Can I Get a Job After Coding Bootcamp? 40 Companies that Prove You Absolutely Can
By The Fullstack Academy Team
The best coding bootcamps ensure not only that students learn to code, but that they’re equipped with the professional savvy to actually get jobs after graduation. Nearly all coding bootcamp students enroll in this kind of program specifically as a means to land developer jobs, so it’s really important that the bootcamp you choose is able to show strong graduate hiring outcomes.
But how good are the jobs that coding bootcamp graduates actually land? If you do decide to attend, will your prospects be limited by biased hiring managers who see bootcamp as a lesser form of education? If these companies—like Google, Amazon, Spotify, and more—are any indication, it doesn’t look like it.
Anxieties about how seriously hiring managers take bootcamp graduates stem from the early days of coding bootcamps, when companies saw them as yet another for-profit education model that wouldn’t adequately prepare job-seekers for the market. But coding bootcamps have been around for nearly a decade now, and most employers have changed their tune. From small startups to the biggest tech companies in the world, they’ve seen the value that coding bootcamp alums bring to the team and are eager to continue that trend. In fact, an Indeed survey of 1000 HR managers and recruiters found that four out of five US companies have hired a bootcamp graduate—and nearly all of them would do it again.
If you want to know where you might wind up finding a job after completing a coding bootcamp, here are 40 companies that have hired bootcamp graduates to give you an idea of your prospects.
Google is the dream company for many developers. The incredible range of products and services the company creates—not to mention its compensation and benefit packages—is unrivaled in Silicon Valley and beyond.
Google has previously acknowledged that college transcripts are a terrible predictor of future success, and in an attempt to attract a more diverse pool of applicants, the company recently even scrapped the four-year degree qualification from its job requirements.
And the company is making good on its efforts. Many Fullstack Academy alums, like Carolyn Zelenetz and Clément Mihailescu, have been hired at Google straight out of bootcamp.
Amazon
The world’s largest e-commerce company needs no introduction and is a testament to the fact that high-profile, incredibly discriminating companies do, indeed, hire bootcamp grads.
Fullstack Academy alum Andrew Ash joined Amazon just months after graduating from Fullstack Academy’s Software Immersive. He now works in Seattle as a software engineer, developing and maintaining the tech that powers the “Your Orders” page.
Spotify
Spotify has changed both the way we listen to music and how we pay for it. Its tech teams make sure the company remains a leader in the industry and shapes how fans experience music.
In a bid to create as diverse and talented a team as possible, Spotify runs an NYC technology fellowship program. The program offers 16 weeks of mentoring to those just entering tech—that means bootcamp grads like Fullstack Academy alum Rafiel Pastor, who joined the program in 2016. Pastor has now been with Spotify for three years and currently works as a software engineer.
Snap Inc.
Snap is the tech unicorn that built Snapchat, one of the most popular smartphone apps ever. One of the company’s primary goals is to reinvent the camera in order to improve the way we live and communicate.
Snap believes that creating a diverse workforce is key to innovation. That means recruiting people from all educational backgrounds, including bootcamp graduates like Jon Deng, who first learned to code in the U.S. Army. He eventually went on to complete a remote bootcamp and ultimately landed his first tech job at Snap’s Venice Beach office.
Venmo
Software is at the heart of payment company Venmo’s business, meaning that there are plenty of opportunities for new developers to work on mobile, web, and back-end infrastructure projects. The company isn’t shy about hiring bootcamp grads, either. Fullstack Academy alum Lindsay Levine was already making a six-figure salary with Venmo not too long after graduation.
The New York Times
The New York Times is one of the most prominent news and media organizations in the world. Its readership is the second largest in the country, and the paper has won more Pulitzer Prizes than any other organization. It’s also on the cutting edge of technology and constantly experiments with new ways to tell stories.
The New York Times puts a lot of effort into building a technology team with diverse backgrounds, experiences, and skills. The department includes bootcamp graduates like Fullstack Academy’s Sophia Ciocca, as well as former designers and English graduates.
Lyft
Lyft is one of the world’s leading ride-hailing apps and recently went public on the stock market. Lyft is transforming the future of transportation, not just by making ride-sharing easier, but also by investing in autonomous driving. Working in software development at Lyft means you’ll literally have the opportunity to change the way we move.
Lyft offers an apprenticeship program specifically for bootcamp graduates and others with non-traditional educational backgrounds. This gives new developers the opportunity to work with teams across the company, get mentored by senior engineers, and ship code from day one.
American Express
The global financial services company Amex has an enormous tech team split across various cities around the world, including of course New York, but also places like Phoenix and Palo Alto. Opportunities abound for bootcamp grads to work in virtually any stack or application.
Fullstack Academy alum and career changer Terry Horowitz landed her first tech role as a software engineer on the firm’s US digital acquisitions team. U.S. Air Force veteran and fellow bootcamp grad Cesar Perez also landed his first post-military role at Amex. Perez credits his success to the fast-paced learning he experience during coding bootcamp. “The [Amex] team moves so fast. I’m able to pick up on everything easily and learn new things because of my foundation.”
Etsy
NYC-based Etsy is the leading e-commerce platform for handmade and artisan products. Software engineers there get the chance to solve some of the most interesting and difficult challenges in e-commerce.
Etsy has committed itself to hiring diverse engineering teams—diverse in terms of age, race, gender, background, etc.—so recently brought on six Fullstack Academy alums, including Rachel “Rocky” Fine, as part of a seven-person pilot program for new engineers. That’s right: six out of seven hires were coding bootcamp grads.
Dropbox
As one of the fastest growing startups of all time, Dropbox is in constant need of developers. To fill this demand, the company runs an apprenticeship program aimed at college and bootcamp graduates. The program offers bootcampers like Krishelle Hudson-Hurley and Tong Zhang, the opportunity to work alongside industry leaders and learn the ropes before moving into full-time positions.
CNN
Tech is a huge part of every modern news company, and CNN is no exception. The company’s tech team is based in Atlanta and offers plenty of opportunities for developers with bootcamp experience.
CNN extended a contract-to-hire position to Jennifer Bland just 30 days after she graduated from bootcamp. Three months later, that contract role did, in fact, become a full-time position. Bland believes CNN’s culture was a key part of her continuing success in tech: “I attribute the company culture at CNN as well as my manager, Nick Zoss, for allowing me to greatly improve as a programmer.”
The Home Depot
The Home Depot is the fifth-largest private employer in the US, and it turns out tech plays a huge role in the company’s success. Its tech teams use industry-leading applications to reach more than 400,000 other associates and millions of customers.
Bootcamp graduate Paige Niedringhaus is one of the company’s developers. Niedringhaus earned a contract-to-hire position at The Home Depot the day before she graduated from her bootcamp. Five months later, she was rewarded with a full-time position, one she still occupies today.
JPMorgan Chase
JPMorgan Chase is the sixth largest bank in the world and one of the financial world’s leading innovators in fintech, AI, and blockchain. With more than 40,000 technical staff globally, its approach to hiring developers is equally innovative.
Besides having a policy of hiring developers (like Emily Ho) directly from bootcamps, the company also has a rigorous technology analyst program (TAP) that gives new hires the experience and exposure they need to succeed.
Stack Overflow
Stack Overflow is the definitive Q&A site for professional and hobbyist programmers. The site gets more than 50 million unique visitors every month and also partners with businesses to help them better understand developers.
As the website for developers of all kinds, it’s only natural for Stack Overflow to hire from an array of backgrounds. This includes bootcamp grads like Grace Hopper Program alum Jisoo Shin, who first joined Stack Overflow as a developer apprentice before becoming a full-time software developer.
Condé Nast
Media company Condé Nast is at the forefront of exploring new technologies to connect audiences with engaging content. Co/Lab is the organization’s digital core and sees the tech team work across 10 different categories, from digital asset creation to monetization.
Naturally, the organization is always looking for the brightest tech talent to join their team. This includes bootcamp grads like Allison Zhao, who joined Condé Nast as soon as she graduated from Fullstack Academy.
BlackRock
BlackRock is a US-based global investment firm and the world’s largest asset manager. This means software engineers get the best of both worlds: the chance to work at one of the largest and most advanced finance firms and the opportunity to create the next generation of fintech products.
You don’t have to be an experienced developer to get that opportunity, either. BlackRock continually hires bootcamp grads for its development team. This includes Grace Hopper Program alum Katy Eng, who landed a job at BlackRock just three weeks after graduating.
Expedia
One of the world’s leading online travel platforms, Expedia credits its ongoing success to the company’s ability to attract the right talent. Nowhere is this more important than in the organization’s engineering department.
Recently, Expedia has begun partnering with coding bootcamps to broaden its pool of developer candidates. Expedia Senior Director of Product and Technology Deepthi Kondapalli is positive about the partnership. "We've found that programs outside of colleges can produce enthusiastic, smart, driven candidates with diverse backgrounds."
Eventbrite
Eventbrite is the world’s largest event management and ticketing website. Unsurprisingly, the company has a huge tech team that works on projects spanning mobile, web, big data, machine learning, search, and much more.
Eventbrite is keen to take on bootcamp grads who can offer their skills immediately while also growing with the company. Director of engineering Pat Poels believes hiring requires a long-term view of things. “If you make the investment, you choose the right people, and invest in them in the right way, it’s going to pay off. Those bootcamp grads will be worth so much more to you down the road. Think beyond the next six months; what can these new hires mean for the next six years?”
IBM
Innovation is baked into IBM’s DNA. As America’s oldest tech company, it has to be. But its innovative attitude doesn’t stop at its products: IBM was one of the first major tech companies to scrap the college degree requirement from its hiring qualifications and is leading efforts within the industry to hire outside of traditional networks.
“We consider [candidates] based on their skills and don’t take into account their educational background,” says IBM HR Vice President of Global Technology Services Sam Ladah. “We’ve been very successful in hiring from bootcamps.”
SurveyMonkey
SurveyMonkey helps individual users and organizations collect 20 million survey responses each day. The company is on a mission to hire as many talented and passionate people as possible, and opportunities for developers from all backgrounds abound.
SurveyMonkey has a history of hiring from bootcamps. Those hires have included Henry Wang, who landed his first tech job at SurveyMonkey, and Dee Gill, whose bootcamp education was sponsored by the company itself.
Wayfair
Wayfair is America’s largest online-only retailer of furniture. The company offers developers an environment of fast-moving, continuous deployment where teams are tasked with solving e-commerce’s biggest problems.
Wayfair needs great software engineers to achieve this, and the company knows the best talent doesn’t always come from the most traditional backgrounds. That’s why they’ve created Wayfair Labs, a 12-week onboarding program for bootcamp graduates and other non-traditional developers to help them master the Wayfair tech stack.
Priceline
Priceline is America’s leading discount travel website and the parent company for other well-known platforms, like Kayak and OpenTable. Because technology is the backbone of all of these brands, the company always needs developers of all experience levels to join its team. That’s a big reason that a number of Fullstack Academy alums have joined Priceline, including Tara Bird, Jonathan Schwarz, and Elizabeth Funk.
Progressive Insurance
Ohio-based Progressive Insurance is one of America’s largest car insurance providers. For employees, it offers 30 different tech career paths and the chance to work on some of the most cutting-edge products in the insurance industry. And since not everyone wants to work in New York City, it’s great to know there are major companies headquartered outside of major tech hubs offering work to bootcamp grads.
And IT Manager Jane Gundlach confirms that the company does hire from bootcamps. She explains, “We find people with diverse and varied backgrounds, and they bring their unique experiences into our organization."
Cisco
With more than 70,000 employees worldwide, Cisco is one of the largest tech companies on the planet—and more than a few of its developers come from coding bootcamps. Cisco’s innovation-focused Chief Technology and Architecture Office (CTAO) himself has been very pleased with their bootcamp hires, and the team's technical leader, Joe Sutton, confirms that for their hiring managers, it’s not about where you went to school or what you studied. “We hire people based on their demonstrated skill set, not on any particular degree or certification.”
Xero
With more than 1.5 million customers, New Zealand-based Xero is one of the world’s leading cloud accounting software platforms. It has been ranked as the No. 1 most innovative growth company by Forbes two years in a row and as one of the best SaaS companies to work for by Glassdoor.
But you don’t have to move to New Zealand to work for Xero—and you don’t have to be a senior developer, either. Xero is interested in candidates with all different levels of experience, which is why it’s where bootcamp grad LJ Kenward landed her first gig in tech. Xero developer Daniel Donbavand writes how the company even runs its own internal bootcamps for transitioning staff to different departments.
Access Development
Access Development is the United States’s largest private discount network for organizations (basically they build customer loyalty programs) and a frequent hirer of bootcamp grads. The marketing company has a 20-plus engineering team working primarily in Java and Ruby, six of which came straight from bootcamp.
CTO Clint Peterson believes bootcamp grads bring a unique perspective to his team, which ultimately “has really helped our development team move into a new realm, such as extending into continuous delivery, test automation and some of the other modern development technologies and capabilities.”
Cognizant
Cognizant is a global IT services provider and consultancy. It is a member of the NASDAQ 100 and is ranked 195 in the Fortune 500.
Junior developer jobs at Cognizant are available across the country, from California to Texas to North Carolina. The company has been a great launch pad for several Fullstack Academy alums, including Yu Lin and Hou In Choi, both of whom joined the company in early 2018.
ServiceNow
ServiceNow is a cloud computing company that creates products to drive digital transformations. It has been called the most innovative company in the world by Forbes and ranked one of the top 50 companies to work for in the US by LinkedIn.
Not surprisingly, ServiceNow’s hiring strategy is just as innovative as its product line—which means consistently hiring bootcamp graduates. Fullstack Academy alums Patrick Gund, Eric Guo, and Ellen Ormerod all got their starts at ServiceNow.
Publicis Sapient
Publicis Sapient (formerly SapientRazorfish) is a global digital marketing company and part of Publicis Groupe, the world’s third-largest communications group. The company has a 100-plus technical team located across the globe, some of whom started their careers at bootcamps.
One reason Publicis Sapient is open to hiring bootcamp grads is because they come to work knowing the latest tech stacks. “A coding bootcamp is able to turn over their curriculum quickly as the tech landscape changes,” notes Nick Easlick, former talent acquisition manager and now executive recruiter. “Bootcamps are teaching things that are more applicable, more emerging, more innovative.”
Lifion by ADP
HR software company Lifion is committed to “bringing together the brightest developers, architects and designers”—a group that of course includes bootcamp graduates. A number of Fullstack Academy and Grace Hopper Program alums—like Ruth Hill, Brian Long, and Everett Ross— got their starts here.
FNZ
FNZ is a financial technology company that provides investment platforms to major financial institutions. As a result, the company’s technology team is responsible for some of the world’s most highly scaled financial solutions.
Bootcamp graduates have become a big part of FNZ’s tech team. Former Global Head of Software Engineering Mark McGlinchey believes that because most bootcamp grads are transitioning to tech after time spent working in another field, they come to the team having experienced a lot more than candidates fresh out of college. “Their ability to organise, cooperate and just get things done is something we don’t see in most seniors, let alone juniors.”
Catalytic
Chicago automation startup Catalytic is a smaller company, but has already built a team of more than 10 developers and has proven to be a great incubator for bootcamp graduates looking to grow their skills.
The startup has hired two Fullstack Academy alums from the bootcamp’s Chicago campus, one of whom, Kevin Hurley, was their first-ever bootcamp hire. He met the Catalytic team at Fullstack Academy’s launch day, which takes place in the final week of the program, and was hired within the week. It was his valuable work that ultimately encouraged Catalytic to hire more coding bootcamp grads.
Cedrus Digital
Cedrus Digital is a digital transformation solutions provider based in New York. With technology at the core of its business model, Cedrus Digital offers new developers the opportunity to do front-end or back-end work (or both!)—from API and cloud development to user experience design.
Two Fullstack Academy alums, Sam Glass and Nadim Uddin, currently work for the company. Cedrus Digital was Glass’s first role in tech—he joined the company just a few months after graduating from Fullstack—and Uddin’s second, following an initial role at CollabTrade.
Codefresh
Codefresh is an end-to-end container lifecycle management platform for enterprises and startups, with offices in Mountain View and Tel Aviv. It’s the perfect place to work if you love creating open-source products and tech tools for other software developers to leverage.
Codefresh was the first company that actress-turned-developer Chloe Condon joined when she was fresh out of bootcamp. Since then, she has worked at Sentry.io and most recently as a cloud developer advocate at Microsoft.
Datadog
Datadog is a monitoring and analytics platform for cloud-scale applications that allows clients to get full visibility into their applications. As a tech-focused organization, Datadog is always hungry for good developers: At the time of writing, the company’s careers page lists more than 50 software-related openings.
Datadog has welcomed bootcamp grads time and time again. Fullstack Academy alums Keri Miller and Fanny Jiang both found their feet at Datadog just months after graduating.
Fabric
Fabric is a financial services provider for families. The organization offers a range of financial products, from wills to life insurance, as well as an online vault where all of a family’s financial information can be kept accessible but secure.
Fabric offered Grace Hopper Program alum Liz Phillips her first role in tech just months after she finished her teaching fellowship there, a program in which Fullstack Academy and Grace Hopper Program graduates can apply to stay on as mentors to the next cohort of students and also get in some interviewing and engineering experience as part of their fellowship. Phillips was recruited by her former teaching fellow, and now she actively recruits fellow bootcamp grads to join her at Fabric.
Granicus
Granicus is a Minnesota-based company that provides tech solutions to more than 4,000 government agencies. The company has a 30-person tech team hard at work on a score of products and 200 code repositories.
When it comes to hiring, Granicus is open to candidates of all backgrounds, says director of engineering Chris Downard. “Traditional backgrounds are not something we care about at Granicus. The founders of Granicus do not believe that a degree makes an engineer.”
Mobify
Mobify is a mobile-based front-end-as-a-service platform that powers the e-commerce sites for brands like Lancôme, Debenhams, and Hobbycraft.
And the team at Mobify have found bootcamp grads to be a great fit for them. Mobify Talent Acquisition Manager Laura Crawford says the company looks for passionate, lifelong learners regardless of where they come from. “We want people who are humble and egoless, who know what they don't know and work hard to fill in their knowledge gaps. In our interview process, we don’t target a specific type of educational background.”
NextCapital
NextCapital was the first company to build an automated 401k finance system and is a regular recruiter of Chicago-based bootcamp graduates. Fullstack Academy alum Walter Rhee started his coding career at NextCapital shortly after graduating. So did Alexander Lang, a bootcamp graduate who is now a developer team lead there.
Niche
Pittsburgh-based Niche is a platform that empowers users to find the best schools, neighborhoods, colleges, and companies for whatever stage of their life they might be in. The company’s small but diverse and talented team is the perfect place for bootcamp graduates to blossom.
This was certainly the case for Grace Hopper Program grad Stella Chung, who landed her first tech job at Niche less than six months after graduating coding bootcamp.
Impressed (or at least reassured) by the kinds of companies that hire bootcamp grads? Apply to Fullstack Academy today, and get on your way to your first job as a developer.
