Rithm School

I attended Rithm and was part of cohort 5. At first I was a little skeptical about attending a boot camp since up until that point I was taking a bunch of online classes on Udemy. Why would I pay to go to school to learn something which I could easily learn online right? I couldn’t be further from the truth and a couple weeks in it was readily apparent to me that I still had a lot more to learn. 

The teachers are top notch and know their stuff really well. I did my due dilligence and went to a few meetups to see their teaching style as well as ask questions. They break down each topic into the fundamental parts and are able to answer most if not all my questions. They got me to where I needed to be and I was able to get a job shortly within a month of graduating. 

The reason why I chose Rithm over other bootcamps is the small class sizes and focus on company projects. I can tell you first hand how imperative it was during my interview process to talk about tangible work experiences and problem solving. This instantly gave me a competitive edge over other applications because I was selling myself as an "experienced hire".

Another reason was the small class sizes and tailored help. I asked alot of questions and I always got them answered promptly, even at night. I wouldn't get this type of support anywhere else. The teachers also provided ongoing support after graduating. I was going into Rithm as an alumni and doing takehome challenges and the teachers were more than willing to help.

Overall, my experience was really positive. I'd recommend this bootcamp. 

I was part of Rithm’s 3rd cohort (Elie, Matt, and Tim taught) and enjoyed learning there. Like many of you are doing, I was researching a lot before deciding on a coding school and spending hard earned money.

I hesitate to say like many others do that “it’s the best decision of my life” or “life changing” because everyone has had to make many smaller decisions up until the point in deciding to get into development seriously (or most any other career path, tbh). Plus, no matter what school/program you go through, it’ll be life changing— either you’ll end up with a job or you might give up and perhaps be in a significant amount of debt. You’re going to have to balance your skepticism, self-doubt, time, and energy to make it happen and trust the process. That being said, Rithm was a the best choice for me.

From the get-go from getting a call and then having a technical interview, Elie and the team were all friendly and gave specific feedback on how to improve as I whiteboarded problems. I really appreciated this, as Rithm’s interview process mirrors more of what it would be like for a job interview. Another school I had interviewed at before had me debug some code and though it is a needed skill, I’ve never had to debug code arbitrary code that was given to me during a job interview.

Here are some of my key takeaways from my time at Rithm as well as having mentored others who are starting to learn JavaScript (not at Rithm).

• You’ll learn faster with community. I was trying to do it on my own— Free Code Camp curriculum, many cheap/free online courses, community college classes, you name it— it’s possible of course (just look at all the Medium posts of success stories in X amount of months), but for the most part, you’ll be working on a team and many companies want to see that you can produce great work and collaborate with others, rather than seeing solo toy projects. The company projects and pair programming during the course helped build these skills.
• Teaching is iterative - every time you teach is another chance to improve the curriculum and explain things better; Rithm gets that. No teaching by watching video clips or teachers-who-are-really-students that just graduated from that very program. The material is relevant and up-to-date.
• Ask questions! This is crucial- the instructors are there to help and are responsive. I was too chicken to ask questions earlier on (I gave myself a time limit to try to solve it on my own), but I should have gotten over it sooner. Everyone at Rithm is trying to help you learn and improve. I also learned how to ask better questions by listening to others’ questions.

I didn’t include the job assistance rating, as this was primarily done through Outco. This is not to say that Rithm was not supportive in the job search before, but there was a clear division between Rithm (learning and practicing web development) and Outco (resume help, technical interview prep, and CS fundamentals). I think Rithm keeping this in-house will benefit all future cohorts, as there is a greater level of care provided.

Lastly, I just want to say that coding is for everybody. Don’t let a school, company (when applying for jobs), or setback tell you that you can’t make it as a developer, keep persisting and putting work in. Job searching is difficult, and though there is a 6-month job guarantee, it ultimately depends on what you’re looking for and your own confidence in your technical skills, which come from experience. Hopefully you can give yourself some additional time (if needed) to get the work you want.

I had a fantastic time at Rithm School. I was in the 3rd cohort in a class of 11 students. We had so much individualized attention that I was never waiting on a question for more than a few minutes, and the other students were very helpful, kind, and down-to-earth. It was not a cut-throat environment because we were not competing against one another; there were so few of us and there are so many engineering job openings that we knew that the most important thing was helping one another succeed and trying our best. We got experience pair programming, working on real features with startups in an agile sprint format, and building our own independent projects. The environment was fun (we all wore horse masks as the end as a prank to the instructors) but still intense (we moved very quickly and had to work hard every day to keep up). 

A bit about my background: I had a Computer Science degree that I completed in 2015 and 2 years of work experience at startups working in Business Development / Operations / Community Management. My software skills were rusty and my web development knowledge was out of date and shaky. I came in wanting to get the preparation I needed to work as an engineer at a modern startup, and I wanted to develop confidence in my skills. Rithm was amazing for both of those -- we learned all the common tools and practiced interview questions so that we would feel prepared when going out on our own. 

Job search afterward: I joined when Rithm had a partnership with Outco, and I did the Outco 1-month program in August 2017 right after Rithm ended. The partnership was very helpful because I got to work with some of my classmates and go through the process together, though now that job prep is in-house it will be even more of a tight-knit feeling. Whiteboarding every day was very helpful because that aspect of interviews became less intimidating. I had a bit of a weird path because I was strongly considering PM roles and applied to many of those, but ultimately when I wasn't having luck, I started working for my friend's startup in Community Management while searching for Engineering jobs. I knew I wanted to focus on Frontend so I could utilize my UX Design knowledge, and I lucked out in finding a UX Engineer role that combined Frontend Engineering, UX Design, and Product Management. Rithm was so helpful throughout the whole thing - I met with Elie every few weeks whenever I needed help and he was always available. It was so great to have the support of my cohort members, too, because friends going through the search alone shared how isolated they felt. I'm now 4 months into my role and really love it!! I know Rithm prepared me very well and I recommend it as often as I can to anyone considering a bootcamp!

Hi 👋 my name is Andrew Mundy. I was part of Rithm’s second cohort at the beginning of 2017. As we approach a year since the beginning of my developer journey I wanted to outline my experience. I had been living in SF and working in the bar and restaurant industry for some time. I didn’t have a college degree, I hadn’t been in touch with technology, I had a flip phone. Besides some experience with Adobe products, print design, and a little HTML- my knowledge of coding was infantile. So how did I emerge from a 4 month bootcamp and land freelance gigs, a position as a front-end engineer, and most recently join a startup as a product designer and booking meetings with VC’s pitching for millions of dollars in such a short time?

 

Rithm.

 

TL;DR

• Founders are Galvanize expats
• Small, personal cohorts. 3 instructors, 8 students.
• Curriculum included JS, Python, React
• Real world projects tackled beginning to end as a team
• Go to a free class https://www.meetup.com/rithmschool/?_cookie-check=yR93aGhYTWHrN8Wm
• Their entire curriculum is available for free here https://www.rithmschool.com/courses

 

No other bootcamp can provide what Rithm can. Honestly, it’s a question of whats important to the bootcamp you’re considering. Maximum efficient profit or maximum efficient developers. Who will be your instructors? Students of the previous cohort or world-class, seasoned masters? Rithm provides their entire curriculum online for free. They are not afraid of losing potential customers to themselves. They are selling a mentorship not information.

 

With so many bootcamps to choose from and the seemingly endless amount of Jr devs fighting to enter the workforce. The question is no longer, “I hope I have what it takes to graduate.” But instead, “How will I graduate with a competitive edge over everyone else?”

 

The founder / instructors include Elie, Matt, and Tim. All ex Galvanize instructors that didn’t just think there was a better way, they knew there had to be. They didn’t just think they could create the next great developer, they knew they could. The dream team lineup- Elie, a natural, legendary instructor. Matt, a published doctor of mathematics.  And Tim, the personable sleeper genius, I think he’s in Mexico right now? Oh, and Whiskey the dog for moral and emotional support.

 

My cohort was only 8 students to 3 instructors. That meant that no question went unanswered. No person fell between the cracks. It was abundantly clear to everyone in the room if you skimmed through the previous nights homework, the level of accountability was daunting and necessary.

 

Our final projects included splitting the class into two groups and creating tools for UCSF and Slow Ventures. From choosing what technology stack to outlining an MVP and stretch features, we collaborated with our respective POC’s and created everything from the ground up. Halfway through completion we swapped teams and picked up where the others left off. This simulated the real world situation of walking into a brand new codebase. Going from Python’s Flask to ReactJS proved to be a challenged we were well equipped to tackle.

 

I never thought I was capable of learning so much so quickly. It was the perfect combination of world-class instructors, intense personal accountability, and real world projects that culminated into an experience that no other bootcamp can provide. Post graduation, I’ve talked to so many grads from other bootcamps and they are always surprised and envious of my experience. I could not recommend Rithm enough. Please, just do yourself a favor and go talk to em, they have free classes all the time. I am also more than happy to answer any further questions you may have or accompany you to any of their free classes. Hit me up! andrewmundy@gmail.com

I'm a graduate from Rithm's second class, and I can unequivocally state that it was a fantastic life decision. But I've read more than my fair share of optimistic bootcamp reviews, so let me say a little why I think so highly of Rithm School. I'll try to be as objective as possible, but its pretty hard to contain how highly I think of this school and its staff.

#1 Class Size: The first reason that Rithm stands out is class size - my cohort was 8, and the current one is 14. This is in stark contrast to every other place I checked out, including the likes of Thinkful, Dev Bootcamp, Hack Reactor, and obviously every university class I've ever been in. It really can't be overstated how hard it is to learn how to code "correctly" when starting out fresh, or coming from a career transition - learning the syntax is not enough, you really need an experienced hand to show you the things you can do, but shouldn't do, and the things you should do, that may not seem obvious. And learning those things is really hard to do when you've got a class size of 40+ with 2 instructors and a few TAs forcing you to go through a support-ticket system to get help - sure you'll learn eventually, but time is the most valuable commodity, and you'll expend way more time struggling as a beginner without a helpful hand to guide you. As an autodidact, I personally love the struggle of learning something new...but its really not an optimal use of time when trying to go from student to employed on life's busy schedule.

#2 -The Instructors: Elie, Tim, and Matt are some of the best instructors I've ever had, and they shine in this high-touch, low teacher-to-student ratio environment. I learned more in one hour with Matt during a technical interview in the admission process than several hours of Stack Overflow and Google-fu - they are gifted, caring teachers willing to go the extra mile for you. I can't overemphasize how important this is - in a previous life, I was a teacher, and as a teacher it was never enough to mechanically rattle off the material to learn for the day. We all know those teachers we had that really stood out, that *cared* about our struggle, our welfare, and actually helping us to internalize and learn something. I struggled in large classes to deliver the care each of my students deserved, but here at Rithm, these gifted instructors are able to shine their brightest in helping *you* truly learn and excel. Even when you really f**k things up and basically make life really difficult for an hour after accidently rewriting git history (that's funny...kind of...you'll see :-P...or maybe not)

#3 Career Support: Probably the most important thing after actually learning the thing, you need to get a job doing the thing, and here once again Rithm is fantastic. It's a common criticism of bootcamps that they teach you, and then throw you out into the wild with next to no career support. I should make a point here that part of Rithm's program includes a class with Outco, a separate organization that is fantastic at what they do in helping you prepare for technical interviews. The two organizations work closely together to help you meet the high bar for Outco admission during your time at Rithm. The final product is top-notch technical learning that transitions into top notch CS fundamentals and interview process learning. And I still get job referrals and postings that are a fit for me from the Rithm staff, so they're not just using this as a cop-out - they're with you until you get a job. 

#4 Curriculum: Unlike a lot of places, this place does not teach you just JavaScript across the stack because its the current hot trend in the industry. Rithms uses both JavaScript and Python for teaching you front-end and back-end, and in particular you will learn how to setup a feature from the way it looks, to the data it accesses, to the way it stores that data in the database. You will not simply run a framework and press a button that abstracts away everything happening during an HTTP request/response, or security authorization/authentication, or in manipulating the DOM - you will in fact be taught what these things do each step of the way, how they interact, and tools available to make your life easier. I definitely found working with two different languages on the same product a challenge, but it really opened my eyes to the struggles developers face when working outside of just one language and the styles that a particular language encourages. I want to emphasize that while the *tools* you will learn here are obviously focused on web development, the practices you learn will help you as a software developer no matter what you end up doing. From version control, to test driven development, to Scrums and Agile workflows, they show you quite literally how a "real" developer works in their day-to-day. This is not just work on a pet project and some fancy styling - this is a deep dive into the lives of software developers with a focus on web development tools. Most of all, you'll learn that as software developers,  we must always, always keep learning.

I really can't think of any real cons to the bootcamp itself outside of .you get what you pay for, which in this case is a good deal of $$$. They do scholarships and diversity funds though, so I know there are financial options available. I kind of wish they had bathrooms that didn't echo so much, but that's just me. And one thing to be aware of is that sometimes you hear weird sounds/see questionable figures walking around the area of the Mission. I did not consider this a distraction, but rather a educational experience in the different lives others live in the city. Not everyone is as fortunate to learn and work with all the rewards tech offers, and that's something you will be reminded of here (but no, no physical threats to to be had here). 

Want to learn more? Reach out to Rithm - I'm happy to provide info too as an alumni. It's a great investment in a growing area, and while I could go for days about how great the program is or how it compares to other people I've known who have attended the likes of Hack Reactor or Dev Bootcamp, the main points are that you'll learn faster and better here than anywhere else locally, and you'll receive top-notch support in getting a job afterwards. Happy coding!

Rithm was a fantastic experience from start to finish! Good course content, excellent instruction, friendly instructors and TAs, with lots of individualized attention. I had been slowly working through some Udemy classes prior to that, and I do feel like given enough time I would have eventually gotten to a proficiency level to start applying to jobs. However, the decision to attend Rithm was a total rocket booster to the process, likely saving me an additional 12+ months, and ended up being a lot more fun to boot!

I went from passable HTML/CSS skills and very basic JS, to confident in my ability to code in both modern JS and  Python, build React apps and most importantly having a strong grasp on the fundamentals to continue my learning from there (while gainfully employed). I was also more confident going into the job search having learned with a cohort of folks roughly at the same level. It was very hard to gauge my actual skill level when I was teaching myself.

In addition, I now have a built-in network in the industry, and I made some wonderful friends along the way!

I was expecting the job prep side of things to be mostly fluff, but it ended up being really helpful to my job search process. I landed a full time engineering roll within 3 months of leaving Rithm and am really enjoying the career transition.

Rithm School delivered on everything it promised: small classes, personalized attention, regular 1:1 meetings, knowledgeable and passionate instructors, positive learning environment, solid coursework and a TON of job assistance support during and after graduation. I learned so much, faster and better than I would have on my own. I gained a lot of confidence in my abilities. I made great friends with peers and alumni. And I was wonderfully prepared for my job interviews and ready to ace them, despite the current difficult job market.

I had such an incredible experience at Rithm. I was initially drawn to smaller class sizes (and the opportunity to learn a second back-end language, which proved VERY useful in the job search), and it did not disappoint. It's equal parts rigorous, engaging, and dare I say fun. The instructional staff is top-notch and really take the time to make sure you understand the material. It's clear that their focus is on you as the student, not on their graduation/employment stats or anything else superfluous - they've created an incredible formula where taking care of the former leads to the latter, and I'd go back in a heart-beat.

Like most people, I struggled choosing which software development bootcamp I wanted to go to. I did a lot of research on Course Report and Reddit to help decide out which school would be the best fit for me. I'm so happy that I ended up choosing Rithm! A few of my favorite things about attending Rithm were - 

1. M-F classes - Having class M-F allowed me to not experience burn out and still have a healthy work/life balance. 
2. Internship/Professional Project - The professional project at the end of the program is a big plus as it allows you to work in a larger code base, provides invaluable experience to bring to interviews, and gives you an idea of what life would be like working as a software engineer. 
3. Small class size - The smaller classes allow you to have more time and attention from instructors. The instructors/TAs take the time to teach you thoroughly, provide you excellent supplemental notes, and welcome questions. 
4. Daily code reviews - After each lecture, there is always an exercise to complete to practice what you just learned. Each exercise had stopping points where we were required to get our code reviewed by one of the instructors/TAs. I really enjoyed this reviews because they provided us thorough feedback on what we were doing right/wrong and how we could improve our code. 

Overall, I'm super happy with my decision to attend Rithm and would recommend it to anyone that is on the fence! 

I am so glad that I made the choice to attend Rithm School. I found an awesome job within 2 months of graduation, and I think this is only because Rithm has prepared me really well for the job search. There are several things that I really enjoyed at Rithm:
1. The class size is much smaller than other bootcamps, for my cohort we only had 12 people and each one of us was getting so much attention from our instructors; 
2. The curriculum is really well designed, we learned javascript and python and worked with a bunch of different frameworks such as React, Express and Flask, which are all popular frameworks in the tech world now and are in high demand for software engineer jobs; 
3. For everything we learned, there are exercise designed for each section to make sure that we have enough practice on the new knowledge, every weekend, we would also get a comprehensive assessment that captures all the important things we went through during the week; 
4. We did pair programming almost every single day, which taught us how to work with different people as an engineer, the communication skills we learned from pair programming has really helped with my interviews; 
5. The company project differentiates Rithm from a lot of other bootcamps, we got to work on an in-production code base for a startup, during which we worked on teams with their project leads, practiced professional work flows, and got to experience what it was like to work in a real tech company;
6. Rithm is a super supportive family and everyone wants us to succeed. Each one of us has a designated advisor, a career coach, all of our instructors and TAs are always available as well, we could ask them anything, even after we graduated they still continue to support us;
7. The alumni network is super strong, I have got quite a few referrals from Rithm alums and one of them turned out to be my current job! 
All in all, this is truly one of the best decisions I have made in my life. It was intense for sure, but it was also a lot of fun! I met a lot of friends, and I have successfully transitioned to be a software engineer. If you are thinking about attending a software bootcamp, I would highly recommend Rithm School!

Rithm is a fantastic bootcamp, you will not be disappointed! 

Curriculum:
The program is well through out and the curriculum is constantly being improved and updated with sought after skills/knowledge/experience. Class sizes are limited to allow you to have more one on one interactions and feedback from instructors. All of the exercises are relevant and validated to ensure that they are appropriately challenging for students. During the sprints, we worked on technically challenging and interesting projects that were fantastic on my resume. I even presented one of them during a final round interview which really impressed the Engineering Manager I was interviewing with. The company project is a game changer! Being able to work in a professional code base, learning the work flow and then being able to speak to it in your resume/interview really puts you a step above the competition. One small note, I was nervous about being cold called in class but it really kept me on my toes and helped to make sure I was always paying attention.

Instructors:
Fantastic! Instructors have real experience and are able to give you insights into how technology is applied in a professional setting. You are given thorough feedback on your code (especially from your weekly assessments) that will help to improve your skills. You are also matched with an advisor throughout the program who you will meet with regularly to help you with technical challenges, career questions, or anything else you may need help with. With small class sizes, you get a lot of attention and help whenever you need it.

Job Assistance:
The job search preparation is thorough! There is one week focused on technical interviews (including practice whiteboarding, answering technical knowledge questions, and recruiter phone screens). There's another week focused on other job search related topics (ex. cold applying vs. getting a referral, negotiating, how to create a job search schedule, etc.)

Alumni:
Top notch! You are matched with a buddy as you get closer to job searching and your buddy can be an invaluable resource for your interviewing preparation. I'm incredibly impressed by the community developed by the alumni network who are willing to provide advice, help and/or refer you to interesting roles. When I was searching for a bootcamp, I almost didn't believe how amazing Rithm is due to the relatively few reviews and all the 5 stars. I cold emailed some alumni and they were more than willing to chat with me about their experiences. Now, as an alumni myself, I can validate that this is truly an amazing experience.