The Rise of Coding Bootcamps (And How They Can Transform Your Career) With Ruben Harris (S6E15)

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It can be tough to know if coding bootcamps are the right investment for you.

After all, it’s a big commitment that requires time, money, and dedicated effort. And before you make that decision, you should weigh all the factors involved and evaluate them in the context of your personality and goals.

Ruben HarrisHere to help explain how to do this is Ruben Harris, CEO of Career Karma and co-host of the Breaking Into Startups podcast. Before tech he worked in investment banking after teaching himself financial modeling online, and he’s also been a professional cellist for 25 years—Ruben is no stranger to hard work!

Ruben first discovered coding bootcamps when one of his friends left the bank to go study with Flatiron School. Fast-forward to present day, and his company Career Karma empowers people to make their most important career decisions—the first being which coding boot camp is best for them.

Disclosure: I’m a proud affiliate for some of the resources mentioned in this article. If you buy a product through my links on this page, I may get a small commission for referring you. Thanks!

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In this episode, Ruben talks about the history of bootcamps, how to know whether attending a bootcamp is the right decision for you, how to evaluate them and yourself, what happens if you decide you don’t want a job in tech afterwards, and how income-share agreements are making bootcamps more financially accessible than ever.

This episode was transcribed with the help of an AI transcription tool. Please forgive any typos.

Laurence Bradford 0:08
Hey, and thank you for tuning in to the Learn to Code With Me podcast. I'm your host, Laurence Bradford. In this episode, you'll learn all about the history and future of coding boot camps. That's coming up after a quick word from our sponsors.

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Laurence Bradford 1:16
In today's episode, I talk with Ruben Harris. Ruben is the founder of Career Karma, a community of peers, mentors and coaches that will help you land a dream career in tech. And out interview he talks in depth about coding boot camps, including their history, how to know if one is right for you. Different ways someone can pay for a coding boot camp, and the increasing hybrid between coding boot camps and traditional colleges. Just a quick heads up, we're going to be taking a break for the rest of the month of August 2019. After this episode airs, we're doing this so we can put all of our energy into a special project that we've been working on and we'll be rolling leaving soon. This means that we'll be back in September with new episodes. And of course at that time, we'll be sharing this special project that we've been working on. The best way to stay in the loop with Learn to Code With Me happenings is by getting on our email list over on the website. And the next best way is to follow me on Instagram. My Instagram handle is just my first and last name Laurence Bradford. Nowadays in 2019 that is the social media platform where I am the most active. Alright, let's get into the interview. Enjoy.

Laurence Bradford 2:40
Hey, Ruben, thank you so much for coming on the show.

Ruben Harris 2:43
Hello, Laurence. Thank you for having me.

Laurence Bradford 2:44
It's great to speak to you again. I was a guest on your podcast feels like a while ago, maybe it was just two years or so. But it was it's called breaking into startups. So it's great to now have you on my show.

Ruben Harris 2:58
Likewise, time flies on And we're huge fans of the Nicole Whitney podcast or feels feels awesome to be a part of your community as well.

Laurence Bradford 3:07
Yes. Awesome. Thank you so much for that compliment. So to get things going, I would love if you could give us a rundown of what you were doing before you got into tech and helping people break into startups.

Ruben Harris 3:20
Yes. Interesting story. So not at the end of the day. I'm actually artists. I've been playing the cello for 25 years. And as you can imagine, as someone that grew up in the music industry, the music world is funded by the business world. And a lot of artists don't really focus on on business because they focus on becoming great musicians. And I met an investment banker that told me that if I wanted to become great that I needed to master business because when you become big as an artist, you're forced to become your own brand and master business. So after one of my performances, I met an investment banker that told me, if I want to learn business, then I needed to do investment. Because you're going to be working 80 to 100 hours a week. And I, I taught myself financial modeling online. I sent out 90 hundred emails crashed career fairs, and I got a job as an investment banker in Chicago. And after two years, got recruited by a bank in Atlanta, which is how I met my first co founder, Archer, and T and his twin brother, Timor.

Ruben Harris 4:21
And we were best friends very quickly. And the way that we discovered coding boot camps is one of our buddies left the bank to go to New York at Flatiron School. And he was in the same cohort as jack altman who Sam Altman, his brother from Y Combinator, who now runs a company called lattice. And that's how we discovered the tech world and realize that if we wanted to start a big tech company, then we needed to have technical skills. And so our team we decided to do Hack Reactor and app Academy at the beginning of the boot camp industry. And we noticed a lot of similarities with the music industry in the tech industry because what's nice about music and tech is that they accept anybody. But the biggest difficulty for people that didn't have a traditional background is that they don't get a shot to demonstrate that they actually have the skills similar to like a musician not being able to demonstrate that they have good music skills. And so we knew that this was a good place to focus. And while they focus on that, I bought a one way ticket to San Francisco. Got a job Three weeks later, wrote a story about it called breaking the startups that turned into a podcast that led into a bunch of other things. But that's, that's our initial initial breaking story.

Laurence Bradford 5:30
Wow. I had no idea that you were a cello player. It's interesting, because so many guests that we've had on the podcast throughout the seasons have some kind of music background. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So when you were in Korea to go back a bit, did you study music and call it Yeah, banking, or did you go to college at all?

Ruben Harris 5:50
Yeah, I was a double major business administration and music My brother as well. He's a musician. And so as my sister My brother is actually a software engineer as well. He went to App Academy he works out omata Health Now, and something that we talk a lot about with, with music and languages, is very similar to software engineering, like a few, we stopped practicing it, you lose it. And you always want to stay sharp with what's going on. And essentially, my parents, they told me that they wanted to give us something that nobody could take away from us, but ourselves, which was language and music. And so essentially, we realized that tech was taking over every single industry, including music. And that code is the universal language that's spoken globally for these tech companies. And so if we want it to survive in this new world, when needed to understand how to communicate with people, and so, music was something that my parents chose for me.

Ruben Harris 6:46
It ended up being something that I'm very good at. And we've written a lot of things about why learning an instrument is more than music and I studied under something called the Suzuki method and the beginning which has a philosophy Every child can meaning that rather than focusing on prodigies that are musicians, there's a belief that anybody can learn music. And most people learn how to speak before they learn how to read. So before I learned music theory, I learned how to play notes. And then once I learned how to play notes, then they started chilling, teaching me the theory, which is similar to boot camps where they teach you the practical experience about how to perform on the job. And then when you get the job, you start getting deeper and deeper understanding of the theory. After you you're essentially getting paid to learn. So that's, there's some analogies there. And I could go deeper in depth if you want me to.

Laurence Bradford 7:37
No I think that was that was great. And it's something I've talked about loosely before other episodes just because of all the musical guests that we had on but I've always known since I began hearing all these people who transitioned into tech from music, there's definitely some connection between usic and the way the brain works and technology. Yeah, I don't want to get into Yeah, don't get into into that too much. So it sounds A lot of people in your life have gone to coding boot camps. But you haven't actually gone to one, have you?

Ruben Harris 8:06
No, I have not gone to a coding boot camp myself.

Laurence Bradford 8:09
Okay, but your two co founders both did other people that you've worked with your brother, I think you mentioned they all went to various coding boot camps.

Ruben Harris 8:18
So I'll talk a little bit about that. Unless you have do want to have a question. You want me to comment on that?

Laurence Bradford 8:24
Oh, I would love to see. Yeah, comment on this.

Ruben Harris 8:26
So you know, if you think about running a company or running an organization, it will require more than just coders. There's different types of people on the team. There's salespeople, there's product managers, there's designers, there's data scientists, there's SEO people, and so on and so forth. And there's a lot of jobs that are being created that require skills that aren't taught at traditional universities. And so, the reason why we started with coding boot camps is because coding boot camps are the First institution that has taken on income share agreements at scale. And for the people that don't know what an income share agreement is, essentially enables anybody to pursue a skill set. Without going into debt, whether the school says, I will guarantee that you get a salary above this amount. And if you don't get a job with that salary, then you don't have to pay anything. But if you do get a job, then you agree to pay me a percentage of your salary up to a cap, usually between five to $30,000. And then everybody wants. So what's interesting about that model is that boot camps and income share agreements are spreading to all kinds of skill sets, so not just software engineering. So you see boot camps for sales.

Ruben Harris 9:44
You see them for data science, you see them for design for product management, and even colleges themselves are launching the boot camp model. And now there's over 1000 boot camps in the US, the majority of them focus on software engineering. And so you know, at From my background, you know, whenever you're starting an organization, you you realize that in the beginning, especially the early days, you're you're writing code and you're talking to users. And the talking to users part is usually a function of sales and customer support and collaboration with marketing. And so even in our own batch in Y Combinator, there was a bootcamp focus on sales called flux a, and an overview. non technical roles are going to be bigger in the future of work just like they are today. And there's a reason why we're not called code karma. Because right now we're starting to focus on software engineering, but eventually, we plan on supporting every skill set and eventually creating the world's most powerful staffing.

Laurence Bradford 10:41
Wow, awesome. And I would love to circle back on something you mentioned that I don't think I've ever talked about on the show before and it's called the income share agreements. Could you just talk a little bit more about what that looks like? And we have a lot of listeners that either just went to boot camp or are thinking about a boot camp How do they know if the boot camp they're considering going to has a program like that?

Ruben Harris 11:05
Great question. So, no, my like I said before my co founders started learning how to code and beginning of the boot camp industry. And you can kind of think about these phases and like the boot camp 1.0 phase 2.03 point 4.0. Like the boot camp 1.0 phase, people recognize that the iPhone hasn't been around for they've been around for a little bit, that more than 10 years. And the software developer position hasn't been around for more than a decade. And so most developers are actually self taught. And so the first boot camps were essentially developers that were like, Hey, I can teach you this skill set in a short amount of time. Pay me five to $15,000 and I'll teach you how to code and I'll get you a job. And surprisingly, that worked very well. Not surprisingly, for a lot of other people because that's how they learned but that worked very well. Then you started seeing financing providers, like Skillshare Rs, and you see, you see, climb and all these other people that were essentially a skills fund. That's what's called, essentially like, they're providing student loans for people that are trying to go through boot camps that aren't predatory. But then you started seeing a lot of these boot camps were only full time and in person. But then you started seeing a model of boot camps that were online. And offline that were part time, full time self paced, still twist, not front. But and that worked very well and started getting 10s of thousands of people graduating every single year versus in one year versus four years.

Ruben Harris 12:48
But what started to happen is the majority of people already had student loans, and most people couldn't afford a coding boot camp and had different obligations that would not allow them To move to where they want to go. And so there's this thing called an income share agreement that is powered by two main players, which is the ML education and leaf. We actually have a podcast episode that we did with the CEO of the mouth to break that down. I think you should have them on your podcast as well. But essentially, income share agreements are, are something that enables bootcamps to take the risk to teach a student without having to charge them anything and essentially measure their success on an individual getting a job. Historically, education. Educational Institutions get paid up front without having to be held accountable on you getting a job. And so if an individual takes out a loan or pays up front and drops out, they still have to pay and if they get a job or they get a job, It's not the job that they want, they still have to pay. What's nice about income share agreement, it aligns the incentive with the individual where they don't have to pay up front. Sometimes some school is provided, ask them to provide a deposit. So they're serious about it. That's a given back if they decide to leave or quit. But overall, essentially, they don't charge the individual.

Ruben Harris 14:20
And when you get a job in the role that you want, then you would pay it back in a way that's affordable. So that examples my brother, so my brother, he did app Academy, he got a job. It started in January, got a job in September of last year, making way north of the average salary, so over $120,000, and then he is paying back 26 over two years. And so that is essentially the model. The problem is, is that because this, this model works well and there's so many different options, and there's a lot of people that are launching Schools, some people promise outcomes to people. And some people are our true to that statement. But there's some people that take advantage of people of for people, for just people that are looking for a change, and they take advantage of them and don't deliver on the outcome. So part of the reason why we create a career karma so that people can filter out who's effective and who's not effective. And also connect with people that have done it before, that they can talk to, and that can help them not just get into a program, finish a program but get into a job supported by people that are like them for the rest of their life.

Laurence Bradford 15:34
Got it. So it almost sounds though too good to be true. Right. Like I understand the student is paying the bootcamp back. Like I think the example you gave of your brother was great that I think you mentioned over two years, he's going to be paying back AP Academy from his salary as a software engineer. But what if the student gets through the boot camp and then decides Oh, I don't want to be a sophomore. And share anymore or they can't get a job for whatever reason, or something else happens like?

Ruben Harris 16:05
So I think the reason why a school really has to do well with the admissions process and their selection process is because they're taking that risk, right? Where if the person does not get that job, then to your point that teachers never get paid. And teachers getting paid is a big issue in America. Teachers being respected as a big issue in America and all over the world. And, and schools need to be picky about who comes in because they want to make sure that they're serious about getting a job. They want to make sure that they stay in the program because dropout rates are high, not just in boot camps, but even in college. I think the national completion rate for cars is like 61% for the number one cause it's like 41%, but then even when they're done, they need to get a good job and outcome.

Ruben Harris 16:54
And that's the only way that the school gets paid. I think I think there's going to be innovations around the model, but I'm to your point, the admissions phase for a school is extremely important because they want to make sure that people are serious. And it's, I think it's a good thing because right now, student loans are in the trillions. And people are currently holding that bag. And schools aren't when they're the ones that are essentially the ones that promised that people are going to get a job. And now it's starting to be a more collaborative effort. Because even if we start talking about like bailout situations, or like ways that philanthropists can get involved, that's not a solution. That's just a band aid. And what's nice about income share agreements is that if you if you see what how did you see what happened with the Morehouse College recently?

Laurence Bradford 17:51
Actually, I think I did was that when I'm forgetting the name, but he offered Yeah, he offered to pay off everyone's student loans?

Ruben Harris 17:59
Yeah. So let's look use that example. Right? So Robert Smith is a billionaire. There's 400 people in that class. And so he agreed to pay $40 million to pay off their student loans. And that's after someone has been in school for four years. Right? So if the average salary for software engineers is around $100,000 nationally, and 400 people become software engineers, they collectively make $40 million. They have is a four income share agreement of $30,000. They essentially paying back $12 million dollars, but they've earned $28 million in a year versus four years. Right? So the incentives are aligned. But to your point, if they don't all graduate and get a job, it doesn't work. But it's a very interesting situation where the individual wins the school and the company wins. And I actually think that the best thing that like government employees To viscom do an order to address these. The skill, the skill gap is to encourage more colleges and entrepreneurs to create boot camps that have income share agreement options, especially online and part time and self paced so that people around the world can do it no matter what their location is. And then continue to to build that up so that people are focused on outcomes versus just pursuing random degrees that they aren't going to be using when they get a job and just making sure that there's a match in that regard. Makes sense.

Laurence Bradford 19:38
Sit tight podcast listeners, we're taking a quick break to hear a word from our sponsors.

Laurence Bradford 19:44
My team and I have just published a brand new ebook called 28 Ways to Earn A Side Income While Learning How to Code. For this resource. We wanted to pick the domain name that was short, relevant and most importantly, secure. We decided to go for a dotTech domain, sidegig.tech. We believe dotTech domains are perfect for all things tech. We found out some really big names also use dotTech domains, including the Consumer Electronics Show at CES.tech. Intel's Internet of Things portal at insight.tech and even tech thought leaders like Austin Evans, whether it's for your passion project, your startup or your portfolio, I recommend securing your dot tech domain ASAP. Learn to Code With Me listeners can get a limited time 90% discount on one and five year domains. Just head on over to go.tech/learntocode and use the coupon code Learn to Code. I'd love to hear which domain you go for. Tweet me at Learn code With Me to let me know.

Laurence Bradford 20:53
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Laurence Bradford 22:06
Yeah, definitely. And I have some like nitty gritty questions about this that I'm just really interested in. No, you're like, yeah, I can bootcamp experts, perfect person to ask. But okay, so again with the example of your brother or anyone else who then gets a job afterwards they're doing great. They're thriving. How? How is it decided how much they're going to pay back? Is it a percentage of their paycheck? Or is it another amount that is agreed upon? Like, upfront?

Ruben Harris 22:33
It's a great question. So it's, it's usually determined by the school. So the so you have the full nitty gritty, right? So when, um, when a when a school decides that they want to have this option, they decide whether usually it's around like 15 to 17% of the salary and then they decide a period of time that they have to pay it back. And the reason why they choose a cap is because the individual will always know the most that they will ever pay out. Right? So if I graduated my like, hit it out the park and I get a job of $200,000 and I'm paying 17%. Even if I'm like paying for two or three years, the most that I would ever pay is 30,000. Not whatever the larger amount would be, if I'm paying 17% for two or three years, right. And so that's a that's what the individual will always know how much they are paying out, and for how much time and the averages and so everyone doesn't get the hundred thousand dollar salary. The school just agrees to say I will get you a job above this salary. And if you get a job in this role above this salary, then you agree to pay me this percentage for this amount of time. And so it's agreed upon by the school in the school is the one who determines who picks it.

Laurence Bradford 23:56
Got it. And then I feel like I know the answer to this, but I just wanna double check coding boot camps that offer these ISS income share agreements? Do they usually have two options? So like you can pay up front, or you can do the ISI and a few pay up front do usually pay less in total one?

Ruben Harris 24:16
Great question. Yeah. So yeah, the answer is yes. But there's actually three options. So if you pay up front, or you take out a loan, yes, those are usually lower options because there's less risk on the school. But there's not a lot of people that have $20,000 out of pocket or $15,000 out of pocket, even $10,000 out of pocket. loans are also less, but loans are loans, right. So you have interest on loans, you have principal and things can accrue and their debt, income share agreements are not debt. And they're essentially this agreement of where you all are sharing risk. And that's essentially how it works is very similar to at Woody.

Laurence Bradford 25:00
Gotcha. And then for a person that is thinking about going to any kind of boot camp coding or otherwise, and they want to know if the program offers an ISO or similar and if it's legitimate or not, what's the best way to know like, are these coding boot camps on their websites saying straight out like income share agreement available?

Ruben Harris 25:24
Well, the best way to know is to download Career Karma. So that's the part of the reason why we started career comm is because there's so many programs that are launching and one year and career karma, you'll be able to know which boot camps are our major criteria related to time, finance, location, your learning style, their teaching style outcomes, and the network, which I think is extremely important. I think those are the main factors that you really want to take into account. When you are kind of get into a boot camp. What a lot of people don't realize is even when you do side on a coding boot camp, you still have to pass the admissions program. Because most boot camps, essentially a boot camp is condensing what normally requires two to four years to learn, and to about three to 12 months, and they end up going back to being picky, they'll have a requirement about how to get in.

Ruben Harris 26:16
So with Career Karma, you'll go to the Learn tab and press begin and you'll start something called the 21 Day Challenge. And the reason why we chose 21 days is so that you create a habit as you are doing the preparatory material with other people to understand how to get in, and also talk to people that are currently in and that have finished the program. So you can essentially have the support system that you need to pass the initial exam. And then we put you into a squad inside of the app to help with retention and outcomes. Now whenever you get to the job search, we could connect with people that are already employed that can vouch for you and skip the number of coding process. So you can get a job when you're done with the coding boot camp as well.

Laurence Bradford 26:58
Got it. So As you mentioned, a great place to start if you're thinking of a coding boot camp is career karma. But what about for a person who's maybe still on the fence, if they should go to a coding boot camp or a boot camp at all, if it's a good fit for them? What kind of things should they think about? When it's not even like making the decision to go just like making the decision to look into it more?

Ruben Harris 27:24
The way to think about it is, like working out, right? Where if you think about learning how to code, pretend it's like, it's like New Year's and you want to get a six pack by summer. Right? The the coding boot camps are like gems with workout equipment in it. And so you have this goal about becoming a software engineer. By summer. It's totally possible for you to go to the gym every day by yourself and do the workouts that you need to do by yourself and eat the right food by yourself and drink the right things by yourself. But we know that a lot of people that Start off in New Year's saying that they want to do this but then by summer, very few people actually get to that goal. Why? Right? Contrary to popular belief, a career transition is actually more psychological and technical. And it's easier to go through this process with workout buddies. And so if you are considering doing the coding boot camp or not, you really need to evaluate yourself. Do you know your own learning style? Are you good at time management? Are you good at being disciplined and creating a plan for yourself? Are you able to network even after you have the skills? Do you know how to tell your story? And do you have the soft skills that are necessary to to navigate and adapt and interact in any environment?

Ruben Harris 28:42
Um, so usually, it's really a matter of like self discipline, and in confidence, and your own beliefs and your own skill sets. So think about if you're considering a boot camp versus not doing the boot camp. Think about it more Like, am I the type of person that needs a personal trainer or classes or workout buddies or not? And that's usually what kind of leads you on the right direction? Or can I benefit from that? Because I, even if you're fully capable of doing it on your own, it's still even better to do it with other people similar to like Y Combinator, right? Where we are starting our own company with career karma. And we can't do it on our own. But it's very valuable to be around other entrepreneurs that are also pushing themselves at high levels. And we can learn from each other and keep each other motivated all the way through because learning any skill set, including coding, whether it's basketball, or sports or whatever, it's all hard, but it's it's easy to do it with front.

Laurence Bradford 29:40
Yeah. And I loved something you said earlier, career transition is more psychological. That is a really great point. And just like the skill 90 the skills, the self discipline, the mindset, the Yeah, exactly the community to help you push through and make that career transition. Exactly. Um, Yeah, so we talked about this a bit already. But love if you could chat a little more about it. What do you think the state of the coding bootcamp market is today compared to where it was a few years ago? And where do you think it's heading?

Ruben Harris 30:15
Great question, I think, um, a few things, right. So, in the beginning, I think about the coding boot camp, kind of like, flight, where, you know, the Wright brothers proved that a plane to get off the ground, right, which is kind of like those people that went around. They said, I'm gonna teach you and you pay me and I'll get you a job. And that worked. But like, the Wright brothers airline is not around anymore, right. But there's other airlines that exist today. And so as coding boot camps have evolve. Now you have between 30 to 40,000 people graduating every single year from coding boot camps, versus 50,000 people from four universities, and half a million open jobs and a million open jobs for software engineering by 2024. So Not even 10% of people that are currently graduating are able to fill the need and demand from companies. So something needs to be done.

Ruben Harris 31:08
So the thing about coding boot camps coding boot camps currently have over 300,000 people applying to them every single year, but less than 10% of them are getting in. If you look at MOOCs, which are massive open online courses, over the last seven years, they've gotten over 100 million learners with completion rate of five to 15%. So the common theme is, there's a lot of demand and interest in wanting to do this thing, but people aren't getting to the end. And so, going back to the piece about psycho social support, you need guidance to understand how to pass those initial exams, how to pick an organization that fits what you want to do or what you want to go your current situation, something that helps you stay in the program, something that helps you finish like navigate the job search and then even when you ended Job thrive after you in a job because this is culture shock from for most people. I think that boot camps in the beginning, because they were focused on full time, and they were tuition upfront they were largely inaccessible to people. But I think that now that you have the income share agreement available now that has opened up to the world for for boot camps, but I think the most interesting thing that I've seen related to boot camps is the collaboration with colleges.

Ruben Harris 32:33
I don't know if you saw but Clay Christensen from Harvard, the Christensen Institute recently said that half of the colleges are going to go bankrupt over the next five to 10 years. And they also came out with a report called betting on boot camps, which I think everyone should read. And RTI also has a very great in depth study about boot camps. But essentially, I think the trilogy acquisition I don't know if you guys know trilogy, But trilogy got acquired for $750 million. They essentially partner with colleges to launch their own coding boot camps. And so this hybrid of college and brand with boot camp is really powerful. And I also am starting to see boot camp starting to make allows their training to count for college credit. So Kenzie Academy does this bodega does this flat iron just partnered with the Yale University to do this. So you're seeing this bridging the bootcamp with college, in addition to entrepreneurs doing this on their own. So I think and then you also see a growing appetite for alternatives outside of college because of the admission scandal on that happened with colleges and people recognizing that it's, it's okay to not go to college and get a job because Google and all the top tech companies are dropping college as a requirement to get In in recognizing that skills and portfolio are way more important than resume. And so I think to summarize the answer to your question, I think that what we're we're going to see is a rise of the currently invisible workforce versus the visible workforce.

Ruben Harris 34:18
And companies recognizing that they're going to have to build talent, in addition to buying talent. And you can see that with Adobe partnering with General Assembly, and Adobe and Adobe Digital Academy, you see, General Assembly got acquired by Adobe for buy a deco for 400 million and a deco is the world's largest staffing firm. So you see a lot of hybrids in that regard. So I guess the answer to your question is, we're we're still in the early days of boot camps. The demand is massive. There's a huge need. And that's part of the reason why we started with with software engineering and boot camps. And we see that boot camps are the only way to address The skills gap globally, if we want to do anything about it So, and you can see that with the first, second and third industrial revolutions where even high school and college and vocational schooling and apprenticeships came about because of these innovations of technology. And automation is something that has persisted over time. And it's not going to stop, if anything is going to increase. And so it's extremely important for programs like learn to code with me or podcast, like learn to code man, and podcasts in general and media in general, to make people aware of these alternatives, because our current educational system is not keeping up with the pace. And we want to make sure that we're able to ride the wave instead of being able to get hit by it. So I know that was a long winded answer. But um, that's my thoughts about it. Some of my thoughts about it.

Laurence Bradford 35:50
No, that was awesome. That was awesome. You're like such a wealth of knowledge when it comes to coding boot camps and everything that relates and I can't I can't believe You have all these like stats and quotes and research memorized. It's like it's insane. It's insanely impressive. And unfortunately, we're running out of time, but I thought I could talk to you about boot camps and so much and so much more. But I just wanted to maybe just finalize things by talking a bit about career karma and your plans for the future. I know you touched on it a bit already. And where people can find out more about that. And just real quick, before you answer that, I want to just acknowledge you because I remember when I was interviewed on your podcast again, a year or two, maybe three ago hack, I don't exactly recall. You just had a podcast and like a website and then you eventually started this chat bot and now you've gone to yc and you have this whole other whole other company. And I just think that's so awesome and so cool. Like how much progress you and your co founders have made from this little thing and like what it's not that it was little but it was just you know, the podcast and now you You have all these other things that you're doing to help people find careers. It's really awesome.

Ruben Harris 37:05
Thank you. Thank you appreciate it. And again, I'm very grateful to be on your show to return the favor. Man with with Career Karma, our Northstar has always been to create a product that empowers people to make their most important career decisions. The first decision that we're helping people make is which coding bootcamp is best for them. careers are increasingly nonlinear, and guided by interest and available opportunities. And the best practices for climbing the corporate ladder are increasingly less relevant. And people really want to learn from peers and established subject matter experts. But there is there was no system for that that was in place. And so, you know, part of the reason why I am aware of a lot of these stats and a lot of these things is because me and my co founders came through this process ourselves. Like we're building the product that we Wish that we had when we were trying to break the tech. So when we were trying to move to San Francisco, the advice to get into tech was moved to Silicon Valley is a magical place, you'll figure it out. But that's not helpful for most people.

Ruben Harris 38:12
And when we started thinking about the importance of of like workout buddies and squads, we're like, oh, well, we have each other me and my co founders have each other. How can we help other people find each other and come together and have a common goal and bring it all about? And so after running a bunch of experiments, and having a bunch of office hours, we came up with the 21 day ck challenge, which was a three week process that will get people accepted into boot camps, and boot camp started going crazy over it. And then we started to interview them and individuals that have been through this process to really understand a lot of the depth of everything. And the reason why we we join Y Combinator is because Y Combinator is the world's large accelerator and they have a history of counting outsiders and insiders. And if you think about what we're doing with career karma, this essentially Y Combinator for the people where people want to get into tech, but they don't know how. So we put them through the 21 Day Challenge. we group them into small batches with peers and industry insiders. We give them a quiz that matches them with the right program for them. And we give them the support they need, and not just get into a job, but have support system that helps them navigate from job to job to job because we've entered into a world where we have to embrace lifelong learning. You're going to be going to multiple schools and multiple companies in a lifetime. And essentially career karma serves as a GPS career GPS system for individuals.

Ruben Harris 39:46
And part of the reason why we have the audio and video player on the spotlight advertised yet so that eventually we can feature stories of other podcasts like yours and videos of people I like them because it can't be what you can't see. And so it's what essentially led by the people in our own experience. And we're just building the features that are going to support them. And eventually, we're right now where we're really working with schools, because now that we have over 10,000 people inside a community, we're sending so much volume to the schools that we needed to create a, we launched it in January. So now there's like over 10,000 people, we have this software that's helping schools manage their flow. So eventually, they can essentially admit people without interviews, and then all the people that are normally getting rejected, rather than getting a negative experience, they could just send them back to career karma and we can handle all the pre screening preparation and no train to essentially nurture them and then send them back to the organization and also make it all the way through and and give the schools that what they need to know in order to retain in place people when they're done. So yeah.

Laurence Bradford 40:54
Wow, that's so awesome. Thank you again, Rubin for coming on the show. And obviously people can learn more about your company Career Karma by googling it and finding the app and all that. But where can people find you online?

Ruben Harris 41:08
Yeah. So yeah, like you said, if you want to download the app, you can just download us on iPhone and Android. me. I'm just a Reuben Harris on everything. I'm pretty active on Twitter is R-U-B-E-N-H-A-R-R-I-S. Appointed, Ruben not Rubin. And I'm also very active on Instagram. I do have a snapchat I'm not as active on that as much. But overall, Twitter and Instagram are the best way to get in touch with me. But you could also send me an email is ruben@carreerkarma.com.

Laurence Bradford 41:42
Awesome. Thank you so much again for coming on.

Ruben Harris 41:44
Likewise. Thank you.

Laurence Bradford 41:50
I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Ruben. If you missed any of that, or would like a recap, the Show Notes for this episode can be found over at the website at learntocodewith.me/podcast. If you're listening to this episode in the future, simply click the Search icon in the upper navigation of the website and type in Reuben's name. Again, if you're listening to this episode right when it airs, we are going to be taking a break for the next few weeks, and we'll be coming back with new episodes in September. The best way to stay up to date with Learn to Code With Me is by getting on our email list. And one way you can do that is by getting our brand new and totally free ebook that breaks down 28 Different Ways You Can Earn A Side Income While Learning How to Code. You can get this ebook for free over at sidegig.tech. Again, the URL is sidegig.tech. Thank you so much for tuning in. And I'll see you soon.

Key takeaways

  • Tech is taking over every single industry, and code is the universal language that’s spoken globally among tech companies. Learning code lets you communicate on a worldwide scale.
  • Before you learn music theory, you learn the notes. And then once you learn to play the notes, you start learning theory. This is similar to coding bootcamps: they teach you the practical experience about how to perform on the job, and then when you get the job, you start getting a deeper and deeper understanding of the theory.
  • Income-share agreements are a great way for people to afford bootcamps when they usually wouldn’t be able to—you just need to make sure you’re serious about getting a job in the field you’re studying.
  • Bootcamps essentially condense what normally requires 2-4 years to learn into 3-12 months. Because of this, they typically want to make sure candidates are qualified and motivated. Thus, after you’ve decided which bootcamp to do, you still have to pass the admissions program, which tend to be very selective.
  • If you’re considering a coding bootcamp, you need to evaluate yourself first. Do you know your own learning style? Are you good at time management? Are you good at being disciplined and creating a plan for yourself? Are you able to network? Do you have the soft skills that are necessary to navigate and adapt and interact in any environment? You need a lot of self-discipline and self-belief.
passing the admissions

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