Software Engineering Career Track

I had a great experience with Springboard.  The best part for me was the Career coaches and my mentor.  They helped me stay on track and guided me in the right direction multiple times throughout the course.

Springboard was a great program to be in. It provided a lot of good project based learning for javascript, python, and node.js. I only have one criticism and if they were to fix it, then I'd rate it 10/10. They require students to finish practice interviews, behavioral, whiteboard, project, and technical, and only allow you 2 attempts before you're disqualified for the job guarantee. I think they should increase to to 3 or 5 attempts, which would show good faith, especially for those who struggle with algorithms.

The instruction was excellent. The TA's were very helpful. My mentor was awesome. I feel confident in my abilities now I am job searching for an entry level position. I am on solid ground. Only drawbacks are that I feel like it was not emphasized that if you fail any of the mock interviews twice, you do not get the job guarantee. I came to this realization when I started doing the mock interviews at the end. Could be a determining factor in signing up for some people. Also, the mock interviewers need to follow the rubric for the mock interviews more strictly. The amount of variability in how Interviewers should be minimized as much as possible. 

I've been looking for an organized way to learn and study because I found that lurking the web on my own did not contribute to my learning too much. I am not disappointed with my choice, as Springboard provides an affordable, structured and completely relevant knowledge, that will definitely assist you in starting your SWE career. In addition to that, you get a personal mentor, who will guide you and provide valuable resources during you studies. And, of course, there is a very supportive and caring team, who will assist you at any time

The curriculum was thorough and gave a me a great foundation and confidence that I can pursue a career in software engineering.

During my time at Springboard, I was very impressed with the comprehensiveness of the curriculum and the amount of information that is covered. But by far the best part of this bootcamp was the support. The mentors, career coaches, teacher assistants, and slack community made all the difference. I spent a lot of time looking through all the software engineering bootcamps, and this one is definitely the best one I found for the price.

I have just graduated from the Software engineering career track program by Springboard and I'd like to say it is AWESOME! learning to code is a long process and it makes all the sense in the world that you take your time to learn deeply and apply what you have learned through projects. I loved everything about springboard, Colt Steel is an awesome instructor and it takes some amazing character to make over 100 hours of video content that does not bore students! the modules are really well thought out, the exercises are very good, not to mentions that there is an exercise for almost everything you learn, and further study exercises too.The most important part about springboard in my opinion that students are matched with mentors, this is crucial because it's not just the weekly calls that counts, it's all those long emails and showing you different ways of solving a problem or writing code that really counts, having a mentor that shares his/her experience with you is invaluable.The student success team is really great, they are quite supportive, helping with time management and organization are very important since there is so much to learn.Another important aspect of the course is the career modules, every few weeks, a non-technical module will be up, where students would have to work towards finding a job, be it building a resume, crafting an elevator pitch, networking, doing mock interviews and so on, at the end of those modules, you can book a call with a career coach to discuss progress and get feedback.Students also have access to TAs who are very helpful, responsive, and really good software engineers, the course also gives you access to many students in your cohort or otherwise in a slack group, I was personally involved in a study group that has impacted me a lot, knowing that others share your struggles and victories is important.Conclusion: this is an amazing course, It's obvious that the good people of springboard have spent so many hours thinking and planning and I could not have been more satisfied with the overall experience, I highly recommend it.

Going through Springboard was an incredible experience. The skills I've learned have prepared me completely for a full-time position as a Software Engineer and the mentorship provided was incredibly helpful. I'm very content with the result and for the price it's really no-brainer. That said, for those applying, make sure to start on algorithms and interview prep EARLY (first or second week). Doing that will help you pass technical interviews faster.

I started Springboard's SWE track in March with a degree in IT but no real hands on coding experience, outside of small terminal based things. I am just now about 60% through with the program and have already had several job offers, one of which I accepted. Before the program I made $40k as an application support specialist with no room for upward growth, and am now making $65k with ample opportunities for progression. This program has literally changed my life. I think Springboard's mentor inclusion and emphasis on testing and career development sets it miles above any other bootcamp.

Pros: 
Well-conceived, robust, project-based curriculum taught by an excellent instructor (Colt Steele) 
1 on 1 weekly personal mentorship from a legitimate industry expert (mine had been a dev for 20 years and has worked at Amazon for the past 5) 
Career curriculum paced well in tandem with the technical curriculum - they don't just teach you how to code; they teach you how to get a job
Active Slack community of peers. Many people actually formed study groups and checked in with one another regularly 
TA's available weekdays for whenever you get stuck 
Priced very favorably vs competitors, offered multiple/flexible pricing options to fit your situation (now I just sound like I work for them lol)   
 Cons: 
If you're not a self-starter or struggle with motivation, this may be a tough sell for you. The online community and the mentor support help with not feeling alone, but at the end of the day you still have to make yourself do the work.

I found my passion for coding and saw Colt Steele's YouTube video on him starting a bootcamp course. I instantly signed up to be apart of the first cohorts to start the course. It wasn't easy, I had my doubts on quitting the bootcamp but the community was strong and so was mentor to keep me pushing because they saw I had potential to grow into a great developer. I'm here now searching for my dream job in being a software engineer!

The online software engineering course from Springboard proved to be the ideal solution for me. Since I was still working full-time during the week, I needed an online course that would let you advance at your own pace while still being affordable. I think the way the course was laid out made it easy to advance from one topic to another, building upon previous lessons and not leaving gaps. I loved Colt Steele's teaching style! He knows how to break things down and explain them in a logical (and humorous) way. Springboard did a very good job matching me with my mentor. I was really able to connect with him and looked forward to our weekly meetings.Overall, my experience was an A++ and I would recommend Springboard to anyone!

My background: Worked in BI for a few years, MS in Data science, basic knowledge of coding in python. Started coding in JS last Nov to prepare to get in multiple boot camps. Previously was accepted in HackReactor, Coding temple, Code works, Fullstack academy. Changed my mind to take Springboard last minute after finding out Colt Steele has launched the bootcamp program w/ Springboard.

Contents are more or less the same as what is provided in Udemy except for Flask or some other fundamentals. React version is newer in springboard but the quality of contents is better on the Udemy than on springboard in my opinion.

Lack of learning support. TAs are available and usually get back to you as long as the server is functioning properly, however, you do not get feedback on your work unless you specifically require them. This is the huge downside. Feedbacks are extremely important in the learning stage so you build a good behavior. This is the biggest downside of this program.

Mentors. I would say, this is the least favorite part of the program. Despite the whole tuition is paying for mentors, mentors don't add any values. They think they are there to give you career advice and help you with interviews (all of 3 I have experienced said this) but there are career coaches for that. It feels like it has been a waste of money. Perhaps overly generalized, but I have had changed mentors a few times and none of them turned out to be helpful. I received many messages after publicly sharing my opinion in the springboard community so there is some consensus there. Maybe some people were lucky to have mentors that were helpful for them but it wasn't for me and I had to hire one outside Springboard to learn, which worked out for me (but expensive). When it comes to choosing mentors, you don't have a choice. It all depends on their availability. Oh. And you may get a mentor who never coded in python or js or react. If you ask any springboard material questions to them... they all go blank. They don't care. Previously when I looked into other boot camps, I thought it was weird that all the graduates were doing TAs perhaps that would lower the quality of the schools, well, now I know they are MUCH better because they know what you are going through. Wrong choice.

Student advisor. They are always there to help and listen to you, however, they are limited to what they can do. While they do make sure that you are heard, the problems don't solve and that's the problem.

Unstable server. The website is really slow and the video contents on Vimeo, There were many times that Vimeo server was down so you wouldn't have access to any videos. To this date, Vimeo videos may run in very low quality or the springboard page takes forever to load. (My internet environment setup at home is equivalent to a working office as we have 2 engineers at home working from home.) -- They changed this to Youtube and it's little better now.

Career coach support. Their availability was unstable when I started but SB quickly worked on this. 2 months in the program I saw the open calendars again. I assume it is going to be stable as is. It feels like it has been worth it just because of the career support but then again, for a couple of thousand dollars, you can hire a personal career coach who will perhaps even make the job applications for you.

Feedbacks. This is my main problem with them. None of the staff are familiar with springboard materials. Meaning, when you ask a question, they don't know what that is about. This seems like a huge turn off to me, given the program is 100% remote. They do have 2 live coding sessions (that's right, 2 out of 50 units, out of hundreds of exercises and assignments) with external reviewers who are looking at the same project over and over, and their feedbacks were helpful. That is because they know the materials! surprise! Mentors have no clue and if you ask questions, they will just google and give you a link that you previously saw before asking the question. We aren't paying so that they can google it for you... I got sick and tired of changing mentors doing all the same things. Seriously, if you want to make something out of this program, you need someone who can support your learning especially if you are new to programming. 

Capstone. Neither of my capstone projects were properly reviewed. I could not get any help to figure out how to deploy at the very late stage. Here is what I went through: ask TA for help -> TA says "ask your mentor" -> asked my mentor -> mentor says "ask TAs". Gah!! for real... Eventually, I got it working after getting help from an engineer I worked with from a hackathon before... This deployment alone took me 1 full month. Non-sense! 

For any of these things, I sent feedbacks to the springboard. They do hear you. But I don't know if they are working on them. I feel like the organization is somewhat misaligned within and the communication is broken. Even to complete the program there were several pingpong messages between advisor, support, mentors and it just felt very unorganized. Your feedback probably will stay somewhere in the backlog but who knows when that'd be the story to work on next.

At about 60% in the program, I was hired in the field I wanted to work in. I can't say it is all thanks to Springboard. While my learning may have been based on Springboard materials Here are a few extra things I did that got me hired I think:

I paused a couple of times and took an advantage of Udacity Nano Degree Programs.
I hired a personal tutor to give me feedback on Springboard materials that I worked on (assessments, projects, exercises.)
I worked above and beyond on full-stack python development that integrates machine learning, docker, etc for first capstone. I also developed a react-native app.
I worked on CTCI and kept up with Data structures and algorithms on edx, coursera, etc. This is offered in springboard too.
Springboard shows a progress bar where you are at and this helped me to keep up with my learning disciplines.

I have no idea what % of the cohort has graduated but I am in the first handful. SB opened Software Engineer in January and I joined the second cohort in February. 

In general, Course materials are great. Mentors, case by case or questionable.The student advisor listens to you. Career support is great. TAs are available. The slack community is healthy and active.