After working at Amazon for over 3 years as an SDE, I left my job to start my own coding bootcamp. I thought it would be easy because I myself completed 2 bootcamps after finishing college. Also, I worked at one of the bootcamps as an instructor for over 3 years before joining Amazon. I was one of the top instructors and my students typically got jobs quite quickly.
I immediately began putting together a curriculum and building out content so that I could start recruiting for my first class. That is when I learned just how little I know about sales and recruiting. I tried to promote my class on job sites and was immediately shut down since it was for training and not a job, even though I was happy to give a job guarantee. I ran ads and had no responses. I interviewed several people but most candidates didn’t have the ability to commit full time or pay the amount that I was trying to charge.
At this point, I now see why the HTD (Hire Train Deploy) Bootcamp model is so successful and I absolutely hate it because it is beyond predatory. In the HTD model, they give you “free” training and a job guarantee. So what's the problem? Well, they make you sign a horrible contract. Often they will force you to relocate to places you may not want to go and they take a lot of your pay. If they are paying you 50k per year, they are likely billing the clients $100k+ per year. So is it really free? Additionally, if you are not a top student, you will still struggle to get placed with a client and it can be a pretty demoralizing experience.
I did not want to become one of the soul sucking bootcamps as software is my passion so I decided to pivot. I invested all of my time into building a learning platform to make my content as accessible to others as possible. I really want to make an impact because I know how much I struggled to land my first job and I also know firsthand just how predatory most coding bootcamps are.
My platform is https://fullstackpros.com/ and it covers everything you need to know to become a professional Full Stack Software Engineer. I made the TypeScript module completely free (no sign up required) and you can get access to all content for as little as $5 per month. I would love to get some feedback from the community to improve my platform.
I immediately began putting together a curriculum and building out content so that I could start recruiting for my first class. That is when I learned just how little I know about sales and recruiting. I tried to promote my class on job sites and was immediately shut down since it was for training and not a job, even though I was happy to give a job guarantee. I ran ads and had no responses. I interviewed several people but most candidates didn’t have the ability to commit full time or pay the amount that I was trying to charge.
At this point, I now see why the HTD (Hire Train Deploy) Bootcamp model is so successful and I absolutely hate it because it is beyond predatory. In the HTD model, they give you “free” training and a job guarantee. So what's the problem? Well, they make you sign a horrible contract. Often they will force you to relocate to places you may not want to go and they take a lot of your pay. If they are paying you 50k per year, they are likely billing the clients $100k+ per year. So is it really free? Additionally, if you are not a top student, you will still struggle to get placed with a client and it can be a pretty demoralizing experience.
I did not want to become one of the soul sucking bootcamps as software is my passion so I decided to pivot. I invested all of my time into building a learning platform to make my content as accessible to others as possible. I really want to make an impact because I know how much I struggled to land my first job and I also know firsthand just how predatory most coding bootcamps are.
My platform is https://fullstackpros.com/ and it covers everything you need to know to become a professional Full Stack Software Engineer. I made the TypeScript module completely free (no sign up required) and you can get access to all content for as little as $5 per month. I would love to get some feedback from the community to improve my platform.
You can also find the entirety of TypeScript Fundamentals on my YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0teIBDEuMdvJ00wZHMSa...