Software, Web and Mobile Engineering

I joined Makers Academy in September 2017 on their immersive coding bootcamp. There was an initial interview process to assess eligibility to the course with a basic technical interview. The first month was a 20 hour per week remote precourse which set the level of understanding needed to progress to the full course. 

Our class of 17 students were tutored for around 2 hours per day at the start of the course with afternoons reserved for challenges we worked on in pairs, aimed at cementing the knowledge gained in the morning workshops. This combination of traditional classroom and challenge based learning led to an excellent understanding of test driven, agile software development fundamentals and also promoted solid self learning principles.

Students at Makers get to enjoy a lot of comforts including a fully stocked kitchen, daily guided mediation sessions and yoga classes. Everything is there to be enjoyed and there is no pressure to take part if it's not your thing.

After the 4 months spent with Makers Academy I was able to successfully land my first job within a week. My time there had fully prepared me for the reality of making the career change into software development and the careers team were on hand to help with the transition in the build up to leaving.

I would fully recommend Makers to anyone who's considering making the move into development. It can be daunting to take the leap but it's the experience of a lifetime for those who take the risk.

Makers Academy is quite the experience but it's not for the faint of heart. The course provides a intensive experience covering programming best practises such as pair programming and test-driven development, helping students gain the skills to get a job as a junior software engineer and be an effective member of a team. The support provided from the coaches and Chief Joy Officer throughout the course was fantastic and the careers team were brilliant, helping me find a job within a week of finishing the course. It's a great choice if you want to become a software engineer.

Makers lived up to their promise and exceeded my expectations. 

I built the product I had always dreamt of, met a bunch of great people, been welcomed everywhere thanks to their great reputation, and got a job within 8 days from finishing the course! What's not to like? Alessio

I had an amazing experience at Makers Academy, the people were incredible! It was really challenging and hard work, but definitely worth it! I wouldn't hesitate to recommend to anyone!

Makers has been an incredible experience overall and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it to anyone considering it. I came to coding with little knowledge or experience but with their guidance and support I have been able to land an incredible job as a junior software developer within 6 weeks of completing the course! It is expensive and for most people will involve some risk but I would say it is definitely worth it. 

There is a lovely supportive atmosphere at Makers and I met some amazing people there. Everyone is lovely, kind, motivated and driven and it's an inspiring place to be :) It is very intense though and you have to be ready to dedicate the majority of your time to learning during the three months. You have to be ok with doing a lot of the work yourself but I found that there is lots of explanation and help if you need it. 

Lastly, one of the best parts of makers is the careers team. They offer incredible support after the course and have some amazing contacts within the tech world. Jobhunting isn't easy and again it's up to you to put the time and effort in, but if you do, there are lots of opportunities out there. 

If you're thinking about doing it, I would say go for it! With their help, I have changed career completely within the space of 6 months and you can too :)

Makers has completely reinvigorated my relationship with learning and instilled within me a belief that I can achieve whatever I set my heart to.

The couse itself is challenging and is designed to acquaint you with the feeling of unknown. If you're looking for a formulaic, spoon-fed experience similar to University/School this may not be for you. You are often given the bare minimum information to fulfill each week's task which can at times be frustrating but empowering at the same time when you ultimately succeed. By the end of the course I felt like I could learn absolutely any language/library/framework independently.

Content-wise there is a huge emphasis on best practices (e.g. test driven development(TDD), pair programming) which, having spoken to people from other bootcamps where TDD is not covered, would perhaps set you apart and better prepare you for life as a software developer.

The coaches at Makers are amazing. They offer plenty code review to push your skills to the next level and are masters of extracting every ounce of learning possible every time you are stuck/need help.

It could not be emphasized more that the Job Assistance that you receive after the course is invaluable. The careers team helps to find you ample opportunities to apply to whilst providing coaching to help keep morale, motivation and belief high until you finally find your first software developer job.

Overally Makers has been the most valuable experience in my adult life and I could not recommend it more. 

Makers Academy lives up to its promises. It has a great community of software developers connected to the place and really encourages you to get involved with it. It has a firm focus on learning to write high quality code, and you end up with a portfolio of a variety of projects built with ruby and javascript.

It is intense, but its not too hard in terms the learning curve and at the end of it many of our cohort got a job within 2 weeks - including me. They have a good careers fair where students can meet employers, who end up hiring many of the students finishing a cohort.

The teachers are very knowledgable and supportive, this course does demand some independent learning as well, but if you ever feel you are struggling there is loads of help. It has a large focus on group and pair work, to prepare you for industry, and helps give you confidence for job interviews. If you are thinking of becoming a software developer and get a job quickly then go for Makers!

I had a great experience at Makers Academy! It's very intensive and you get to learn a huge amount over 4 months. I'd recommend it to people looking to transition into software development - the course was very focussed on teaching skills that would be beneficial in that environment and ultimately helping you to get a job as a developer. That said, the process of getting to that point was really fun, the coaches were supportive and excited to transfer their knowledge, and I only started to be encouraged to think about jobs about 6 weeks from the end of the course.

I loved the course and the people are amazing. It is was life changing for me. It made me push my boundaries, be polite and comfortable with being uncomfortable. The curicullum is really good  and in depth. Completely worth it! 

The school is amazing, there is good support but don't expect anybody trying to stick knowledge in your brain - they learn you how to be a knowledge worker, you will have to make the learning by yourself!

I was very pleased by the support before, during (with an amazing student's emotional support) and expecially after the course - they really try to be there at every step of your career, from starting the course to getting a job.

I was convinced doing the live (not online) course was going to make a huge difference.
I attended it and it really worked for me, expecially regarding team working skills.

Although, if you fill you got a good set of those skills already, you can save lots of money by taking the online courses - many remote students have been hired already but don't ask me the stats!

Also, if you have a good base you could even try without the course and save those money alltogether.

Makers Academy was a tough but really rewarding experience. The course requires you to take a certain responsibility for your own learning but is structured in such a way as to continually build up your skills and confidence. The weekly exercises introduce important concepts through the applications you build. The concepts are not handed to you on a plate and do require you to figure some things out yourself, but I found real value in this process. The coaches really know their stuff and are on hand to help if you are really stuck - again they won't give you the answer on your plate but will help you develop a way forward and solution yourself.

One thing I did not really appreciate before the course at all was that I would gain experience in areas of development best practice - things like test-driven development, pair programming, or daily standups and retros when working in groups. Getting exposure to these was valuable in its own right, and is also something that I found really interested potential employers.

The course strucutre was really good and building up my confidence in my own skills - after the first few weeks I felt empowered to try new things with the training wheels firmly off, completing projects in areas such as machine learning and blockchain. At the start of the course I never could have imagined I'd feel confident enough to take on subject matter like that. Again I won't claim it was easy, but we felt we could embrace the struggle and build as we learnt!

In terms of outcome, I've secured a job with a software consultancy, which I'm really pleased with. The careers team provided good support in helping to put me in contact with potential employers and briefing me on areas to focus on for interview.

Makers Academy has given me a fantastic foundation as a developer and both a desire and curiosity to keep building my skills.

I attended Makers in search of a career change, like many others. After quite possibly the most difficult 12 weeks of my life, my search is over.

Makers is difficult. Very, very difficult. It doesn't matter if you've never written a line of code in your life, or if you're a hobbyist developer wanting to take your skills to the next level - Makers will be difficult for you. It is a bootcamp in the purest sense of the word. Expect to put the rest of your life on hold for 3 months.

That being said, it has been a fantastic experience for me. The course content is fantastic, the coaches are fantastic, the staff are fantastic, the careers support is fantastic, and your fellow students will be fantastic as well.

Makers sets itself apart from other bootcamps by its course content. While marketed ostensibly as a web dev bootcamp, there is a strong focus on writing high-quality code, which is valuable to any software developer. The cirriculum at Makers will prepare you for any software development job, which I believe is a huge plus.

You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll probably dream in code as well, but at the end of the course you'll look back with amazement at how much you can learn in 3 months if you put your mind to it.

Makers is a life-changing experience.

I spent a couple of years trying to learn coding on my own, but never really got to a point where I could have been employable. Makers Academy was the perfect place for me to learn in a structured way. The curriculum focus a lot on "learning how to learn" and learning by doing, so don't expect to be spon fed. We coded from day one and were taught about TDD and Agile practices, stuff that I never heard of before during my self studies. They prepared me for being part of a real working environment, it's not just about coding. After 3 very intense, challenging and rewarding months I found my first job as software engineer for a company that I thought would never even consider me as a candidate.
To sum it up, if you like to work hard, and learn a tons and be part of an amazing community Makers Academy is the place for you!

Makers was a fantastic experience, albeit very intense! They do a lot to foster a sense of community, I met so many lovely people both in my cohort and staff members. This really pays off during the course as it is difficult and you are really pushed so having a support system within the course makes such a difference. There's also a lot of effort put into student well-being with yoga and meditation classes. The course focuses on helping you to teach yourself, you are not spoon fed very much beyond the very first steps and are taught how to find the answers yourself. Beyond coding, you also learn good practices to use while coding which I found invaluable, this works as a framework for everything you pick up. I think my only criticism would be that there is a lot of self-learning, but with perspective, it has helped me so much after graduating when I'm working on my own.

As for employment the careers team were lovely for me and supported me all through the process. They found me relevant jobs and chased up companies who were dragging their feet.

I came to makers with no tech background and now have a job as a developer! If you can afford it and are a hard worker I would definitely recommend it!

I found Makers Academy to be a brilliant experience that fast tracked my programming knowledge in the space of 3 months. I was taught industry best practice, alongside the skills of learning how to learn effectively in an industry that is constantly changing.  We carried out pair programming every day, and were well supported by our coach who went above & beyond to help us learn. I got a job one week after graduating. It's a well respected course within the tech industry & has amazing hiring partners. 

As a testament to the course: I entered Makers Academy with very limited knowledge of software development. I accepted a job offer within three weeks of graduating. 

​There is a lot of focus on care both for yourself and fellow students, including daily meditation and bi-weekly yoga. Both the Joy Officer and the coaches are often around to speak directly about your concerns, and there is a strong, open feedback culture that Makers seem to take very seriously. There is a lot of emphasis on everyone feeling safe and supported. ​
The support in getting a job is absolutely fantastic, as long as you put in the effort from your side as well. That means building a rapport with the careers team and helping them to help you find something suitable. They will help you for as long as you need to get a job, though that might mean supporting you in finding one for yourself, as the number of jobs available via hiring partners at any one time will inevitably be fewer than the graduates applying. 
The focus on agile practices, software craftsmanship and projects emulating the real world was great. Learning to work like a programmer, think like a programmer and collaborate like a programmer are by far the most important skills Makers can give you - much more than just learning the actual languages, which is something you could probably go at alone with enough time and dedication. These are the skills that will make you employable beyond the code!
​The focus on 'learning by doing' was indispensable in propelling my learning forward. This, along with the 'growth mindset' that is integral to the Makers learning philosophy, was one of the most useful lessons that I will continue to apply not only to my career but to any challenge in life. 
The course is set up to promote total self-learning. What little structure you have is slowly pulled back until you are working in a completely self-directed manner. As such, you will have to rely on yourself to progress forward. The coaches are there to keep the ball rolling, but they won't chase you if you fall behind. The onus is very much on you to make it known if you are struggling or need specific guidance. Don't expect to be graded, or even receive much feedback without asking for it.​ This can be very frustrating, especially at first, but is quite good for encouraging self-sufficiency and self-assurance (which will be pretty essential post-course). 
There is a sense in which you are at the mercy of your cohort more than your coach. Pair programming happens every day, if not group projects, and programming alone is discouraged. This is fantastic for letting you get a taste of coding collaboratively, actively thinking about a problem and knowledge-sharing, but does also mean you are reliant on each other to maintain a level of commitment and motivation.

Makers is very much what you make of it. Frankly, it is quite easy to go through the course without much effort, though unsurprisingly the pay-off will be minimal-to-nonexistent. And, of course, it's possible to go at it 24/7 and make coding your life, though I think the necessity of this is over-stated. Maintaining a not-insane work-life balance won't ruin you, as long as you work smart and are mindful of your own progress (it's true, though, that you will need to give up some of your weekends!) Seek help for your weaknesses, engage thoughtfully, be a considerate pair, and you're already halfway there.

If you're serious about a career change and are up for a challenge then Makers Academy is for you!

The entire course is pretty intense, 3 months of weekly topics followed by weekend challenges to really make sure you learn as much as humanly possible. It was amazing!

This is not to scare you off but equally if the above doesn't excite you then you might struggle because every person who makes it onto the course will have signed up to this and be raring to go!

The course: Like many people I wanted to make a switch into development and doing tutorials at home wasn't really cutting it. The course itself is great, every week (well most) your coach starts the week of introducing the next topic. Sometimes this may involve whiteboard sessions, talking through syntax and others just pointing you and your pair to the repository for that topic. That week you then spend working through a specific challenge focused on teaching you about this topic. Each day you switch pairs so you have the benefit of looking at different code, different ways of thinking and learning from one another.

This is ultimately the key thing that makes Makers Academy so good. They get a whole bunch of passionate people from diverse backgrounds together, set them a challenge and support where necessary. Makers isn't an onsite tutorial because if it was you really wouldn't understand the content. If I didn't have to figure things out myself (or with my pair) I honestly don't think I'd remember half of what I do now.

Career support: They have a great careers team who do everything they can to support you in your job search afterwards. But just like the course, this is driven by you and you have to be prepared to put the hours in.

Disclaimer: I am writing this review in return for a free hoodie (I do love free hoodies), but apparently I can be as honest as I like 😋

I was part of the April 2017 cohort at Makers and finished at the end of June. It took me about two weeks to get a job as a Software Engineer afterwards. Before Makers I was a marketer and only had a tiny amount of coding knowledge, all front end.

I joined Makers because I was making a conscious career change. Before the course I was sceptical that I'd be able to get a job coding straight after, but I've been proved wrong 🙌

The biggest thing I've got out of Makers is a mindset change. Whereas before I wasn't confident about learning new things, especially technical things, I feel way more confident now. Get yourself a growth mindset 📈 

What's good about Makers Academy?

The learning methodology is great; it's all about 'learning how to learn' which focuses attention on feedback and reflection over learning by rote, perfect for getting into good habits as a Software Engineer;
The culture is very open and friendly; they take their Code of Conduct seriously in order to create a geniunely inclusive environment;
Pair programming every day replicates the environment you'll be in when you get a job after the course, and also helps peers share knowledge without too much interference from coaches;
Learning Ruby, then TDD, then about web apps, then JavaScript; the curriculum flows nicely and each week for the first half of the course builds on the knowledge you already have;
The careers team are great, friendly and highly motivated to get you a job ASAP after you finish; the jobs are generally good jobs and well paid compared to other graduate-type roles

What's not so good about Makers Academy?

Firstly – during the application and selection process, they can be a bit pushy. Although they make a big deal of the fact that you've been 'selected' and try and make you feel special, they are clearly under pressure to get you to commit ASAP and pay your deposit. It's a huge life decision to leave your job (if you have one), take three months out, spend £8k etc., and I think they should make more of an effort to not put so much pressure on people at that stage.

Secondly – your cohort will very much a peer-led learning group. The coach is there as a guide and to give you some structure early on ('leave the stabilizers on') before you're confident enough by yourself. As a consequence you're reliant on your fellow learners to (a) show up, (b) be attentive and engaged, (c) be forgiving if necessary. Undoubtedly, not all of your cohort will match this profile. 

As an prospective student, if you're hoping for lots of structure and lots of teacher/student type coaching and quantitative feedback, then Makers is not for you. You need to be confident enough to ask for help if you think you need it, too.

Top Tips for Applying to Makers Academy

Don't freak out. When they invite you for face-to-face interview, read the email they send you with instructions (from memory it's about doing some Ruby on Codeacademy and a couple of other things). What they ask of you is not hard and it doesn't take a huge amount of time. Just make you prepare by doing all the things on their list and you'll be fine.

Final thoughts

If you know that you're interested in coding, this is a great place to start (if you have the money and the time). It's expensive but if you look at the salaries for the roles from the careers team, a lot of the time it will pay off very quickly. 

If you don't yet know that you're interested in coding, do some more Codeacademy or similar, or check out free coding meetups like Codebar.

From what I can see so far, programming is creative, thoughtful and challenging work, and Makers gives you a good taste of that. It's intense only if you want it to be; there's no pressure from the coaches to be working all hours. Take your time and you'll be all the more confident for it.

Any other questions? I'm on Twitter as @baileytalks – tweet or DM me. Always happy to have an honest chat 👍

You get to learn a lot. You learn how much there is to learn, so it may at times appear daunting. It's captivating, but hard. It demands your undivided attention and all the time you have outside of sleep. It empowers you, but it doesn't do your work for you. It's great company--from students to coaches there's only great people around you, which is a bit surreal. You may think it's expensive, but it's actually a very wise way to invest a large amount of money.

In November 2016, I enrolled in Makers Academy, Europe's leading developer Bootcamp, and the Bootcamp has been a fantastic experience for me. Firstly I am amazed at what I have learned and can use those skills to create web applications using Ruby and JavaScript. In addition, I learned many software-development-best practices, including Agile methodologies, XP values, and object-oriented design principles.

Career team is approachable and supportive. They provide us job hunting technical as well as mental support.