11 Best Part-Time Coding Bootcamps for 2023 Career Success

Programming is one of the most valuable skills for the 21st-century workforce. Beyond jobs as a coder or programmer, this skill can lead to lucrative software development positions, which offer high levels of freedom, creative fulfillment, and job satisfaction. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts that growth rates for coding jobs will be over five times higher than the national average, giving developers great job security as well. All in all, it’s a career with great prospects and potential. 

Breaking into the tech industry, however, can seem daunting—especially if you’re already employed in a different area. Luckily, you don’t need to quit your job to start working towards a new career in tech. 

Part-time coding bootcamps are one of the most flexible, affordable, and accessible ways to kickstart a new career, and you can complete the entire thing without missing a day’s work. While there are tons of different courses out there to choose from, there’s no need to go out searching for yourself—we have all the industry leaders right here on this list. All you need to do is pick one with a schedule, teaching style, and support structure that suits your needs.

What Is a Part-Time Coding Bootcamp?

When you think of coding bootcamps, you might imagine a group of students huddled in a room of computers for 10 hours a day, five or six days a week. This is how most bootcamps used to be—in-person and intensive. As the market for bootcamps expanded, however, part-time versions of courses were created to improve accessibility and bring bootcamps to full-time employees and other busy people. 

The idea is simple—you study the same curriculum and graduate with the same skills, but you just take a little longer to get there. Now that online coding bootcamps are more popular, part-time programs are a lot easier to find, and some providers design part-time-only courses for self-paced learners that need lots of flexibility. 

What Makes a Good Part-Time Coding Bootcamp? Our Criteria Explained

We reviewed the best part-time coding bootcamps currently available using a pre-determined list of criteria vetted by our editors, with input from a panel of Springboard subject matter experts, mentors, and career coaches. We looked at the curriculum, experience of instructors and mentors, job placement assistance, reputation, practical projects, and certification of each of these bootcamp programs. From schedules and pricing to curriculums and delivery, the perfect online bootcamp looks very different from person to person.

Part-time coding bootcamps are all about flexibility. Their main goal is to make bootcamp education available to people with jobs and commitments that they can’t step away from for multiple months. The catch is making sure that flexibility doesn’t come at the cost of quality. Here’s what we look out for. 

Updated Syllabus

Some bootcamp providers have already been in the business for more than five or six years, but the tech sector is not the same as it was that long ago. Designed to cater to an ever-evolving industry, bootcamps should be ever-evolving too. This means their course content needs to be updated regularly with new trends and tools.

Flexible Learning Options

All part-time courses need to offer flexible online learning options for students. Some are still fairly intensive and suited better to part-time workers, while others give enough freedom for even the busiest people. While some full-time bootcamp programs have compulsory attendance, it’s better for part-time bootcamps to offer more leeway. 

Quality and Experience of Instructors

Bootcamp instructors aren’t just people with knowledge—they’re people with practical experience. To help you learn about the job and industry you want to enter, you want instructors who have worked in the industry themselves. We avoid adding programs to our lists that are known to hire instructors right out of school or without the necessary hands-on experience. 

Practical Projects

Because bootcamps aim to send their graduates straight into entry-level roles, they need to focus on teaching practical coding skills to handle real-world tasks. The best way to do this is by building a rigorous curriculum around hands-on projects. The key is not just to learn technical skills but to learn exactly what each skill is for and how it’s used by experienced professionals on a daily basis. 

Rating

This goes without saying, but we never include bootcamps on our list unless they have high ratings and positive reviews. This is highly important because quality can vary quite drastically between bootcamps, especially if you’re looking beyond the industry leaders into lesser-known schools. Ratings also take into account bootcamp costs and financing options.

Career Guidance and Job Support

Bootcamp education is meant to present an accelerated path into employment, which means career guidance and job placement assistance are just as important as the technical curriculum. Career modules, mock interview practice, personal branding, resume guidance, and other services are critical to helping students get a foot in the door of an industry that’s new to them. 

Specialization

Coding bootcamps can cover a lot of ground and often focus on a specialization like full-stack web development, front-end and back-end development, app development, and so on. Some offer different specializations within the course, allowing students to choose which one they want to pursue. Those without a specialization are often focused on the foundations, aiming to teach students with no previous coding experience whatsoever. We focus on high-quality foundational bootcamps and courses with in-demand and thoroughly explored specializations. 

Best Part-Time Coding Bootcamps

Here are our 11 best part-time coding bootcamps.

Making the Most out of a Part-Time Coding Bootcamp

Preparation and accurate expectations will help you adjust to bootcamp life more quickly and get the most out of your experience. Here’s some useful information to keep in mind. 

How Do Part-Time Coding Bootcamps Work?

Although some online coding bootcamps only have part-time options, most are adapted from a full-time curriculum. What full-time students study over six or seven weeks, part-time bootcamps spread across as many as 24-36 weeks. There are two main ways course providers approach this: by figuring out a flexible live class schedule during evenings and weekends, or by transitioning to a self-paced teaching style with pre-recorded lessons and optional live lectures. 

The first option aims to keep the intensive and collaborative elements of the full-time bootcamp by simply rescheduling classes to avoid the 9 am-5 pm slot on weekdays. The second is designed for self-studiers who want to take their classes at a slower pace and remain able to deal with any personal commitments that pop up. 

Are There Any Prerequisites for a Coding Bootcamp?

There are prerequisites for some software engineering bootcamps. Three common patterns you’ll see are:

• Bootcamps aimed at complete beginners 
• Bootcamps with some basic knowledge requirements and an optional prep course to help you meet those requirements
• Intermediate bootcamps that test your technical knowledge during the admissions process
• Bootcamps that prefer students with a high school diploma

Most bootcamps assess applicants on critical and analytical thinking to see how suited they are for the course. Just about everyone has the potential to master these skills if they’re willing to work hard, so everything will be fine as long as you read up on the skills tests and take them seriously. 

What Should You Expect To Learn During a Coding Bootcamp?

Coding bootcamps, even part-time bootcamps, are packed full of new concepts to learn and in-demand skills to master. While curriculums vary depending on the provider and specialization you choose, there are some common topics you can expect to learn.

• Programming fundamentals: This includes concepts like variables, data types, control structures, functions, and object-oriented programming principles.
• Web development: HTML, CSS, and JavaScript are the core technologies taught in full-stack development modules, along with frameworks like React or Angular.
• Back-end web development: This covers server-side technologies such as Node.js, Express.js, and databases like SQL or NoSQL. 
• Version control: This focuses on version control, collaboration, and code management with Git and GitHub.
• Algorithms and data structures: These are crucial for efficient problem-solving in software development. Some courses may also touch on machine learning.
• Testing and debugging: Testing techniques and troubleshooting errors are critical skills for any type of programmer.
• Deployment and hosting: Some modules may include deploying web applications to hosting platforms.
• Career studies: Many bootcamps end with modules on job search strategies such as resume writing, networking, and interview practice to help you reach your career aspirations.

What Jobs Can You Get After a Part-Time Coding Bootcamp?

Part-time online coding bootcamps can prepare you for an entry-level role in a number of areas. In other words, you aren’t limited to the job title attached to the course itself. Here are some examples of positions you can apply for after a part-time coding bootcamp:

• Junior software engineer
• Junior full-stack developer
• Junior software developer
• Junior UI/UX designer
• Junior data analyst
• Junior DevOps engineer
• Junior mobile app developer
• Junior QA engineer
• Junior front-end developer
• Junior back-end developer
• Junior game developer
• Junior security analyst

You can also transition into careers in tech that benefit from technical knowledge but don’t focus completely on it. This could include roles like technical product management, where you manage the products being worked on by teams of developers. Alternatively, you could get into technical writing, which involves writing up technical documentation for product features. 

Starting a Coding Career Through a Bootcamp: Real-Life Examples To Inspire You

Here are some videos from real people that have completed bootcamps and found dream jobs in tech. They won’t tell you it’s going to be easy, but they do have some useful advice to help you through your own journey. 

Tiff in Tech

Tiff is a bootcamp graduate that succeeded in getting a software engineering job. Check out her realistic advice and experience with the workload, timelines, and how easy it is to complete a bootcamp and land a job.

Emily Dowgialo

Emily also graduated from a coding bootcamp and landed a role as a full-stack developer—but she admits it wasn’t easy. Any career change takes a lot of hard work and perseverance, and she has plenty of tips from her own experiences. 

FAQs About Part-Time Coding Bootcamps

We’ve got the answers to your most frequently asked questions.

Since you’re here…
Interested in a career in software engineering? Join our mentor-led Software Engineering Bootcamp or our foundational Software Engineering Course if you’re just starting out. We help people make the switch every day (just peep our reviews). You can do it, too!