Why I am launching a programming school
One day in 2001 when I was commuting to university in London where I was studying Economics, I accidentally picked up a book on HTML. The content was basic and out of date, but made me realise I could build anything and have anyone on the internet use it. A multitude of business ideas were born. I proceeded to work through dozens of books covering the staples of early web development. Each book would provide a bit of knowledge to help me advance, but could also leave me stuck for days when I put comma in the wrong place or tried to run Linux commands in a DOS prompt.
Most university courses will focus on theoretical concepts of computer science while regarding actual software development as an implementation detail.
When I was 24, I decided to switch from my dull but promising banking career and study for an MSc in Computer Science at University of Bristol. The course took me from being a keen but clumsy developer to building a poker bot from scratch a year later. The experience improved my skills, but barely touched on how commercial software is written. Unit testing, source control, design patterns, deployment, dependency management and all the other necessities were largely passed by. My experience is not unique, most university courses will focus on theoretical concepts of computer science while regarding actual software development as an implementation detail.
Over the next decade I worked with startups and huge corporates, on everything from building financial trading systems to an online grocery shopping platform. In that time technology has become pervasive, even the most conservative corporates are now rapidly growing their technology departments. The way software is written has also changed, off-the-shelf IBM software that previously powered everything has become a liability unable to support customisation or small, frequent releases. As result every company that dabbles in tech is now desperately hunting around for the elusive JavaScript developers and some paying up to £800 a day for a skillset that barely existed 5 years earlier.
Over a three hour session my students were able to learn what had taken us three months to figure out.
I started teaching two years ago while working on a large React project at Sainsburys. The technology was still new and the best ways of using it were still being figured out. Our team had scored some early successes and I wanted to share the knowledge to help other teams get started. Over a three hour session my students were able to learn what had taken us three months to figure out. Since then I have written and delivered courses for Code Your Future, a school teaching refugees to become software developers, and mentored at Codebar. I saw first-hand how software development can transform people’s lives and lift them up. Teaching is nothing short of amazing.
I am launching Constructor Labs to share all the skills, knowledge and experience I have accumulated and help more folks enter the industry. We will cover not only coding, but also picking up the right habits early on, how to fix and avoid bugs, how to structure an application and the principles of writing clean software. Studying in a small group, students will have the support of an experienced professional to help master each subject. The course will prepare students for a career as a software developer while avoiding the long journey and pitfalls I had to deal with to reach the same destination.
Constructor Labs runs a 12 week course teaching fullstack web development with JavaScript. Classes start on 22nd January and fees are reduced to £3,000 for the first cohort. Applications are open now and places will be allocated on a first come, first served basis.
