Mission: To teach the next generation of software engineers and supply South Florida’s tech companies with top talent
Launched: 2020
Instructors: 7
Website: BocaCode.com
Todd Albert
Todd Albert has been coding practically since he started reading. “I’ve been coding since I was seven years old, when my dad first brought home a computer,” he told South Florida Tech Hub. “There was nothing to do on it except write code!”
A young Albert would devour computer magazines and eventually take part in high school coding competitions. He ended up pursuing a career as a climate scientist, which enabled him to travel the world and work with major organizations including NASA and NOAA.
All the while, however, coding was still a major part of Albert’s life: “I loved running my own programs and writing code.” After successfully completing a PhD, he re-entered the tech world full-time by teaching coding.
Albert’s passion for coding led him to eventually work as the lead developer for a few South Florida tech companies, including his own agency. While in these positions, Albert began to realize that there was a lack of talent in our area.
“So I decided to combine my teaching background and my coding background to create a code school, Boca Code” said Albert. “Our goal is to be the best code school that there is so that people come to us first for talent, and our students are in the highest demand.”
Boca Code’s courses stand apart from the crowd because, according to Albert, instead of starting students out on “the easy stuff” like HTML and CSS, at Boca Code they “jump right into the fundamentals: algorithms and data structures.”
“We get the students writing actual code on day one, and teach things from a high level architectural level perspective,” explained Albert. He said that this approach trains students to “think and code like a senior engineer right off the bat.”
Boca Code’s main offering is a full-time, 10-week intensive software engineering course. “With this course, students become a top software engineer in 10 weeks,” said Albert. The code school also has a handful of courses covering topics such as data analytics and python, user experience design, and game development.
Despite just launching last year, Boca Code already has a series of success stories. For example, one recent high school graduate got his first-ever job after taking Boca Code’s 10-week course. A 33 year old immigrant mother who had never coded decided to switch careers, got a scholarship to Boca Code’s software engineering course, and landed a job making $70,000 a year. And a Pizza Hut night manager was able to supercharge his college computer science degree and land a life-changing job after a stint at Boca Code.
Why Boca? Albert says it’s a quiet powerhouse. “While Microsoft, Apple, and Google were getting started in Silicon Valley, IBM was building the first personal computer here in Boca,” he acknowledged. Nowadays, Albert underscored that Boca has a thriving ecosystem of more than 400 startups and even a handful of unicorns: “Miami is always getting a lot of attention, but the tech scene in Boca is chugging away.”
Interested in leveling up your career? Check out Boca Code’s offerings by visiting their website.