“I graduated in May of 2019 from a coding bootcamp [called] Flatiron School. I got my job a week before graduation and I started working in June [as a junior software engineer for biotech company Baylor Genetics]… So, here we are, full picture, a year and a couple of months later… I bought my dream house,” said Olivia Auzenne in a video she recorded at a fully furnished luxury townhouse in Houston, Texas.
Also documenting his life after the bootcamp is Flatiron School graduate Garrett Halstein who secured a full-time software engineering role at IBM immediately after graduation. “I think the main question [that I had] going in was that if I go to Flatiron [School] or if I go to a coding bootcamp, will I get a job? In my case, I did, and it took me a month or two to get one.”
“Another question [I had was] am I going to be financially independent? And yes, currently, I don’t have any problems with money,” he said. Yet despite his success, Garrett is quick to caution other aspiring bootcamp learners. “Understand [that] this is not everyone’s case.”
So, what is the case for everyone? We know that skepticism is the first, even proper, response toward reading success stories like Olivia’s and Garrett’s. After all, it is difficult to take a stranger’s words as is. So, we took a look at Flatiron School’s outcomes and are here to share the results.
Raising the Bar Among Coding Bootcamps
Flatiron School was founded in 2012 by venture capitalist Adam Enbar and self-taught programmer Avi Flombaum. Nearly a decade later, the coding bootcamp has established itself as one of the tech industry’s leading education providers. What began in a small, second-floor walk-up in Manhattan has scaled to eight campuses across the United States alongside its online offerings.
The vision for the coding bootcamp is simple: to be a viable pathway to a tech career. The school’s co-founder, Avi, best explained this during a Breaking Into Startups podcast interview where he shared the meaning behind Flatiron School’s logo represented by two slashes.
“In programming, there’s something called a protocol operator. So, [if you look at the link for Flatiron School], there’s ‘http,’ a colon, two slashes, and then ‘flatironschool.com.’ What this operator is saying is that the way to get to the thing on the right is through the thing on the left. In the same way, we wanted to use the slashes to show people that [Flatiron School] is a path. It is a way to get somewhere.”
Let’s talk about that somewhere. What career paths can Flatiron School graduates venture into after the bootcamp? How exactly have students fared beyond the campus walls?
In 2014, Flatiron School produced its first independently-examined jobs report, seeing it as an opportunity to set a standard of transparency and accountability for its students and the industry.
Below are the key data points from Flatiron School’s 2020 Jobs Report:
- Of the job-seeking graduate respondents across all career-focused programs, 86% landed qualifying jobs within the reporting period.
- Around 73% of job-seeking graduates who accepted offers during the reporting period landed full-time roles with salaries averaging at $69,895.
- Women represent 32% of students in this report.
- Of graduates who completed a job search cycle and identified as female, 90% accepted a job offer within the reporting period.
Placement Rate: For job-seeking on-campus and online graduates included in the 2020 Jobs Report including full-time salaried roles, full-time contract, internship, apprenticeship, and freelance roles, and part-time roles during the reporting period.
Average Salary: *For job-seeking students who accepted full-time salaried jobs during the reporting period and disclosed their compensation. The average starting salary for students who took full-time contract, internship, apprenticeship, or freelance roles and disclosed compensation was $32/hr. Average pay for a part-time role was $26/hr (see full Jobs Report report here).
Inside Flatiron School’s 2020 Jobs Report
To fully understand Flatiron School’s outcomes, it’s important to clarify the parameters of the study.
Who: The Participants
Flatiron School’s 2020 Jobs Report covers the school’s largest population yet, which accounts for 2,262 students who were enrolled in Flatiron School’s on-campus and online on-campus programs and scheduled to graduate during the reporting period. Of them, 1,510 were reported as job-seeking graduates or those who completed Flatiron School’s Job Search Cycle and actively sought qualifying roles afterward. The rest were deemed not job-seeking.
When: The Reporting Period and the Job Search Cycle
Flatiron School’s latest report covers data from students who completed their respective programs between January 1, 2019, and December 31, 2019. By implication, some students who graduated in the later part of 2019 fought through a turbulent Job Search Cycle brought on by the pandemic-induced economy. The Job Search Cycle refers to at least 180 days of continuous job-seeking.
What: The Job
For Flatiron School, not every job counts. Just as unemployment isn’t something the school seeks to gear you up for, so is underemployment. To be deemed a qualifying job, the role must be paid and offer at least 20 hours of work that lasts for at least three months. Most importantly, it must be related to the student’s field of study.
How: The Career Prep Track
Flatiron School’s Career Services team gets to work even before students complete the program, placing coaching and mentorship at its core. Little wonder how students like Olivia have managed to secure qualifying jobs before graduation. So, how does this work?
“Coaching is the skill of asking empowering questions to both support and challenge a person to make progress toward his or her goal… It’s up to the coach to find that balance for every person because some of us need a lot of support while others just need a good, solid kick in the booty,” said Flatiron School’s Director of Coaching Mollie Khine during one of Career Karma’s Ask Me Anything sessions.
Flatiron School assigns a Career Coach to every student approximately one month prior to graduation. For six months, both coach and student work hand in hand to optimize the latter’s job search experience. This preparation includes developing the student’s resume, conducting mock interviews, reaching out to companies, and building his or her brand.
Unpacking the Employment Numbers
Now that we’ve got the scope laid out, it’s time to see the school’s employment outcomes. Before we begin, keep in mind that the following numbers are not prospective. This means that there’s no solid guarantee that the same numbers will be attained if or when you join the bootcamp. That said, Flatiron School’s current and previous numbers are indicative of the level of success you can attain once you do join the bootcamp.
Job Placement Rate
The first point of order is Flatiron School’s global job placement rate. In keeping with its previous records, Flatiron School remains a top performer in providing tech education. Its 2020 employment rate hovered at 86% within the reporting period, rivaling the 72.3% employment rate for college graduates in August 2019.
Placement Rate: For job-seeking on-campus and online graduates included in the 2020 Jobs Report including full-time salaried roles, full-time contract, internship, apprenticeship, and freelance roles, and part-time roles during the reporting period.
Aside from the high employment rate, it’s worth mentioning that 53% of the bootcamp’s job-seeking graduates who completed a Job Search Cycle secured qualifying roles two months after starting their job search. The high placement rate is indicative of just how competitive Flatiron School’s immersive programs are.
This is primarily attributed to the school’s backward approach to the entire training process. Put simply, the school first checks what skills the employers are on the lookout for before it develops programs tailored to these needs. This eliminates the guesswork that goes into whether students are being primed with marketable skills and simultaneously increases their employability.
Starting Salaries
So, how does the placement rate translate to the graduates’ paychecks? Well, the picture becomes clearer as we get closer to the ground. Approximately 86% of job-seeking graduates from Flatiron School’s Software Engineering programs secured qualifying jobs within the reporting period. Of them, 74% landed full-time salaried roles, earning $66,657 on average—and that’s just the starting salary.
On the same lane are 86% of Data Science graduates, 75% of whom secured full-time salaried roles that pay an average starting salary of $85,737. This puts them way ahead of the rest of the newly minted pack. According to ZipRecruiter, entry-level data scientists across the United States average $68,054 per year.
Placement Rate: For job-seeking on-campus and online graduates included in the 2020 Jobs Report including full-time salaried roles, full-time contract, internship, apprenticeship, and freelance roles, and part-time roles during the reporting period.
Average Salary Software Engineering: For job-seeking students who accepted full-time salaried jobs during the reporting period and disclosed their compensation. The average starting salary for students who took full-time contract, internship, apprenticeship, or freelance roles and disclosed compensation was $30/hr. Average pay for a part-time role was $26/hr (see full Jobs Report report here).
Average Salary Data Science: For job-seeking students who accepted full-time salaried jobs during the reporting period and disclosed their compensation. The average starting salary for students who took full-time contract, internship, apprenticeship, or freelance roles and disclosed compensation was $39/hr. Average pay for a part-time role was $26/hr (see full Jobs Report report here).
Diversity Numbers
Despite the assets that the tech industry has to offer—from the pay to the countless opportunities for advancement—one that has seen scant progress is workplace diversity. Flatiron School has addressed this problem through a range of initiatives. That’s to say that tackling a homogeneous workplace needs more than a homogeneous approach toward diversity.
1. Gender Balance
“Something serious for [one second]: Every ladies’ room I’ve been in was near empty. Although I’m grateful for the gender inequality that affords me quiet [and] empty bathrooms at these conferences, I’d take a long line at [the] ladies’ room for a change.”
In 2017, commercial product manager Lin Classon tweeted about the near-empty ladies’ restroom at an Amazon Web Services conference. It was, as she said, an emptiness that was difficult to miss during tech conferences. Classon’s sardonic tweet quickly gained traction as it, once more, put the spotlight on the tech industry’s glaring gender gap.
Spelled out, there are way more men than women in the industry. Numerically, women only hold 26% of tech jobs. Contributing to the low numbers is the persistent gender discrimination experienced by half of the women in the workplace. Another factor is the lack of access to an already male-dominated industry.
To help achieve overall gender parity in the industry, Flatiron School launched its Women Take Tech program and partnerships with Kode with Karlie, Women Who Code, Brooklinen, Citi, and SeatGeek. So far, the programs are working.
In 2019, 33% of Flatiron School graduates were women rising ahead of the proportion of women with computer science degrees at 21%. The employment rate for Flatiron School’s female job-seeking graduates hit 90%.
Educational Background
In recent years, numerous tech companies have begun lifting the requirement that candidates must hold a bachelor’s degree to qualify for a job. Taking this a step further are coding bootcamps such as Flatiron School that has eliminated all requirements for a degree.
In its latest report, 3% of students included in the report had a high school diploma while 18% had some or no college degree. In place of the degree requirement is an admissions interview, a preparatory workshop, and the understanding that the job search experience may vary for students without a degree. Flatiron School’s rationale is simple: competence trumps credentials. Put another way, a student’s attitude and potential are more important than a piece of paper.
The majority of Flatiron School’s 2019 graduates held bachelor’s degrees or further. Among the majority was Garrett who was on a pre-med track and had just finished his last semester in college when he decided to pivot to tech. After getting a bachelor’s degree in chemistry, Garrett attended Flatiron School’s Software Engineering program.
Again, the numbers are telling: Flatiron School offers a great opportunity for degree holders in need of a quick yet effective career pivot to tech.
2. The Virtual Learners
Do employers take online degrees seriously? Historically, public perception toward online programs has been dogged with skepticism and dismissal. With the onset of the coronavirus and the unprecedented shift to online learning, however, the question has become more relevant than ever.
Fortunately, for Flatiron School graduates, that concern remains on the low end. Among its 2019 job-seeking graduates of online programs, 84% accepted a job offer within the reporting period. Of those who accepted a job offer, 78% landed full-time roles with an average compensation of $71,000 per year—not bad for students who learn at the confines of their homes.
Placement Rate:
*for job-seeking online graduates included in the 2020 Jobs Report including full-time salaried roles, full-time contract, internship, apprenticeship, and freelance roles, and part-time roles during the reporting period (see full Jobs Report here).
Online Average Salary:
*For job-seeking online students who accepted full-time salaried jobs during the reporting period and disclosed their compensation. The average starting salary for students who took full-time contract, internship, apprenticeship, or freelance roles and disclosed compensation was $31/hr. Average pay for a part-time role was $30/hr (see full Jobs Report report here).
Is Flatiron School Worth It?
After all these numbers and statistics, we’re brought back to our first question: Is Flatiron School worth it? “Flatiron [School] gave me a better, at least, academic experience than college ever did,” shared Garrett in a collaboration video with Olivia.
“In college, they did a really bad job of getting you interested in collaborating with people. I feel like everyone tried to avoid group projects. It was just, like, no one wanted to work on stuff together. At least from my experience, it seemed like a group project was more like a burden.”
“And then, at Flatiron, it was really fun. You get to build all the apps with other people, and you didn’t have to worry about, ‘Oh, am I going to put in all the work? Or is that person going to put in all the work?’ Cause it just seemed like everyone was motivated to get this experience and get the work done. So, from my experience, this [Flatiron School] was like a cooler academic setting,” shared Garrett. “I went in not knowing how to program, and I came out a software developer.”
Olivia, on the other hand, got more than she asked for. After working a year and a half as a Software Engineer at Baylor Genetics, she decided to make another career pivot. “[My former job] wasn’t the easiest, and so it forced me to grow. It forced me to learn as fast as I could and to become a better developer.”
“During my program at Flatiron, people would come to me for design help, and I knew that’s what I wanted to do. I wanted to be the girl that made things pretty,” said Olivia. So, after gaining significant experience in full-stack development, Olivia moved into her specialization: front-end development.
“So here I am. I am no longer a software engineer but a UX/UI Developer at an electricity company [Energy Ogre], and I’m the only UX/UI person on the team, which is super exciting because I will be spearheading that effort… I will still be a full-stack developer in a sense since they let me know I’ll be working on some APIs, so it’s great that I have that experience which helped set me apart.”
While there’s no shortage of jobs in the tech industry, there’s tough competition. Flatiron School gives its students another edge with the likes of what it gave to Olivia: versatility and the ability to learn how to learn. “[My current employer] told me that people getting a job in the company is like a three-month-long process and they look at hundreds of people. I was never even in that running. It was only ever me,” shared Olivia.
In the words of Avi: “A misconception that I’ve noticed…is that coding bootcamps teach just a specific technical skill. We don’t have time to teach you everything…so we have a different aim at Flatiron School: to help students learn how to learn. If they’ve done that, they can continue to learn on the job, to pick up new skills and languages that we explicitly don’t teach here, and customize their career paths based on their interests.”
Flatiron School: A Hack to Life
A deep dive into Flatiron School’s latest outcomes demonstrates why it’s remained a strong coding bootcamp in the nine years since its inception.
First, it champions the value of continuous learning by building talent who are hungry to learn. We saw it in Garrett who, despite years of college education, immediately attended Flatiron School to learn something new. It was exhibited by Olivia who, despite having spent nearly two years in software engineering, once again reinvented her career to become a UX/UI Developer.
Secondly, it raises the bar for accountability among other coding bootcamps through its independently examined Jobs Reports. As Avi wrote: “One of the problems with education is that we view student outcomes as a failure of the student rather than the institution. If we at Flatiron School have a student that isn’t successful, we view it as our failure, not the student’s.”
If that sounds like the school you’d want to commit to, visit Flatiron School’s page here. Be part of their next batch of successful graduates.
About us: Career Karma is a platform designed to help job seekers find, research, and connect with job training programs to advance their careers. Learn about the CK publication.
