Software, Web and Mobile Engineering

Having programmed as a hobby for around a year before joining Makers, I couldn't say I was completely new to software development. Everything was self taught up until that point and I had wanted to make a career switch from Structural Engineering to Software Engineering.After failing a few tech tests before Makers I realised I had quite large knowledge gaps and needed a way to fill them. Having spoke to a graduate of Makers from around a year and a half ago, I decided to go all in on Makers. What attracted me were 3 things:1) learning best practices2) careers fair3) Job offer guaranteeWhat followed was 1 month of learning on site and the 2 last months was spent entirely remote working.The 1 month spent on site was honestly the best experience I ever had learning. You are on site with other people who are aiming for the same goal and there is a sense of camaraderie as everyone encourages and helps one another. Plus, there is a kitchen and there is a table tennis table. The  time spent playing table tennis and eating peanut butter in the kitchen is sorely missed!The last 2 months were spent being entirely remote. It was difficult to adjust at first. Having experienced how good Makers was on site, the first 2 weeks spent remotely just felt like a major bummer in comparison. It helped to remind myself of a dream of mine, which is to travel and work at the same time so I tried to see this as training for that dream. The coaches still provided lots of support and everyone was getting better with remote working as the days went by. So in terms of the level of education you'll receive, it is still consistent with being on site. Though whether you feel you can work better on site or remotely entirely depends on yourself. I will say that working remotely seems to be the present and the future so getting some experience with working remotely is a great opportunity you'll receive at Makers. The course was entirely self led which is important because things move very fast in this industry and you need to learn to learn. I can understand why some people may be frustrated that coaches won't always just give you an answer to your question. It's like "I paid so much money, why can't I just get an answer?". Just realise that the indirect answers you get is on purpose and it is to make you find the answers by yourself. That is an important skill to develop and I feel Makers tries their best to promote that.Anyway, You'll still get workshops and you are encouraged to join the workshops. I've been to some of these workshops and they are well worth going to. A lot of knowledge can be gained from there and it'll definitely make you think! By far the best thing about Makers are the people in your cohort. You'll be pairing on problems throughout the course and this really is a fantastic experience. You'll also work on group projects and this is an opportunity to see what it's like to work in a dev like environment. You'll need to work as a team to create certain projects which is very fun!And finally there is the demo day which will involve you and your team thinking of an idea and creating it! We had just over a week to make our own application. Given the time constraint we were under, we were under a lot of stress but it all came together at the end because of good team work. The moments spent creating this application I will cherish for a long time.The careers support team are sensational really. They encourage you and support you all the way. One of the reasons I joined Makers was for the careers fair, as stated earlier. Because of the whole covid situation, we never got a chance to experience careers fair which I hear is an amazing way for juniors to get noticed by these companies. So that was a real shame and I hope Makers can make the whole careers thing happen again one day.So even though the Makers course has moved remotely, for now, I still recommend Makers. Hopefully people can experience what it's like to work on site again but you'll still get the same level of support from everyone there. Thank you Makers!

I had such an amazing experience learning to develop at Makers. The program itself is high-paced, fun, social, and challenging, and you really do learn something new every single day. I actually am very confident that this is the best program for career changers out there, as it has a great reputation in the industry, but also I personally find that it prepared me really well for my software development apprenticeship. I can't recommend Makers enough if you are thinking of changing careers; trust me it really has a great reputation for a reason. 

I absolutely loved Makers, and the experience is exactly what they say it will be. There's something to be said for having a bunch of driven, likeminded people in the same room, and you instantly form a bond as you are working very hard to gain these new skills together. It is certainly intense, but there is support there for you both academically and emotionally. I would encourage anyone considering doing it to spend a few days (straight) coding, and see if you enjoy it. Because it is significantly different from what you experience playing around with CodeAcademy and the like, and it's important to be sure you enjoy it before taking the plunge. The only thing that I think could be improved is the JavaScript portion of the course (2 weeks out of 12), as it was slightly outdated and therefore not super well aligned with industry best-practices. The job support was brilliant, with coaches on hand to help with things like CV's/Cover Letters, and interview prep. They are also adding new services to bolster job support given that it has become a bit more difficult in the current circumstances. 

Attending Makers Academy was actually one of the best decisions I've ever made. I would have been miserable otherwise!Before Makers: I had done some HTML/CSS before the course but found it difficult to learn to code alone because it's tough to know what to study next. The Makers curriculum will teach you industry best practices and fundamentals that you need to succeed as a software engineer, be it as a frontend or, in my case, backend engineer. The coaches are dedicated to your learning and bring in their industry knowledge from some very impressive backgrounds (Facebook, MIT, etc.). The course: It is a challenging 4-month long course but it is what you make of it. Coaches are there for you, but it's up to you to reach out with questions, for additional support, or if there's a particular topic that interests you. This simulates the real-life industry experience where you have to learn how to help yourself. Job-hunting: I started job-hunting as soon as lockdown began in March '20, which was a very painful experience, but the support that I got from Makers staff, my cohort, and the wider Makers alumni community was fantastic and really made it all worth it. It was also nice to know that the Job Offer Guarantee was there, just in case.

Incredible experience where you focus full-time on learning and practising something you love, with people that share the same passion. For me, it was an oasis of enjoyment, always looking forward to the next day and going home with a smile on my face. What makes Makers so special is the culture of the people and the energy and different background students bring to the place. I would highly recommend this course to a friend, as a chance to speed up your development experience in an agnostic way and meet some great people that will become friends for life.The course is very comprehensive, but it is structured in a way that it is up to you how much you put in. No-one is going to push you to work or check on you, so it is important to take responsibility for your own learning and maximise the available resources as much as you can. The day is usually structured with morning lectures or autonomous learning and pair programming in the afternoon, with weekly goals to achieve around the main theme, like databases, object-oriented programming, or javascript design patterns. The interesting thing is that every day you pair-program with a different person, which massively helps you learn how to communicate with different characters and personalities and gets you to know better each one of your cohort-mates. By the end of the course, there are group projects, where you have the chance to simulate real-world work environments, work within a team, and give presentations in front of your mates. The ping-pong table is the most popular game for break times and it is the fun heart of the school.There are four coaches that have different strength and again it is up to you what you can learn from them and how to interact in the best way, with physical questions or slack messages. It is important to note that most of the time they won't give you the answer you want, but they will probably answer with another answer, forcing you to do the research and get the answer by yourself, which is much more effective. Also, you get the feedback you ask for and no more.A special person at Makers is Dana, who I believe is the most unique personality in the community. She is in charge of daily meditations, mental health, lectures about awareness and feedback, and yoga lessons for two days a week. I had never done yoga before, and for me it was a very pleasant surprise becoming a must-go-to event, even during the final project weeks, to release stress, nerves and simply feel better.After graduating, every month, there are career fairs where you have the opportunity to meet companies, ask them questions, and apply to jobs directly through Makers, where you usually have higher chances to get called for an interview than external applications. You can also practise interviews with external reviewers directly through Makers, to improve your skills and exercise under pressure. The overall feeling I had at Makers was to be around people that decided to step out of their comfort zone and challenge themselves. This naturally brought positive energy and created a special bond that went beyond programming.

I joined for the February cohort which was interrupted by Covid-19.  Even when we moved the course online, the community and the staff continued to make the whole experience productive and positive - I have learnt so much in just 12 weeks it's crazy.  The course material itself is really engaging and the difficulty builds week upon week at a nice pace.But the course is difficult - you will have moments where you wonder why you chose to sign up for this. The discomfort is worth it. I just managed to get a job despite the current climate,  thanks to the extra support of the careers staff (who are amazing). The main thing I will take away from my experience at Makers is the wonderful new friendships and a new passion for learning which I haven't had since I left university many many years ago.  Thank you Makers!

I took the plunge and signed up to the web development bootcamp after doing Udemy/FreeCodeCamp courses on and off for a year. Looking back I regret not signing up to Makers sooner - there's no better way of learning the fundamentals quickly than building real group projects with students using best-practice tools and methods e.g. pair-programming, test-driven development and agile methodology. The course is demanding but there is plenty of support from staff and peers. Makers also provided external code reviews which simulated the pressures of real-world job interviews. The post-course job assistance was helpful, and being in a community of job-hunters meant resources and leads could be shared. After the course I now have the confidence to learn independently, and a clear sense of the trajectory of my future development career. 

Makers provides a great learning environment for a wide variety of people with the willingness to learn. The ways that they do this are through skills workshops, independent learning time and pairing time. One of the most important aspects being pairing which is an opportunity to sit down and code on a task together with someone else which provides you with a different perspective to coding independently. The opportunity to work in teams and practice agile methodologies is invaluable as this is what many companies are currently using or moving towards. The coaches are very helpful and open to questions which makes the workshops fun and useful. The culture is one which also aims to promote mental health awareness through daily meditation and regular yoga sessions.Some problems were with job hunting. Due to the unfortunate circumstances there was quite a lot of reduced support including the removal of the careers fairs. It also didn't help that they added pressure towards job hunters by tightening rulings in the job offer guarantee.Overall, there were some struggles on the job-hunting side of things due to the unfortunate circumstances of COVID-19 but I really enjoyed the course and it has provided me with invaluable experiences. 

Overall I think Makers is absolutely brilliant. It's exactly what I wanted from a bootcamp, namely a lot of exposure to technologies and methodologies I would have otherwise struggled with learning by myself, and excellent support from experienced coaches.There's also a great alumni community (which I have just become a part of).They start you off with 4 weeks of independent learning and challenges (the pre-course) before the course (12 weeks) starts in earnest, which is where the real magic happens. The course starts with Ruby (a language I really enjoy), which has a clean and simple syntax, allowing you to focus on programming concepts you can take to any language (which you do then apply when learning JavaScript). This approach allows you to build skills that you can apply to any field or language. For your final project you can decide on anything at all, even applying your newfound learning skills to get to grips with tech you have never used before to great effect.The style is mainly self-led learning, with provided materials to for you to use, but you are also encouraged to learn from other materials you can find. I really like this approach as it has set me up to be a lifelong tech learner, rather than struggling to learn on my own once the course finished.The coaches are there for you to get feedback on what you have done yourself, and to help you get unblocked in sticky situations, rather than to spoon feed you information. I think this is representative of the working world as a junior dev.Because of this, you learn a lot about communication and teamwork, as its often other members of your cohort that you turn to first when you have a problem.That said, the course is tough because of this, don't expect an easy ride. It will be uncomfortable and hard at times, but hopefully that signals that you are growing and improving. Self discipline to be on time and put the effort in, willingness to trust in the course's process, and the ability to give things a go when you aren't entirely sure of yourself will all serve you well on this course.

Have you ever wanted to learn something, but you just can't fathom how to begin learning?
I doubt I will ever face this problem again thanks to the self learning skills that Makers Academy has set me up with.
The holistic approach to their learning is simply refreshing, and effective. Equipping you with no only the skills and tools needed to secure a career in Software, but also the roadmap to becoming a more balanced and emotionally intelligent person. Equipping you with the skills to learn independently and effectively.
This truly has been an amazing experience, One I would wholeheartedly recommend to anyone interesting in forging a career in tech.
Just do it!

- No prior knowledge of coding is required (other than some basic ruby achieved through codecademy).- Provides a perfect atmosphere to meet new people, make friends and learn in a safe environment.- Course content is engaging, challenging and rewarding providing you put the effort in.- Ping Pong table & Yoga every Tuesday & Thursday definitely helped relieve stress & mental blocks.- High calibre of students, everyone is eager to learn & help one another.

I wasn't sure what to expect when I started Makers having not been in a learning environment for a number of years. I'm happy to say that I've really enjoyed the last 4 months. I've learnt so much in such a short space of time and been able to do so with a wonderful group of like-minded individuals. I've been taught how to test drive my code, agile methodologies and a variety of design principles, as well as a number of different languages and frameworks. The big highlight for me was the group project work - bouncing ideas off people and producing an actual working app was incredibly satisfying and has put me in good stead to start my own project work.Obviously being in lockdown hasn't been ideal but Makers made sure that work continued as normal even if we were all remote. I was on various calls all day so there was still lots of contact time.To be honest, I'd be happy to do it again. 

I really enjoyed my Makers experience, the course is really well thought out and keeps you busy 100% of the time. Being onsite at Makers breeds a really brilliant work environment and atmosphere. The pair programming and team projects are really well thought out and its great to be able to step away from coding occasionally and play some ping pong.

Supportive staff who want you to succeed. A fast paced course to introduce you with some of the needed skills to get a job as a dev. Lots of focus on wellbeing and becoming a better and more rounded person. Would be better if there were staff available to help in the afternoon as sometimes in projects you can become stuck and could help to move forwards quicker.

Fast paced and lots of learning so be ready for that, but importantly they facilitate this with a productive and positive environment.Great coaching, you get out what you put in.Great careers advice and service... again take advantage of the services and their advice and you'll get a job no problem. They provide support after the course until you get a job you can't put a price on that!

I am a Makers graduate and I can say Makers has been such a great experience for me and I would definitely do it again if I could; I highly recommend this course to anyone who is willing to change their life and begin to learn code. If you put in the effort, you will succeed, especially with their job offer guarantee. There is no prior knowledge needed, as I had minimal knowledge in coding beforehand and I thought the course went at a good pace. The partnerships team really make the difference, the companies they partner with are such great companies to work for. Overall, an amazing course which I highly recommend to anyone willing put in the effort!

I finished Makers in January 2020 and it took me just over 6 weeks to get a job thanks to the post-course careers support and careers team/partnership team.The journey to get here has been an intense and sometimes frustrating experience. But overall the experience I had at Makers was extremely rewarding and definitely set me up for life-long learning. The course really does do a great job at giving you a well-rounded foundation to become a junior developer. The focus is not on learning fancy frameworks or languages, instead opting to build foundational knowledge of things such as Test Driven Development, SOLID software principles and agile working. These principles can be applied to any language and really help solidify core concepts. I found starting in Ruby and then moving on to JavaScript, I was able to translate these fundamentals into other languages when the time came. I have accepted a job working in C#(something that we didn't cover) but the concepts and ideas learnt transfer across.This course is very much self-lead learning. At first this can seem quite intimidating and you can feel a little lost in the first week. The only downside was it did take a few weeks for good self-lead learning techniques to kick in. This could maybe be address in the pre-course instead of you having to find them out as well as tackle new material in the first week. Once you get on top of this though the knowledge really sticks and stays with you. I am continuing to use these techniques now and will continue to use them. Don't expect to be given the answers if you want help though. Feedback can also take a while to get(if you ask for it that is) and it does not come unless you ask for it. Overall a fantastic experience, where I met and worked with some very talented people. The course teaches you what you need to know, what you need to work on, how to learn and how to continue learning and developing. I would recommend it if you are serious about changing career and have a decent level of self-discipline. You do only get out what you put in.

Having had limited tech experience before Makers, I found  the interview and the pre-course really helped prepare me for the course. While it is a lot of work, the coaches, projects and reviews help prepare us for what it's like working in the tech field.I had a truly fantastic experience at Makers. The support from staff from getting on the course all the way to finding a job made a huge impact on my time here. For anyone who can put in the time and make the commitment I think it's a fantastic opportunity but it is important to keep in mind that it is a self-lead journey and you get out what you put in. For anyone looking to make the career change into software I would definitely recommend this course!

I came into this course already knowing how to code, therefore you may think that I had no reason in being there? Well I learnt much more than how to code, I improved my pair programming ability and this therefore made me a more valuable member of my team, as I now have the ability to explain problems and solutions to all skill levels, and I've got Makers to thank for that :)

I don’t come from a tech background, but I found the Makers course easy to get in to. It’s hard work, but they have a great group of coaches on hand to help you through it. If you take the time and effort, the course is extremely rewarding. I feel like I learned a lot in a very short time.