8-week web development "bootcamp" to hit Calgary next year

Calgary is getting its own Full-Time Web Development Bootcamp in 2016, courtesy of Lighthouse Labs.

The small eight week long bootcamp at Assembly Co-Working Space in downtown Calgary will only be open to 12 students and debuts on January 4 next year. Lighthouse Labs claims they have a 100 per cent job placement rate for their students.

“Calgary’s tech industry has been growing steadily in the shadows of the agriculture and oil industry and it has come to the point where there are more jobs than people to fill them,” said Sonja Bronstein, Manager of Assembly Co-Working Space in a statement.

“Lighthouse Labs’ unique model helping people from all backgrounds transition to a career as a developer is very quickly being embraced by the Calgary tech community.”

Lighthouse Labs has a belief that coding is more like a trade than an academic subject and they follow that model with their courses. The bootcamp has a 1 to 7 teacher to student ratio and has a focus on integrating graduates into the tech community.

“Students who graduate from our program are going to find themselves with a network of 20+ senior developers who all work at different tech companies around the city,” explained Jeremy Shaki, co-founder of Lighthouse Labs.

“We take the time to talk to the tech community and find out what their needs are before we ever begin a program like this. Having looked at Calgary and spoken with many of the amazing tech companies who are growing and are in need of talent, it was an obvious fit to introduce our full time web development program this January.”

While Lighthouse Labs’ bootcamp is open to everyone from beginners to Computer Science graduates, people will be carefully selected based on their dedication to becoming a web developer.

“At the end of the day, this isn’t a gold rush where you come in and we hand you a job,” said Shaki.

“Coding has democratized creation and allows for people with ideas to build them into real products, and the people who will succeed in this field are people who are going to love the process and journey of coding as much as the destination. That’s what we look for in our candidates.”

The Lighthouse Lab bootcamp was started in 2013 in Vancouver and has since seen over 300 graduates pass through the program.