By Carly Langlois, Education Curriculum Developer There are countless reasons why computer science education is important. Too many to fit into one blog post. Technology is everywhere. It infiltrates every industry and heavily impacts our day-to-day lives. Modern living is powered by algorithms and coded bits and bytes. Computer programming is the literacy of our…
What Four St. Louis Startups Say about the Region’s Tech Scene
At LaunchCode, we love adding tech talent to the St. Louis startup scene. Not only is LaunchCode fueling a pipeline for tech talent growth in St. Louis, but the city is being put on the map for growing a tech startup ecosystem. We reached out to four startups we work with to hear their thoughts…
Helping St. Louis Startups Launch Successful Tech Teams
Innovator. Scrappy. Grit. Collaborative. Visionary. Believer. Ambitious. Eager. Motivated. The exact words we use to describe the startup culture in St. Louis are the same ones we often attribute to our LaunchCoders. There’s no getting around the parallels that mirror the motivation and enthusiasm LaunchCoders and startups have for emerging technology. Another thing St. Louis…
CodeCamp Graduate: An Open Letter to Myself
What would it be like if you could travel back in time and talk to your past self before you had made life-changing decisions? Wouldn’t it be great to go back and encourage ourselves to trust others in certain situations, or empower ourselves to advocate for our worth, maybe even just give our past selves…
Hiring New Tech Talent with Sagitec
We recently got to catch up with one of our company partners, Sagitec, in Tampa Bay, Florida. Sagitec is a global technology company that delivers dynamic IT solutions to leading public and private organizations. Today, they provide innovative and continuously evolving benefits administration solutions to their clients that solve unique business problems and adapt to…
Fostering a Network of Opportunity Keeps Entrepreneurial Ecosystems Strong
Through no-charge tech training, LaunchCode is providing the skilled tech talent Kansas City’s entrepreneurial ecosystem needs to overcome its current growing pains.
Laugh! Cry. Be Moved… to Action!
Purchase your tickets now and join LaunchCode on Thursday, September 26th as we geek out over changing lives while building the St. Louis tech workforce.
Filling the Tech Talent Gap with Balto
LaunchCode recently spoke with Chris Knotes, the COO and one of the founders of Balto, a real-time speech analytics technology company based in St. Louis. Balto is a company partner to LaunchCode and has been filling their tech talent team with LaunchCoders since 2017. Tell us a little bit about your company: Founded in 2017,…
Commitment to Community Changes Lives and Companies
An international leader of aerospace innovation for over a century, Boeing has been breaking barriers in the sky, and now they’re paving pathways to tech careers for people with non-traditional credentials. Employing over 150,000 people globally, Boeing is committed to crafting teams with diverse skills, strengths, and perspectives. Through corporate practice and community partnerships, Boeing…
A Life-changing Experience
By Guillermo Zerpa, LC101 Graduate and Apprentice As a Venezuelan, leaving my family and country and becoming an immigrant was difficult, especially when trying to land a job in my specialty in a new country. Because the people are different, businesses are different, and hiring systems are different I had to start from zero. Even…
Best. CoderGirl. Ever.
Over the past five years, CoderGirl has transformed from a group of passionate women organizing a meetup to a full-fledged education and job placement program. It’s benefited from the hard work and dedication of countless fearless females, and as the program turns five, we’re so appreciative of all who have touched the program in some…
STL Grand Pride Parade: Walking the Walk With LaunchCode
LaunchCode’s diverse community is made up of people from all backgrounds and walks of life. A fundamental value of our organization is a commitment to celebrating our differences and championing all of our fellow techies. A Human Rights Campaign report found that 46% of LGBTQ+ employees in the United States hide their sexuality at their…
LaunchCode Wants Companies to “Hire Different”
Every day we’re inspired by our LaunchCoders who work hard to pursue their dreams. From pastry chefs to dancers, to soldiers, to moms – every LaunchCoder that comes through our doors has lived a unique story and has a set of skills that attribute to their overall drive to pursue a career in tech. When…
Ways to Rock Your LC101 Application Assessment
If you’re visiting this blog post, you’re probably about to approach your LC101 application and are curious about the HackerRank assessment portion of the application process. That’s good. It means you’re already thinking ahead and planning out ways to solve the assessment. In fact, planning & problem solving is a big part of computer programming…
LaunchCode’s Moonshot Awards
This Event is Currently Sold Out To add your party to the waitlist, please email [email protected] LaunchCode is excited to present the 2019 Moonshot Awards! In the spirit of entrepreneur Jim McKelvey, LaunchCode’s Moonshot Awards recognize the efforts of St. Louis trailblazers — those working toward new solutions to better our community. We invite you…
5 Tips to Get the Most Out of Your Personal Project
One of the best things you can do for yourself as you pursue a career in tech is to build a personal project. Not only do personal projects allow potential employers experience your coding chops, but it provides you with a growth mindset. Your programming knowledge and skills are not fixed qualities, you are constantly…
What it’s like to be a LaunchCode Company Partner
Q&A with LaunchCode Company Partner, QDivision So, let’s say you’re looking to grow your tech team. You’ve searched high and low for candidates with the passion, drive, and aptitude, but you fall short and continue to look for the right people. LaunchCode introduces highly talented local developers who bring these attributes to help your business…
DevOps In the Wild
Whether you’re a developer early in your career, a student new to the joys and struggles of programming, or a non-technical person that works with programmers, you’ve likely encountered the trendy term “DevOps” (short for “developer operations”). It’s also likely that you have a very vague and incomplete sense of what DevOps actually refers to.…
Confections to Coding: Maroua From KC
My path into tech isn’t what most would call “straightforward.” Growing up as a first-generation Moroccan immigrant, I never envisioned a career in this field. Although both of my parents had college degrees and strongly valued education, the tech field was never on my radar. I wasn’t offered programming classes at school, and although I…
Expanding The Toolkit: Jacob from STL
A Precarious Assemblage For years I pursued a career as an artist and an educator. Art has always been a mirror of the time in which it was made. As a sculptor, my work often mirrored a rapidly evolving world that was driven by technological innovation. I found myself making objects that strayed from representations…
Company Partnerships: A Spotlight on Maritz
Companies Partner to Achieve a Common Goal At first glance, Maritz and LaunchCode may seem to have little in common other than being based in St. Louis. Maritz works with other companies to improve customer experience and loyalty, increase employee engagement and recognition, and offer rewarding meetings and events, while LaunchCode is a nonprofit organization…
Success Story: Ryan from STL
I have been fascinated with computers for about as long as I can remember. As a child, I remember reading some of my mother’s old assembly code textbooks and thinking to myself “I don’t know how any of this works but it’s extremely cool”. Although I didn’t understand it, I always wanted to tinker with…
8 Tips to Rock Your First Hackathon
Prepping for A Hackathon, From an Organizer’s Perspective. A few months ago I not only helped plan my first hackathon, but also attended my first hackathon. Yep, that’s right. The first hackathon I helped plan was my first experience with a hackathon. To be honest, I had no idea what to expect. Sure, I’ve planned…
An Update From LaunchCode
Focusing on the Need At the end of March, LaunchCode celebrated our most successful quarter to date. With 94 placements of candidates into jobs or apprenticeships, we exceeded our previous record quarter by two placements. At the same time, we surpassed our budgeted expectations for revenue generated from those placements, leaving the organization in as…
CoderGirl Story: Amy
From Living Paycheck-To-Paycheck to Landing a Rewarding Career in Tech When scrolling Facebook, I don’t generally expect to come across something that is going to alter the course of my life. Memes, cat videos, and Instant Pot recipes, sure. But life changing? Not so much. And yet, one otherwise ordinary evening in 2016, life-changing is…
Success Story: Josh in KC
A Q&A with Josh on His Transition into Tech Josh learned to code so he could build a website to self-publish his creative writing. With a website underneath his belt and CSS, HTML and JavaScript in his toolbox, Josh began exploring careers in web development. He then turned his coding skills and interests into a full-time…
Build Successful Teams With Metrics
Ask American businesses their greatest challenge and many will cite unmet workforce needs, often deepest in the realm of technology. More than 600,000 tech jobs are currently unfilled and the U.S. Department of Labor predicts the number will grow to a staggering one million by 2020. With the baseball season now us, I submit that…
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