Sometimes the Best Things Come From Unexpected Places From truck drivers to retail staff, and everything in-between, each LaunchCoder that passes through our doors uses their dedication and effort from their previous (or still ongoing) jobs to learn the new languages, workflows, and tools of the tech trade today. This is what makes LaunchCoders the…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
Becoming A Microsoft Programmer
How a Curious Coder Made the Transition to Programming at a Major Technology Company The Beginning: Building My Coding Skills My journey with LaunchCode began with their online skills test and ended with a job as a web developer at Microsoft. I had spent the better part of my twenties teaching English abroad in China,…
Writer to Coder: Jeff in Kansas City
After getting a BA in English Lit, Jeff supplemented his writing career with various middle-man business jobs, but he grew tired of a job in which he wasn’t a creator. The draw of a career in which he was able to build and create brought Jeff to LaunchCode. Now, Jeff is a writer again, but this time he writes code.
Forget What You Heard About Tech Career Paths
The effect on workers of the transition from a manufacturing economy to an information and service economy are well explored. This discussion has become so common, in fact, that a handful of notions about modern avenues into tech careers have become widely held despite being half-true at best, spurious at worst.
Crafting the Perfect IT Resume
There’s a ton to keep in mind when you’re making the perfect IT resume. We narrowed it down to 5 key tips to help you on the road to resume perfection!
How to Crush Your Live Coding Interview
Does the idea of coding on a whiteboard, away from your IDE, in front of a seasoned programmer leave you shaking in your boots? We’ve got you covered with these tips and tricks on getting through the coding section of a technical interview.
Top 5 Tips for Hosting an Apprentice
Whether you’re just starting to consider bringing an apprentice onto your team, or you’re a couple months into having an apprentice, we’ll walk you through some best practices to make sure the program is a great experience for both your organization and your apprentice.
Following a Passion: Jiho in Kansas City
How did you hear about LaunchCode? A year before hearing about LaunchCode, I took some online courses on data science. I managed to get through some of it, but I was struggling to keep up with the programming portion. I never really had a solid grasp of Python or JavaScript, so when I found out…
Sunmi Finds Programming
This course teaches necessary logic technique and patterns, also opening doors for students to find opportunities for a better tomorrow.
7 Reasons Why You Need a Junior Talent Pipeline
7 Reasons Why You Need a Junior Talent Pipeline In the last year, I have spoken with over 100 companies about their experiences working with new-to-tech talent. I’ve heard the best success stories and some of the worst. Through it all, there’s a solid agreement that keeping a junior talent pipeline is critical, and here’s…
The Melody of Code
The Sound of Code is Music to Their Ears At first glance, it may be hard to find the relationship between coding and art — but the connections are certainly there! We talked about the relationship between art and code with three musicians from LaunchCode – Kansas City, here is what they had to say:…
Launched & Landed: Shaun in Miami
From Vet & Journalist to Student to Apprentice to HIRED! Tell us a little bit about your background. I’m an Air Force veteran with a bachelor’s degree in journalism, and prior to finding LaunchCode, I was working as a business journalist for a local newspaper. I heard about LaunchCode while reading and writing for the…
Coding As … Art?
Make All. The. Things. At first glance, it may be hard to find the relationship between coding and art — the dominant tech culture and perceived mathiness don’t necessarily scream “creatives apply here”. But talking with LaunchCoders who are also artists in Kansas City, known for its booming arts community, we found the connections are…
Apprentice to Developer: Mamata in KC
Making It In America Mamata, LaunchCoder & Software Developer Tell us a little bit about how you got here. I love to play with code. I do Java, Groovy, Android coding and also love different mathematical algorithm implementation. I have a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science and Engineering from India. I worked as a…
Apprentice Interview: Chris in Miami
Always Working Towards A Career in Tech Tell us a little bit about your background. I worked in retail beginning in 2012 when I was 17 (very happy to be out of the retail industry now!). I heard of LaunchCode while in Wyncode in 2016. I also go to Broward College part-time working on my associates…
Top 6 Networking Tips
Knock Their Socks Off For some, networking can feel like walking a tightrope, with frayed nerves and awkward moments. Finding a balance between being outgoing enough to be memorable, but also putting others at ease, all while communicating how wonderful you are can feel a bit overwhelming. While networking maybe a painful experience for some,…
No Comments