The Rithm School

My name is Hinesh and I attended Rithm as part of the 8th cohort. I was looking at some other bootcamps but a friend had attended Rithm and recommended it and from the first day, I could see why. The classes sizes are small and access to instructors is always there.

The instructors at Rithm truly care about teaching and it shows. They are also extremely talented developers themselves. The curriculum is extremely well thought out and does a good job in balancing breadth and depth. They also really take feedback well and make changes to the curriculum for the better based on it.

The internship experience is also incredible for 4 weeks and differentiates Rithm. You get to work with a large, real codebase and complete tasks which gives you an insight into life in software development after the bootcamp.

If you put in the time and work hard you will succeed at Rithm because the environment, from the class size to the instructors to the job support after the program, will ensure that you do. It was one of the best decisions I have ever made and would make it again in a heartbeat.

January 8, 2020

I’m from Boston and I decided to move across the country to attend Rithm School, rather than staying on the East Coast and going to a bootcamp there (or doing a remote program). I’m so glad I made this decision–Rithm School exceeded my already super high expectations.

Tldr: I’m a former high school English teacher with no experience in computer science. I chose Rithm because of the small class sizes, company projects, job search support, and amazing instructors / curriculum. I couldn’t be happier with my decision. I loved the program, I felt really well-prepared for the job search, and I found a job within 2 months of graduation.

Here are some of the factors that set Rithm apart:

Small Class Sizes

My cohort had 14 students and 3 instructors. A lot of the bigger, well-known bootcamps have 40 or 50 students and 1-2 instructors. These larger programs will claim that you get more “real-life experience” in their classes because you’re forced to learn on your own. Rithm gives you all the benefits of “real-life experience” (you work on a project with a real codebase from a partner company, you gain experience reading technical documentation, debugging, researching on Stack Overflow), but you ALSO get thorough code reviews, lots of feedback, and ongoing mentorship from experienced developers. During Rithm, I often had to problem solve and research on my own, but after I finished implementing a feature, I received a detailed code review from an instructor. This is important because, when working totally independently you might create code that works, but it might be brittle and not up to professional standards. Ongoing feedback helped me understand how to write code that was well documented and more easily scalable and maintainable.

The small class size also means that, if you find a specific concept challenging, the instructors are always available to provide one-on-one support and extra review.

Company Projects

Toward the end of Rithm School, you will be matched with a company for a short internship. This is something that makes Rithm unique (most bootcamps have a final project, but it is usually a group project, rather than a project for a real production website or application). The company project is an incredible learning opportunity because you get to work with an existing codebase and interact with developers outside of your instructors and peers at Rithm. It also gives you real experience that you can add to your resume, which is incredibly valuable during the job search.

Preparation and Support in the Job Search

Throughout the program, you will have regular one-on-one check-ins with an advisor who will help you plan for your job search. Your success in finding a job ultimately depends on your own effort and persistence, but Rithm does a great job preparing you. In my experience, almost all of the topics that came up in interviews were concepts that had been covered extensively in Rithm’s curriculum. Rithm also offers weekly office hours for alumni who are in the midst of the job search, so you have ongoing support during the process.

Amazing Instructors and curriculum

The instructors at Rithm have worked in the industry for years. They are incredibly knowledgeable and extremely supportive. They are also constantly updating and refining their curriculum so that it focuses on the most current in-demand skills. The curriculum is also very thoughtfully designed so that projects and concepts build on each other in a clear sequence. And there are always “further study” options so that if you want to keep exploring a topic and deepen your understanding, you have resources and suggested exercises to do so.

If you’re not convinced yet, feel free to check out one of Rithm’s free events. That’s a great way to get a feel for the program. You can also reach out to Rithm alum on LinkedIn if you want more info.

February 15, 2020

In short, my return was certainly worth the cost of admission – especially with the deferred tuition model. In four months, I went from not knowing a lick of JavaScript, to getting my Pull Requests accepted on production codebases with React Native advanced patterns. Technical expertise isn’t the only thing I got from Rithm. They also taught me invaluable interprersonal skills as well as strategies for navigating the jobseeking process. I even got a job within the first few weeks of graduating by using one of my Rithm connections.

In more depth, the small class sizes made the instructors incredibly available – all of whom are skilled software engineers. With their varied expertise, I could get all of my questions addressed – no matter how deep I went down the rabbit hole. If I wanted to know why ‘with’ blocks function the way they do in Python, I could ask the guy who contributed to the Python source code. If I wanted to know about NP-Complete and how that relates to Big O, I could ask the one with a Mathematics pHD. Even if I wanted to know why “{ } + [ ]” returned 0 but “[ ] + { }” returned “[object Object]” in JavaScript, I could get my questions answered.

Their curriculum is always being updated on multiple levels. By asking for data from recent graduates about their job hunting experience, they can focus on relevant technologies while relegating less important topics to footnotes or Further Study. Additionally, every lecture has an option for feedback, and they definitely pay attention; the Callback Pattern exercise was substantially rewritten after they processed our feedback.

Their support continues even after graduation. They keep office hours every week specifically for alumni and assist in fine tuning the job search for best results. They’re really looking out for their students’ best interests.

Lastly, they understand the importance of work-life balance. The assessments are just challenging enough to solidify the lessons learned throughout the week. Even though the core requirements are designed to be completed in a reasonable amount of time, reach goals are included as well for the ambitious student. They also throw parties for significant curriculum achievements – such as completing your first sprint! There’s often a group of people staying around after class to play a few board games. Although the schedule is quite rigorous and challenging, the culture really makes it manageable.

All in all, an incredible experience

Bonus: The company dog is great, and they let me bring my own well-behaved therapy dog to class!

May 19, 2020

TL;DR: I absolutely loved my experience at Rithm. I moved to SF from Boston to attend and haven’t regretted my decision for a second.

There are three key aspects where I believe other bootcamps would struggle to match Rithm:
1. Depth and relevance of curriculum
2. Quality and availability of instructors
3. Job support

The curriculum at Rithm encompasses both the fundamental intricacies of modern languages (Javascript & Python) and a host of modern technologies that are in high demand in the job market. After you graduate, you’ll be able to fluently speak about React, Redux, MVC frameworks, OOP, and Big O notation with the companies you’re interviewing with. The key here is that neither is sacrificed for the other and you’ll be able to do this with no prior knowledge. Most of class time is spent in lab building things with these technologies, while enforcing best practices that are used in industry and train you to write code like a professional.

This leads into the second point, which is the quality of Rithm’s educators. Across the board they are individuals who have eye opening qualifications. One has a PhD in Mathematics, one contributed to the Python source code. All have multiple years of experience working in industry and are always open, friendly, and willing to help you work through a problem. More to the point, you don’t have to wait around, or get in a queue when you need help. My cohort had twelve students and two instructors. Rithm keeps the ratio roughly 5-6:1, so the feedback cycle is dropped to nothing, allowing you as a student to avoid roadblocks and quickly absorb material.

Lastly, the job support and job-search portion of the curriculum were excellent and enabled me to receive an offer a month after graduating. Don’t misunderstand, you’ll still have to do the work of sending out resumes and cover letters, but it helps a lot to have a portfolio replete with Full-Stack projects, a great personal site, and experience with a startup. They also hold weekly office hours for job-seekers to attend and get help with whatever roadblocks they’re facing in the job hunt.

To sum up, I’m extremely grateful that I made the choice to attend Rithm School. It was an absolute game changer and should be at the top of the list for anyone considering a bootcamp.

June 2, 2020

Rithm taught me everything I needed to know to get started as a software engineer.

July 7, 2020

This review is not short! But I wrote the novel I wish I could have read when I was gathering data on which boot camp to enroll in.

A little of my background/coding journey: Prior to enrolling in Rithm school, I was a music teacher and band director in San Francisco for 3 years. I had no prior experience coding. I spent many hours scouring the internet looking for others with non-traditional backgrounds being successful after a coding boot camp. I failed the Hack Reactor interview twice, I failed the Rithm school interview twice, completed First Step Coding, and finally passed my third try at the Rithm school interview. However, I was the first in my class to get hired as a software engineer, just two weeks after graduation. The skills Rithm school taught me have allowed me to survive in thrive in my new role!

PSA for any boot camp – do not expect to be spoon-fed a job offer, just as having a college degree does not guarantee you a job in your field of study. I frame this review as “for 24k, will Rithm school efficiently teach you skills that set you up for success for a career in software engineering?” tl;dr is YES.

Rithm school is professional and transparent from end to end. It is very hip nowadays to say “everyone can learn to code,” and some bootcamps, unfortunately, have a business model based on “everyone can pay to learn to code”. A lucrative career in a job market that isn’t going anywhere is a sweet dream to sell. Some bootcamps I interviewed at were more than happy to accept me on the sole basis that I could kinda write a for loop, as long as I could foot the bill. Rithm school does NOT give off this vibe. They are clear on the educational objectives of their program as well as expectations for students. The top two things I was willing to shell out 24K for was the opportunity to add a highly marketable skill to my existing skill set and the internship to work on the codebase of a real-life company.

I felt supported ramping up to a career pivot by Rithm school prior to even enrolling. Their material and exercises that are free to access online proved to be an excellent source for me as I began my self-study during my teaching career. They offer free in-person evening classes, which I was able to attend while working full time to get a sense of the instructors, their teaching style, and the Rithm space in FiDi. Angelina was thorough in answering my many questions about the program. The work and time that the people at Rithm put into these components were miles beyond anything that other boot camps I was considering demonstrated.

The interview process helped me refine the objectives of my self-study. Having a set of Javascript “toy” problems to complete before the technical interview was really helpful. Additionally, the instructor Matt went out of his way to give me specific feedback to improve my skills for my next Rithm interview attempt.

Small cohort size was a huge part of my choosing Rithm school. I had toured Hack Reactor (since acquired by Galvanize) and was immediately put off by the 80+ students per lecture. I was horrified by the Hack Reactor practice of throwing a pillow microphone to any student who wanted to ask a question during the lecture. I am not a shy person, but I know the way I learn new material best is to ask lots of good questions. My cohort had 12 students, including myself. I felt SO so comfortable raising my hand to ask a clarifying question. My instructors Matt and Micheal never shot me down and took the time to answer. My quality of learning would have suffered if I didn’t have the intimate learning environment Rithm provides.

My instructors Matt and Michael were stellar. There was never a time where I felt the “uuuuuuuh what’s next” – I’ve seen many a teacher – myself included- fall into this, and I appreciated the professionalism that Matt and Michael showed up with every day. I feel fortunate that my personality and learning style meshed well with their personalities and teaching style. It’s always tricky when it comes to teacher preferences, as everyone responds differently to different personalities and teaching styles. Any instructor you have at Rithm will give you a quality experience, but I highly recommend dropping in a free evening class to get a feel of each instructors’ style. Matt was my assigned advisor, who I was able to meet with in a 1:1 every other week. This individualized attention, among many other things, is what I was willing to pay half my teacher salary for. From a pedagogical standpoint, getting a teacher’s undivided attention and support is invaluable to learning. I utilized this time to go over concepts I was having trouble with, battle imposter syndrome, and get my resume and cover letter critiqued.

The first 12 weeks of the program are what people usually think when they think “coding bootcamp”- learning many concepts in a short period of time. However, Rithm has struck the balance of lecture time and hands-on learning to accelerate your understanding. Yeah, you could sit in your house in the mornings and evenings and hack through a course on Treehouse/Udacity etc, but having experienced instructors to guide you through the nuts and bolts towards a tangible lesson objective is so powerful. If you are a band nerd/orch dork like me, it will feel like one of those multi-day high school band festivals, where you work your butt off for hours every day, but the infectious energy from your peers keeps you going. As a former teacher, I appreciate the organization and though they put into their curriculum. I had access to a google doc that detailed hour by hour what material and exercises we would be completed in the coming weeks. I had access to the lecture notes the night before, so I could read it then, take notes on it in the morning, hear it in lecture, and practice it in the lab. This focussed structure and organization allowed me to thrive and learn quickly.

The labs were a good balance of lecture vs hands on learning time (“I do, we do, you do” teaching model). None of the labs felt like “busy work”, they lined up well with the concepts that were taught in the lecture. Written instructions for labs well written and organized – a clear goal for each one. There was a good starting code provided, clear and organized steps for the exercises. Sprints were multi-day labs working on a larger project, which could be featured in your portfolio. Having these jumping off points to build my portfolio was invaluable.

Sidenote: I LOVED the space available to students. The office was clean, great couches and study lap things. I especially loved the whiteboard tables and walls! Writing out material in an organized way is a huge part of my learning style, I used the whiteboard tables daily in the morning to go over the lecture notes for the day. The lecture halls have excellent projectors that make it easy to follow along with the material. There are nice office chairs to sit in both the lecture halls and labs, with proper whiteboard tables. I mention this because I noticed that both Hackbright and Hack Reactor had students sit on the floor to take notes, and I couldn’t fathom being able to focus in that environment.

Company projects were perhaps the biggest deciding factor in choosing Rithm school. I knew that coming from a nontraditional background I was going to need something tangible to add to my resume. I know other boot camps have you build things for a portfolio, and that pales in comparison to Rithm’s offering to be able to work on a real-life company code base. For three weeks I was able to work on team of 6 of my classmates to contribute in a meaningful way to a company codebase. The experience of having morning standup (checking in with the team), learning a git workflow, writing tests, and adjusting to a large codebase were all factors that gave me a huge leg up in the job hunt.

In terms of job hunting support, I will reiterate what I mentioned before – I went in knowing I was paying 24k for individual attention, a small cohort size, a well-organized curriculum, the office space, and company projects. I 100% received what I expected for the price. I knew that I would need to be proactive in my job search and to take what skills they taught me and run like mad. That being said, Rithm still does provide some basic job hunting support – resume work, time to work on your portfolio and website, mock interviews. It is more passive support than aggressive support. I am happy to hear that they have recently hired a career coach, who advises students to use many of the strategies that I myself used to get hired two weeks after I graduated.

Having worked full time as a full-stack engineer for nearly two months now, I can say that Rithm truly prepared me well for my role. Although my company’s stack is in Ruby/Ruby on Rails, the solid tenants of professional programming that the instructors instilled in me serve me every day. From test-driven development to pair programming to problem-solving, I feel prepared for whatever my job throws at me. This is an incredible feeling, especially thinking about how I was a k-8 music and band teacher just a year ago.

The Rithm alumni network is an amazing resource to be able to tap into. When I was scouring for reviews about a year ago, the number of alumni was smaller, and I am thrilled to see it continue to grow. A fellow Rithm alumn who was also a teacher in a former career works just down the street from my office, and we communicate near daily our experiences in our job.

I love talking about my experience at Rithm school as well as job hunting strategies. Please feel free to reach out to me on LinkedIn if you would like to learn more about my experience at Rithm! I am happy to help the next person into this exciting career from a non-traditional background.

September 7, 2020

If you’ve researched Rithm School as much as I had across Course Report, SwitchUp and Yelp, you probably had the same questions I did. Let me put your mind at ease; no these reviews are not from bots, yes they are all posted by real graduates, and yes Rithm School is just that amazing! I can only reiterate on all the advantages that make Rithm stand out that have been hammered in by so many reviews below:

– Company Projects: In terms of the post-grad job search, this matters – a lot. Having real experience in a live production codebase that is magnitudes larger than personal apps and small projects counts for so much in the eyes of recruiters and engineering teams. Most entry-level engineering roles involve less of creating things from scratch and more of going into an existing codebase blind, learning and navigating the code structure, and making tweaks and changes to improve the final product in a way that complements the existing methodology. Being able to put this experience in your resume, and more importantly talk it up during interviews, puts you light-years ahead of most self-taught curriculums.

– Instructor Quality: While company projects help to get your foot in the door for a new job, it’s really the learning and retention that keep you there and allow you to thrive in your career. The instructors at Rithm are all top-notch in their knowledge of technical concepts, working methodology, and modern topics in the engineering industry. However, it’s really their focus and experience as educators that set them apart from those at other bootcamps. They continuously consider and tweak the material and teaching styles to ensure that each student comprehends the most relevant portions of each concept, and at the very least has an avenue to pursue further learning. They genuinely want each person to succeed in their own personal goals, and will work alongside them to help navigate that path to success. That also means they are willing to call out areas that you may need improvement on, or if you’re going down an irrelevant, tangential path. They’re also hilarious.

– Small Class Size: Class sizes generally range from 12-18 students, a far cry from the 30+ you’ll find at other bootcamps. The high teacher-to-student ratio allows for more dedicated time for each student to ask questions, receive more help, and pursue advanced topics if desired. You’ll also get closer to your classmates than you would expect as you struggle and bond together. The alumni network at Rithm is ever-growing, and genuinely looks out for one another.

These are the big three stand-out features I felt really distinguishes Rithm School from other bootcamps. Other aspects that are also high-quality are their focus on pair programming and learning collaboration, their late-stage and post-grad guidance and connections for job-searching, and a truly social and welcoming environment to build your network and friendships.

Absolutely attend one of their many free evening meetups just to experience their teaching style, talk to the instructors, and ask a million detailed questions of every concern you might have. Reach out to myself or the many Rithm alumni that will be happy and excited to talk to you about their experiences. And do that with any other bootcamp you’re considering so you can make the best decision for yourself. Transitioning careers is never easy, and while Rithm School will provide you with the best tools and mindset for making that change, in the end it will be up to you to push for what you want to achieve

September 15, 2020

Choosing Rithm School was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.

That’s saying a lot coming from a student that’s as hard to please as I am. I have very high standards when it comes to my personal educational, and instructors at Rithm are extremely knowledgable and love teaching. If you are the kind of student that needs to be challenged above and beyond what most students need, the instructors at Rithm will more than happily provide extra learning resources to help feed your endless technical curiosities and ensure that you grow as much as possible throughout the program regardless of your skill level.

My experience at Rithm was great. We got daily code reviews and were taught not just how to write code, but how to thoughtfully build robust applications. Week after week I was amazed at how much I was learning. The curriculum is very well thought out – and structured in a manner that encourages maximum absorption and retention.

A huge plus for me was that Rithm school spends a considerable amount of time on backend technologies (as well as frontend). If you’re interested in backend, then this is a great school. You won’t just learn some massive framework and be great at only that framework – you’ll learn the fundamental concepts that help you to understand how things are really working under the hood – and apply that knowledge to any tech stack you might encounter.

Rithm gave me the confidence to be able to pick up any new technology and find a thrill in quickly learning and adapting to challenging environments. During our company projects section, our team had to learn an entirely new language and framework within a week, and make significant contributions to a very large codebase. This confidence extended to my job search where I applied far and wide. A month after graduating I received a fantastic job offer working as a backend engineer at a gaming studio.

If you value attentiveness in your instructors and an environment that will push you towards a path of significant technical growth – then Rithm School is a great choice. I would highly recommend trying out the private prep program before you decide to attend. You’ll get to visit the school and get a lesson from each of the instructors to get a sense of their teaching styles.

I wholeheartedly recommend Rithm to anyone who is seriously considering attending a bootcamp!

November 22, 2020