IN THIS ARTICLE
- What Does Job Guarantee Actually Mean?
- What Makes a Good Coding Bootcamp With Job Guarantee? Our Criteria...
- 7 Coding Bootcamps With Job Guarantee
- Making the Most Out of Your Coding Bootcamp
- Landing a Job After a Coding Bootcamp: Real-Life Stories To...
- FAQs About Coding Bootcamps With a Job Guarantee
Get expert insights straight to your inbox.
With an average salary in the six figures, software engineering offers a lucrative job path in a variety of industries—whatever your interests are, there’s probably a related software engineering job. And given our ever-increasing reliance on the digital products that software engineers build, the prospects for a career in software engineering are looking rosy.
To meet this surging demand for software engineers, online coding bootcamps have emerged as a rapid and cost-effective route into the tech world. The problem, however, is the amount of variety you have to choose from. Different specializations, different programming languages, varying course lengths, and a whole host of different features are available. There can be pitfalls from choosing the wrong bootcamp, too—fewer hands-on projects, less 1-to-1 support, and outdated curriculums could hinder your hireability or your career prospects down the line.
In this article, we’re focusing on quality bootcamps that share one essential feature—job guarantees. With the chance to get your money back if things don’t go according to plan, bootcamps become a lot less risky. Each school has its own rules and requirements that can be quite hard to navigate, so we’ve put together a list of schools with a breakdown of their job guarantee and its conditions. That way, you’ll have all the information you need to choose a bootcamp program that will work for you.
What Does Job Guarantee Actually Mean?
Despite the name, job guarantees don’t literally guarantee you a job—it isn’t in any course provider’s power to do that. Instead, it’s a money-back guarantee that schools offer to show their faith in you and their courses. If you complete the program and meet certain requirements, but don’t land a job within a certain timeframe, you’ll receive a 100% tuition refund.
The requirements vary from school to school, but some of the most common include:
- Being at least 18 years old
- Having the right to work in the United States
- Being in or willing to move to a metropolitan area
- Completing the bootcamp with passing grades
- Applying to a minimum number of jobs per week
- Staying in touch with your career specialist
- Meeting networking and continued education requirements
- Not turning down any eligible job offers
The requirements can be quite strict, and you can’t expect to get your money back if you spend 6-12 months doing nothing after graduation. You have to prove that you put the work in during your job search, and job searching is essentially a full-time job in itself.
What Makes a Good Coding Bootcamp With Job Guarantee? Our Criteria Explained
Bootcamps need more than just a job guarantee to be effective. To make sure only the highest quality offerings make our lists, we judge each bootcamp by simple yet comprehensive criteria. Here’s the breakdown.
Career Guidance and Job Placement
Personalized support is the backbone of any good bootcamp and a necessity for courses with job guarantees. To assess and keep track of your eligibility for a job guarantee refund, schools have to assign personal career coaches to guide your job search strategy and provide mock interviews. To maximize your success during the program, a bootcamp should also offer you 1-to-1 mentoring, so you can overcome any academic obstacles. All of the schools on this list assign you personal mentors and career specialists so that you have a real person to take your problems to and receive advice from.
Updated Syllabus
The tech industry is constantly evolving, and the skills that are most in demand are constantly changing. For this reason, it’s best to look for courses that are updated regularly to address new trends and skills. A recent example is AI coding tools—many quality courses have added AI and prompt-engineering modules to help their students get ahead with new tools.
Flexible Learning Options
Just because you’re ready to commit to a new career doesn’t mean you can throw away everything else in your life. Many people need to keep working while they study, so it’s important for bootcamps to offer part-time options with flexible deadlines.
Instructor Expertise
Learning from experienced programmers is essential. To complement the job-focused nature of bootcamps, instructors should have real hands-on experience in the industry.
Hands-On and Practical Learning
Bootcamps aren’t about teaching theory or history—you’re there to learn the practical skills you need for the job, and practical skills require practical learning. The key phrase here is “project-based curriculum.” When you see this on a school’s website, it means they teach through a range of small, medium, and large projects so that you’re always working towards a practical goal.
Payment Options
Another aim of bootcamps is to be accessible and affordable. The best course providers stick to this by offering a range of different ways for students to pay. You can choose from options such as an upfront payment, installments, monthly payments, loans, deferred tuition, income share agreements, and scholarships.
Rating
Bootcamps should have good ratings. Sites like Course Report, Career Karma, and Switch Up can show you reviews and ratings for just about every proper school. This way, you can rest assured knowing that other people like you have chosen a school and got something out of it. It also protects you from losing money to untrustworthy course providers that don’t deliver on their promises.
7 Coding Bootcamps With Job Guarantee
Here are our top picks for quality bootcamps that come with a job guarantee.
Springboard
Springboard offers a full-tuition refund if you are not offered a job within six months of graduation. To qualify for the Springboard Guarantee, you must be 18 years or older, proficient in spoken and written English, demonstrate skills in communication, collaboration, and motivation, be able to legally work in the United States or Canada, and able to pass any required background checks during job applications.
You must also complete the entire bootcamp curriculum and apply to a minimum number of jobs per week. Other job search requirements include reaching out to expand your network, conducting informational interviews, and scheduling calls with a Springboard career coach. All of your efforts need to be presented in a weekly summary to the Springboard team so they can keep track of your eligibility.
If you meet all these requirements and don’t land a software engineering role within six months of graduating, you’ll receive a full tuition refund.
PRICE
$16,200
RATING
FEATURES
- 1-1 mentorship
- Designed to be 100% online
- Career services
- Project-based curriculum
- Flexible schedules and deadlines
- Nine months, part-time
4Geeks Academy
4Geeks Academy offers a full tuition refund for students who meet all requirements but do not receive a job offer within six months of completing the course. As part of the process, you might be asked to provide documentation to help assess your eligibility.
GeekFORCE is the career support unit at 4Geeks Academy, and they decide the tasks and stipulations you must meet to be eligible for the refund. This involves things like graduating from the program, following guidance from team members, attending workshops and talks, completing code practice tasks, expanding your portfolio, and displaying a proactive attitude. You’ll receive a personal checklist of tasks and deadlines that you must keep, which will include applying to at least 15 jobs per week.
If you follow all of these rules for six months after graduation but don’t receive a job offer that is both in the software engineering field and better paid than your last job, then you will receive a full refund.
PRICE
$5,999
RATING
FEATURES
- 1-1 mentorship
- Complete in 18 weeks
- Three weekly classes
- No coding skills required
- Online or in-person mentoring
- Career support
CareerFoundry
CareerFoundry offers a full tuition refund for eligible students who don’t find a job within six months of graduation. To qualify, you must be at least 18 years old, hold a high school diploma or equivalent, and live in or be willing to move to one of the eligible metropolitan areas. You must also complete both the program and the job prep course, and be open to both remote and on-site positions. The eligible metropolitan areas are anywhere with a population of over 200,000 in the United States, Canada, EU countries, the UK, Australia, or New Zealand.
During the job search, you’ll need to keep in contact with your career specialist, apply to at least five jobs per week and reach out to at least five new individuals per week for networking purposes. Two informational interviews per month are also required.
While sticking to these rules, if you don’t receive a job offer within six months of completing the full course and job prep course, you’ll receive a refund. Remember that you’ll lose your eligibility if you choose to turn down an applicable job offer in software engineering.
PRICE
$7,500
RATING
FEATURES
- 1-1 mentorship
- Fully online
- Career support
- Full-time and part-time options
- Complete in under 10 months
- Flexible schedule
Coding Temple (Software Engineering and Front-End Development)
At Coding Temple, both their front-end development bootcamp and their software engineering bootcamp offer a money-back guarantee. If you’re actively searching for a job but don’t get an offer within nine months of graduation, you’ll be able to get a refund. To be eligible, you’ll need to follow Coding Temple’s money-back guarantee guidelines. These guidelines are not available on the website for prospective students to check, so you may need to contact the school directly to ask for more information.
PRICE
$15,995
RATING
FEATURES
- No 1-1 mentorship
- Complete in 12 weeks
- Full-time and part-time options
- Lifetime career support
- On-demand support
- Continuing education
Bloom Institute of Technology
BoomTech doesn’t just give eligible students a full refund if they don’t get a job offer within 365 days of graduation. They also tack on an extra 10%. There are a number of requirements you need to meet in order to get a refund. You need to be legally authorized to work in the United States, and you need to fully complete the course.
After graduation, you’ll have a list of weekly career commitments that you have to complete for a full 365 days. These commitments include applying to 10 jobs, reaching out to 10 individuals, and posting at least five GitHub contributions per week. If you don’t receive a job offer that pays more than $4,166 a month after 365 days, you can send in a request for a refund and receive the extra 10% as well.
PRICE
$21,950
RATING
FEATURES
- 1-1 career coaching
- Fully online program
- Flexible schedule
- Career services
- Live classes available
- 960 hours of content over 24 weeks
Thinkful
To get a tuition reimbursement at Thinkful, you need to meet certain requirements and follow certain rules as you enroll, complete your course, and search for a job. If you meet all the requirements but still don’t have a job offer 180 days after graduation, you will receive a 100% tuition refund.
The first set of requirements include being at least 21 years old, having a permanent right to work in the United States, and being proficient in written and spoken English. You’ll also need to pass any background checks set by employers you apply to and live in or within a one-hour commute of one of the approved cities, of which there are many across the United States. Lastly, you need to have paid your tuition fees or be up to date with your chosen payment plan, and you must not have participated in a course and received a refund before.
During the job search, you’ll need to follow a number of rules for the full 180-day period. The most important of these is to send 30 job applications per week while using Thinkful’s tracker platform. You’ll also need to follow up on at least 20 applications each week, perform three information interviews per month, and attend one job-related networking event each month. If you follow all the rules for 180 days and don’t turn down any applicable job offers, you will receive a refund.
PRICE
$16,000
RATING
FEATURES
- 1-1 mentorship
- Full-time and part-time options
- Live classes available
- Career service
- Five to six months to complete
WBS Coding School
The WBS Coding School offers a full tuition refund after six months if you don’t find a job. To be eligible, you need to pay for your tuition rather than be sponsored by a third party. Next, you need to successfully complete 100% of the program and be fluent in English and the local language of your location. After graduating, you need to commit to expanding your portfolio and create at least one additional project on GitHub within the six-month period.
You’ll also need to work with your career specialist to update your resume and LinkedIn profile. When applying for jobs, you need to document the applications so you can report your progress to the school, and you need to apply for at least five positions per week. If you follow these rules and don’t receive any qualifying job offers after six months, you can send in a request for a refund.
PRICE
£8,850
RATING
FEATURES
- 1-1 career support
- Complete 600 hours of content in 15 weeks
- No prior coding experience required
- Project-based curriculum
- Live interactive online seminars
Making the Most Out of Your Coding Bootcamp
The best way to get the most out of your bootcamp is to be well informed. Here are some factors to consider before enrolling in a course.
Are There Any Prerequisites for a Coding Bootcamp?
Some coding bootcamps have prerequisites and others don’t. This question will always be answered on the course’s web page or in the FAQs, so make sure to check. For courses without any prior coding requirements, you’ll often complete a few weeks of independent prep work before the course begins. For those that do have prerequisites, they’ll be listed on the website, and you will be tested on them during the application process.
What Should You Expect To Learn During a Coding Bootcamp?
Coding bootcamps can have a range of specializations like web development, front-end development, back-end development, software engineering, and full-stack web development. The specialization you choose will influence what you learn, but there are still some common areas to look out for:
- Prompt engineering
- HTML
- JavaScript
- CSS
- Python
- Debugging
- Command line
- Git and GitHub
- Testing
- Methods (sum, find, index, reduce, etc.)
- Advanced array methods
- Object-oriented programming
- SQL
- ReactJS
- Redux
- Data structures and algorithms
- Career modules
Get To Know Other Software Engineering Students
Dave McConeghy
Software Engineering Career Track Student at Springboard
Pritisha Kumar
Software Engineer at Dialpad
Tetyana Ilyichova
Software Engineering Apprentice at Affirm
What Jobs Can You Get After a Coding Bootcamp?
You should mostly be applying to entry-level and junior roles after graduation. Here are some common job titles:
- Junior software engineer
- Junior data analyst
- Junior software developer
- Junior product manager
- Junior UI/UX designer
- Junior DevOps engineer
- Junior mobile app developer
- Junior security analyst
- Junior QA engineer
- Junior full-stack developer
- Junior front-end developer
- Junior back-end developer
- Junior game developer
Landing a Job After a Coding Bootcamp: Real-Life Stories To Inspire You
Seeing real-life success stories is the best way to get informed and motivated for your own learning journey. Here are just a couple to get you started.
Peter Elbaum
Listen to Peter’s advice and personal bootcamp experience on getting a job after graduation. From capstone project ideas to networking events, his job search began far before graduation, and his hard work paid off.
Sarah Benson
Sarah completed a coding bootcamp and landed a job without ever filling in an application form. Learn about her modern take on networking and job searching through social media and internships.
FAQs About Coding Bootcamps With a Job Guarantee
We’ve got the answers to your most frequently asked questions.
What Conditions Should You Look for When Choosing a Coding Bootcamp With a Job Guarantee?
The bottom line is that you need to pick a job guarantee that has requirements that you can feasibly meet. If you don’t have a college degree, don’t choose one that requires a degree. Make sure you’re over the minimum age and that you live in an applicable city. Different schools require different amounts of work during the job search, from five job applications a week to as many as 30.
How Hard Is It To Pass a Coding Bootcamp?
Completing a coding bootcamp requires a good deal of hard work and time commitment. If you’ve passed the application process, it means that you have the ability to handle the curriculum, but it’s up to you to keep up with the workload. It’s not easy, but it is doable if you’re ready for some intense studying.
How Long Does It Take To Find a Job After a Coding Bootcamp?
Most job guarantees include a six-month job search period, so most bootcamp graduates find employment within this time frame. Some extend as long as 365 days, but this is less common. The reality is that it completely depends on you, your skills, and how much time and effort you can put into your job search.
What Is a Realistic Salary To Make After Completing a Coding Bootcamp?
Salaries for entry-level positions can vary greatly depending on where you are and what your job title is. For a software engineer in the United States, even juniors can make an average salary of $104,905. A junior front-end developer, on the other hand, is more likely to make around $70,774 a year.
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!
