Basic Training

Our goal is not to just list a collection of coding tutorials. We want to give you a starting point to jump off your journey to become an engineer. Stick around and learn for yourself.

Part 1: Motivation

Before you begin taking tutorials, we believe you need to understand what it is like being an engineer. What does this title entail. How do you go about learning to become one.

Recommended Readings:

Part 2: Self-Learning

There are a lot of tutorials for beginners that attempt to teach you the fundamentals, however, a lot of the time you walk away learning a subset of the language or technology, without grasping the full picture of the skillset required to build a functioning website. The resources below provide a comprehensive end-to-end experience.

Recommended Courses:

  • One Month Rails - The one resource that put all together for us was the One Month Rails course. You can sign up for a free trial.
  • Ruby on Rails Tutorial by Michael Hartl - Another tutorial that will take you step-by-step from building a rails server to getting your website hosted on the Web is the.
  • Front End Web Developer Nanodegree (Optional) - learn the fundamentals of how the web works and gain a working knowledge of HTML, CSS and JavaScript

Part 3: Applying to Bootcamps (Pre-work)

Whether or not you actually want to apply to a bootcamp, this material will help take your coding skills to the next level. Most bootcamp interviews focus on familiarity with the language syntax (JavaScript or Ruby). You will most likely be tested on your working knowledge of the language and how you can apply it to solve basic coding problems.


How to Choose the right Bootcamp?

  • Whats a Coding Bootcamp - what we wish we knew when deciding which bootcamp to attend.
  • Course Report: Coding Bootcamp Reviews - list of coding bootcamps by city. Something to keep in mind is that recently there has been an influx of bootcamps with a varied degree of quality. Make sure you do your research by speaking with alumni and cross-checking where alumni work on LinkedIn.

    Indicators to look for

    • Acceptance Criteria. The higher the bar the better.
    • Multi-stage interview process. Top bootcamps take the time to get to know the candidates in order to identify top talent. In our opinion, its better to retake an admission challenge at a top bootcamp than to enroll into a program thats second tier.
    • Duration of the program. What does the pre-course work entail? Since most pograms only last a few months, there is a difference between 6 days a week for 12 weeks vs 5 days a week for 9 weeks.
    • Job Placement Rate. Graduates from Hack Reactor and App Academy usually start getting offers 4 weeks post graduation and 95% find jobs within thier 1st month.
    • Average Graduates Salary. Graduates from top bootcamps apply for mid-level engineering jobs which command six figure salaries. Hack Reactor average grads earn $105K.

JavaScript Oriented bootcamps:

  • Hack Reactor Interview Process and Preparation Tips - overview of how to prepare for the admission challenge.
  • CodeSchool JavaScript Track (Ch. 1-3) - Interactive JavaScript tutorial for beginners. Free trial available.
  • 16-JavaScript Concepts - great way to familiarize with main of JavaScript concepts
  • Underscore.js - try out this handy JavaScript library with a ton of useful helpers. Play around with a few helpers, especially _.each, _.map, and _.reduce. Try it out now:
    • Open Chrome Debugger tools (press Cmd + Option + J on Mac or Ctrl + Shift + J) on Windows
    • copy and paste this into the console tab: _.each([1, 2, 3], alert);

Ruby Oriented bootcamps:

With your newly gained knowledge of JavaScript and/or Ruby, try out a few of the easy Coderbyte coding challenges.

Part 4: Common Pitfalls

Knowing what we know today, this is the advice we would of given ourselves when we were starting out.

    Not finishing a tutorial:

  • Most people don’t realize that a lot of beginners have to take the same tutorial 2-3 times before these concepts start to sink.
  • The first time you are just following the steps. The second time you are able to recognize patterns. The third time is when you actually understand how you would apply it.

    • Running into obstacles:

  • Bugs and errors are frustrating, especially if you are just starting out.
  • Most people don’t realize that 75% of the engineering time is spent debugging the code by googling errors or asking for help on Stack Overflow. To succeed you have to embrace the struggle and count that time spent as your learning experience.

    • Don’t be afraid of the unknown:

  • No one start out knowing how to program, it’s a process that takes years to perfect.
  • Great engineers look forward to solving challenging problems they haven’t encountered before.
  • If nothing else, this mindset will keep you moving forward until one day you will look back at those problems and laugh how easy they were.

Part 5: Endgame

Once you have acquired the fundamentals of web development, this is some of the ways how you can apply your newly acquired skills.

Opportunities:

  • Become a Software Engineer

    • Join a startup as an engineer in order to continue learning and advancing your skillset. Working on an engineering team will expose you to numerous experienced engineers, production code and industry best practices.
    • Get paid to learn. Average engineering salary for a bootcamp graduate is over six figures.
    • Join a mission driven startups. Not only will you be helping execute on the mission, you will also get equity to participate in the upside.

  • Start your own startup

    • Apply your technical skills to build your first prototype and test your ideas in the marketplace.

Newsletter

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Team

Artur Meyster

Software Engineer @ Funding Circle & Hack Reactor Alumni

Ruben Harris

Partnerships & Lead Gen @ Honor & Advisor @ Altschool

Timur Meyster

Software Engineer @ Blippar & App Academy Alumni