Coding Bootcamp Lighthouse Labs Launches Full Time Immersive Program in Calgary

With emphasis on their 100% career placement, Lighthouse Labs is looking to re-skill Calgarians

Lighthouse Labs is set to launch Calgary’s first ever Full-Time Web Development Bootcamp following their successful HTML500 event and Part-Time Web Fundamentals course. With established locations in Vancouver and Toronto and over 300 graduates across the country, Lighthouse Labs will debut its vaunted full-time program on January 4th. Twelve spots are available in the debut cohort taking place at the Assembly Co-Working Space in downtown Calgary.

The 8 week bootcamp boasts an unprecedented 100% employment rate for their job-seeking graduates, many of which have little exposure to coding or technology. With many Calgarians considering a change in career, Lighthouse Labs are offering a quick pivot for those interested in becoming a web developer

“Calgary’s tech industry has been growing steadily in the shadows of the agriculture and oil industry and it has come to the point where there are more jobs than people to fill them.” Says Sonja Bronstein, Manager of Assembly Co-Working Space. “Lighthouse Labs’ unique model helping people from all backgrounds transition to a career as a developer is very quickly being embraced by the Calgary tech community.”

The fundamental belief of Lighthouse Labs is that coding is a craft and should be taught more as a trade than an academic subject. The program boasts agile curriculum that focuses on the most relevant skills, industry professionals as teachers, keeps small classes with a 1 to 7 teacher to student ratios and uses a \ practical hands on approach where people learn by actually building web applications and projects. In fact, their entire website was created by Lighthouse Labs students.

Jeremy Shaki, Co-Founder and Chief Talking Officer at Lighthouse Labs, believes that a big part of the success of its bootcamp model is in making sure graduates are well integrated into the local tech community.

“Students who graduate from our program are going to find themselves with a network of 20+ senior developers who all work at different tech companies around the city. We take the time to talk to the tech community and find out what their needs are before we ever begin a program like this.” Explained Shaki. “Having looked at Calgary and spoken with many of the amazing tech companies who are growing and are in need of talent, it was an obvious fit to introduce our full time web development program this January.”

Indeed, Calgary’s tech scene has been building from the days where iStockphoto sold to Getty. Companies like Dissolve, BlackSquare, Petrofeed, Invistaware and Splice Software are leading a new generation of tech growth in the city. According to David Gluzman from BlackSquare, creating a tech company is no longer just about building a social network:

What most people fail to realize is that technology integrates into all industries. If people with backgrounds in more traditional industries like oil, finance or medicine learn to code, it allows industry specific knowledge to translate into building tools that solve actual problems those industries are facing. Our background and experience in the wine industry has allowed BlackSquare to build Blackboxx, which tremendously helps those in the global wine industry solve efficiency and profitability issues.

To further the point of helping the tech community grow, Lighthouse Labs hosted the Calgary JavaScript Open in partnership with Microsoft Edge on October 29th. The JavaScript Open event was a full-day conference to discuss the future of JavaScript and brought together over 150 developers.

The Full-Time Bootcamp is open to complete beginners, developers and comp sci graduates alike, but to be selected, Lighthouse Labs expects candidates to have a true dedication, passion and commitment to wanting to become professional web developers.

“At the end of the day, this isn’t a gold rush where you come in and we hand you a job.” Says Shaki. “Coding has democratized creation and allows for people with ideas to build them into real products, and the people who will succeed in this field are people who are going to love the process and journey of coding as much as the destination. That’s what we look for in our candidates.”

Lighthouse Labs is hosting a free information session on November 12th for all those interested in learning about their upcoming Calgary programs. Register here.

The Lighthouse Labs program was started in October, 2013 in Vancouver and has seen over 300 alumni graduate. Lighthouse Labs is an immersive, modern approach to teaching web and mobile software development. With a hands-on curriculum build by industry leaders, Lighthouse Labs focuses on transforming passionate people into agile programmers.

The courses take a max of 24 students at a time and last 8-9 weeks where students primarily learn through an immersive hands-on approach. For more information, visit www.lighthouselabs.ca.