thank goodness for the cohort because to be honest, I would've probably got dropped for not doing well enough if it wasn't for other students. The thing is, I expected that from instructors, not other students. If you have an institution and you're being paid to teach me something, then I want you to teach me, not other students who also don't have experience like myself. Any 17 week course boot camp is going to be a challenge though, it's not like Sabio is special for being a difficult bootcamp. The problem is how Sabio is run, very mediocre I'd say. After the weeks went on and speaking to many students, there seemed to be a trend on how most of us felt. It was lack of real guidance and the communication between instructors and us was just terrible.Apparently I racked up too many probation notices and was let go, the problem I have with this, is the day I finally decided to speak up about this to Gregorio I get dropped the next week. My last zoom call was him letting me know that I've been in the program long enough to be able to do the job search part on my own. I tried to reason with him because I don't like to leave things unfinished. The problem with reasoning with Greggy is that if you put yourself in a vulnerable position, he tries to take advantage of that and makes you feel like you're the one who's wrong and he's doing everything right. I did this before but this time I wasn't going to, I began to critique Sabio and he couldn't handle the truth, I was being honest and wanted to speak my mind, professionally of course. He cut me off shortly and didn't even let me finish half of what I wanted to say and wanted to end the zoom call. I had no choice but to leave without letting him know.Sabio prepares you to look like a real SWE/SDE and hey, if you want to look the part but not perform when the time comes, this is the place for you.Instead of a bootcamp, I would have gone on udemy.com, pay for the courses on their website which won't even cost a third of what the cost is here and use 4 hours minimum a day to become a developer. You'll get better guidance, be able to make your own schedule and you'll actually undertand what you're doing and why you're writing this code.

This is not just another online class. Sabio was there 100% of the way to help you on this coding journey. The instructors are knowledgeable, ready to help and is always full of great advice. Even though I was remote I was still able to get valuable instruction and help when I needed it. Everyone at Sabio is comitted to your learning experience and success and that is a wonderful feeling knowing that they care and want you succeed. I am so grateful I had the opportunity to be a part of this program and I have a coding family for life! Thank you Sabio!