Dev Academy Aotearoa Claimed

Due to the intense nature of Bootcamp, you won’t be able to work while studying with us full time. You will be learning and coding for around 60 hours per week, with most students also working into the evenings and on weekends. We encourage you to discuss this with your support network before applying for the programme. Alternatively, you could consider the Part time Course.

uring the 9 week Bootcamp immersion you’ll be required to be on campus (virtual campus, for our online students!) every day during core programme hours, which are 8.45am to 5:30pm Monday-Friday. Most students also work into the evenings and on weekends. Although it will vary cohort to cohort and week to week, your work during core hours will be broken down into pair programming, group projects, and individual work. An example schedule might look something like this: 8.45am: Students connect with their peers and settle in for the day. Morning: A 40-60 minute lecture, followed by a pair programming challenge focused on the topic of the lecture. 12:30 - 2pm: Free time, or continue coding (Note: we offer yoga on Tuesdays and Thursdays or, for online students, extra time to spend on a wellbeing activity that suits you). Afternoon: Another lecture, followed by pairing until about 5pm when everyone meets for a standup (a short check-in). From about 5:15pm on is free time. Many students will stay working after this — sometimes late into the evening. The campus is open to students at all hours, so they can come and go as they please. Students will have projects to work on outside of class time, and most students decide to code for one or two full days every weekend, depending on other commitments (family, etc). Later in the programme, challenges become multi-day projects, mirroring the flow of software development teams. Lectures become less common, and teachers will engage with you one on one to help solve project-specific problems.

Our full time Bootcamp is designed to be intense – the amount of time spent varies from person to person, but everyone works incredibly hard. The structure and time varies depending on which phase of the course you are in. The programme is split into two main phases: Foundations: Our preparation course, completed remotely in 6 weeks full time, at approximately 40 hours per week. Bootcamp: 9 weeks, about 60 hours per week of intensive learning. It’s important to note that while ‘classes’ run 40 hours per week, you will probably want to spend extra time getting the work done. Most students work on their code for up to 60 hours a week during Bootcamp. For our Part time course, those hours look like this: Foundations: Our preparation course, completed remotely in 10 weeks, at approximately 21 hours per week. Main course: 18 weeks, about 30 hours per week of learning. You will probably want to spend extra time getting the work done. You will also have breaks that align with school holidays.

If you have young children or other high-needs dependants, you will need another adult(s) who can do most of the work of caring for them while you are on Bootcamp, even if they attend daycare during working hours. This is so that you have time to focus on your learning for around 60 hours per week, without burning out. We encourage you to discuss this with your support network before applying for the programme. Alternatively, our Part time course has been designed with parents and caregivers in mind! The reduced intensity course will give you the same learning hours and teaching support, on your terms. You'll also get public holidays and school holidays off.

Because of the long hours you will be at your computer during Bootcamp, it is important to have your desk and workspace set up well so that you can work effectively and avoid occupational overuse syndrome (back pain, wrist pain, eye strain, etc.). Consider where you will work — do you have a dedicated desk/office space that is relatively free from distractions? Do you need to buy a second screen or an external keyboard? A footstool or a better chair? Noise-cancelling headphones? New glasses? We recognise that some of these items can be expensive, but perhaps second-hand is an option for you, or borrowing them for the duration of Bootcamp.

Absolutely. Many university graduates with Computer Science degrees choose to do our course to gain the practical skills and teamwork experience needed to enter the workforce. We teach modern technologies and methodologies that align with current industry practice so you get the education you need to hit the ground running in a web development job. You also graduate with a portfolio of project examples, which shows employers what you’ve worked on, how you think and how you code. This portfolio is crucial for employers, and is something many university graduates aren’t yet equipped with.

None – although you should have explored programming enough to know that you want to do it full time! While we teach you from scratch, most successful students have been introduced to programming by writing some code independently or by working through courses on e-learning platforms such as Codecademy or freeCodeCamp. If you haven’t written any code yet, you will be given a list of resources when you apply. If you study from those resources for a few hours a day, you’ll be equipped to hit the ground running into Foundations.

You will be exposed to a variety of modern technologies for full stack web programming. Full stack means you can work in the back end of a web application (on the server and database), and the front end (that users see). You will learn to build small applications or prototypes without supervision. We primarily focus on JavaScript and TypeScript, using Node on the server side and React (with Redux) as our preferred front-end framework. These tools will enable you to build a good looking website or web application, with client-side functionality that enables flexible, fast and responsive behaviour, data input and validation and other features of a modern single-page application. These are the same technologies that TradeMe, Xero, and Facebook use. You will learn the principles of test driven development (TDD) using a variety of testing libraries to ensure your code is well-written and maintainable. You will become well practised in working in teams, using Git (an industry source-code management tool), facilitating simple Agile processes, and delivering technical and non-technical presentations. This is essential for launching your career – our classroom simulates real world experience, which is of great value to employers. Our NZQA accredited programme will also gain you 80 credits at level 6.

Our 2 week Careers Skills curriculum will help you to launch into the job market. We’ll support you in preparing for technical interviews, identifying potential job opportunities and getting your online profile up to speed. We remain committed to supporting you during your job search and many students continue to come into the space while they are searching for work or building personal projects.

Though this programme gives you a tremendous leg-up in the job market and our goal is to see all of our students succeed, finding a job is ultimately up to you. Through the Careers Weeks and with ongoing guidance, we will support you right through to landing your first web dev job. We see about 84% employment in tech within 18 months of graduation. Some graduates find work directly after graduating, but generally it takes at least a few months for you to find a role and go through an employer's hiring process.

Software engineering is a craft that takes years of deliberate practice and learning to master. Our goal is to graduate junior developers, and jumpstart your journey towards becoming an elite coder. You will graduate from our program with enough knowledge and technical skill to start contributing to your team in an entry level developer job, but you’ll be constantly learning more while you work. During the 9 week bootcamp you will be working full time, 50+ hour weeks, while in a university degree you might get 12 hours of lectures and tutorials a week. We simply pack the job-relevant education into a tighter space of time. During the 18 week reduced intensity course, you will have the same workload and learning time, but across a longer period.