How do you teach world-class software developers?
Our experienced coaches share what makes the Makers’ learning philosophy unique
Here at Makers, our coaches have impressive backgrounds and have worked on tech teams at institutions like Facebook and HSBC among others. We sat down with them to ask them: how do you teach someone to become a world-class software developer?
Below is a transcript of the video.
Ed: “You come out of a three or four-month course with a tremendous amount of confidence in your ability to exist in uncertainty within a lot of unknowns. And that is huge.”
Sophie: “We focus really heavily on helping developers put in place repeatable processes that they can use to solve any challenge that they’re faced with. So they know from very early on that they can use these skills to solve problems that they haven’t even seen yet, and might not even encounter while they’re at Makers.”
Sam: “They will lead their own learning, rather than requiring the support from every team member around them.”
Becks: “The course is built around employer feedback and that means that everything you do every week is important for you to get that first job.”
Kat: “Developers from Makers are self-sufficient, and they’re able to work alone, but they’re also able to work in a team. We really value soft skills here, and we do a lot in teams, so developers practice collaboration and estimating together, working together, getting that feel of how it feels to be in a professional dev team.”
Alice: “We simulate the workplace here, so they have a lot of projects that you have to work in pairs. We actually expect them to learn many many things that we don’t honestly ever talk to them about, we give them context, we give them challenges, and then they will teach themselves.”
At Makers, our training has the following characteristics:
- Language-Agnostic. You’ll work with Ruby, JavaScript, and a third language of your choice. 80% of Makers work in a language they didn’t touch on the course. Why? Because you’ll learn about the key shared paradigms. You’ll be able to pick up a programming language — any programming language — in a week.
- Self-directed. Our industry- experienced coaches are there to support you, give you feedback, and challenge you to be the best you can
be. We’ll train you to take control of your own learning so you can take charge of your own journey. Tell us what you need: your course is about you. - Holistic. Here, you grow your whole self. You are much more than your coding skills. You can grow any part of you with focus and effort. Our curriculum includes modules on your career and emotional intelligence, and wellbeing is embedded throughout everything we do.
- Skills-based. There are an infinite and changing number of concepts in software. Although you’ll need to learn the current core concepts to get a foothold, developing technique is ultimately more important. An engineer with the right processes can learn the underlying logic to solve any problem.
- Authentic. This is more important to us than anything. The environment we’ve created treats you as an engineer from day one. Your peers are your colleagues, your coaches are your mentors. You are immersed in an authentic engineering environment, which means you learn by doing and are familiar with an Agile world when you transfer to your first job.
Here at Makers, we’ve trained over 1700 people to become junior software developers. If you’re serious about launching your career as a software developer, Makers is where you can learn real software engineering practices with a guaranteed job offer at our full-time, on-site web development course in London.
