It’s 7:30 a.m., and Kelvin Lau is making his daily commute on the bus into the Chicago Loop. It’s quite a different experience for the eight-year Air National Guardsman who left his home in California on a new mission: to attend Code Platoon’s Full-stack Software Engineering: Immersive program in-person.

“I was surrounded by programming my whole life,” Kelvin says. “​​I’ve always found software engineering enticing, but it didn’t pan out with my time in the military.”

Kelvin enters Code Platoon’s classroom at about 8 a.m. Sometimes, he arrives early to use the gym before class. Today, he grabs coffee with another student to discuss debugging their programs.

“I had some exposure to coding from my professional experience before Code Platoon. I use that experience to help my friends out. Walking through other peoples’ code helps me learn, too,” he says.

Class begins at 8:30 a.m. for all students, whether they are in-person like Kelvin or attending remotely from around the world. This morning, the students practice answering a behavioral interview question. Since many Code Platoon students are interviewing for the first time after Bootcamp, this practice is essential for entering the civilian tech industry. 

“Learning to translate my military experience into something tech employers can understand and connect with has been eye-opening,” Kelvin says.

Next up, two Motorola Solutions security architects drop in to lead a web security guest workshop. The Code Platoon curriculum includes regular expert guest workshops, thanks to corporate partners like Motorola. Today, Kelvin learns how to use Burp Suite to analyze his program’s attack surface and pinpoint its security vulnerabilities. In the last few weeks, he’s also delved into workshops on relational databases, GitHub version control, and AWS deployment.

“I think Code Platoon’s curriculum goes deeper than other coding bootcamps,” Kelvin says. “Last week, we had a whole day on Agile project management. These workshops immerse us in how software engineers think and let us network with the industry pros leading them.”

It’s time for lunch, and Kelvin and his classmates grab some takeout and review their notes before an afternoon of working on their group projects, which they will present before graduating.

“Since everyone is here today, we’ll help each other on our projects. In my case, I have a knack for front-end development,” Kelvin says. “The remote students also work together in Zoom breakout rooms, but I prefer the in-person collaboration here.”

Kelvin had toyed with pursuing a computer science degree using his GI Bill®. He ultimately chose Code Platoon, where he could gain more quick, practical experience in technology and still have enough GI Bill left for college later.

“The other reason I chose Code Platoon was to be part of the exclusively military Coding Bootcamp community. The shared experience here is comforting,” Kelvin says. “Even most of the instructors are Veterans themselves.”

Living in Chicago has its perks beyond learning to code for Kelvin:

“I haven’t seen the winter yet, but I love the city so far,” he says. “The cost of living is much lower than the Bay Area, but there’s still plenty to do. It’s so much fun exploring the city with my new friends on the weekends. I want to stay here after I graduate.”

Kelvin’s future as part of Chicago’s tech community will have to wait a bit. He received orders to deploy the day after his Uniform Platoon graduates.

Despite this setback, he won’t give up on his new dream of entering Chicago’s tech sector:

“I’ll keep building projects and improving my software engineering portfolio during deployment. I’ll try to get in the door with some companies in Chicago while that’s happening,” he says.

“Oh, and I’ll need to buy my first winter coat before I come back.”

Kayla Elkin is the Marketing Content Specialist at Code Platoon. In this role, she uses her marketing, writing, and editing skills developed from previous higher education and educational technology positions. Kayla has degrees in English and Sociology from Clemson University and completed the Study in India Program (SIP) at the University of Hyderabad.

The Full-stack Software Engineering: Immersive Uniform Platoon showcased the full-stack web applications they developed during Code Platoon’s military Coding Bootcamp. Their final presentations demonstrate their working applications and describe the front-end, back-end, and product management tools the Veteran tech students mastered during Coding Bootcamp.

The first presentation in the Full-stack software engineering project showcase is Wastenot. Wastenot is a web application that addresses food waste. Users input the foods they need to use, and Wastenot matches them with recipes using their ingredients. Wastenot’s tech stack includes React for the front-end user interface, Django on the back end to store user authentication data via secure cookies, and API calls to Spoonacular and OpenAI’s ChatGPT to pull recipe data, suggest substitutions, and provide nutritional information.

Wastenot was developed by an Army spouse, a Navy SkillBridge participant, two Active Duty Marine Corpsmen, a Coast Guardsman, a National Guardsman, and an Active Duty Soldier. Check out their Wastenot program demo.

ConnectForum is the next demonstration. ConnectForum is a full-stack web application with real-time chat through Channel Layers with Redis. ConnectForum allows users to connect live through different instances in the app’s common interest chat rooms. 

A Navy Veteran, two Army Veterans, and three Marine Corps Veterans developed ConnectForum. The Veteran software engineering graduates used JavaScript on React and the WebSocket API on the front end. The front-end code makes calls to the back end, featuring Python through Django Framework. The team hosted their data in a PostgreSQL database.

Void Turtle is the next presentation. A team of a Navy Veteran, an Air Force Veteran, a Marine Corps Veteran, an Active Duty Army Servicemember, and a military spouse developed Void Turtle. 

The Void Turtle team programmed a 2D, top-down, rogue-like game powered by the Godot Engine. The Void Turtle team used GitHub to coordinate version control and resolve merge conflicts while launching their application. Dive into Godot in the Void Turtle presentation below.

Shredder is the final demonstration in our graduation showcase. Shredder is a fitness and nutrition tracker web application. Shredder offers customizable nutrition tracking and workout programs for users to achieve their fitness goals. The app pings Rapid API’s exercise database to find exercises using particular equipment, muscles, or muscle groups. The nutrition portion calculates the nutrition information based on the user’s reported meals. 

Shredder was programmed with JavaScript and Python coding languages, an Axios HTTP client, and React styling. Watch the presentation by the Shredder team: two Navy Veterans, an Army Veteran, an Army Reserve Veteran, an Air Force National Guardsman, and an Active Duty Marine Corpsman.

We’re proud of the incredible applications showcased during Uniform Platoon’s final project demonstrations. Congratulations, graduates!

The entire project showcase and graduation ceremony is available to watch on Code Platoon’s YouTube channel.

Code Platoon is committed to helping Veterans, Servicemembers, and military spouses launch careers in technology. Over 400 military Coding Bootcamp graduates have transitioned to the tech industry from Code Platoon’s Full-stack Software Engineering and DevOps and Cloud Engineering programs.

A key component of our mission is to provide graduates with more than the essential tech skills for their future professions. We also emphasize the career development resources and networking needed to enter the tech field. 

Here are our results as of September 2023:

Code Platoon Outcomes 2023

• Two hundred fifteen (215) job-seeking Veterans, Servicemembers, and military spouses graduated in the last two years (8 cohorts).
• One hundred sixty (74%) of those graduates found software engineering jobs within six months.
• The median starting salary of those graduates was $85,000. The median salary increased to $115,000 after 24 months.
• Of the remaining fifty-five graduates, thirty-four were still looking for careers in technology, two sought higher education, two pursued opportunities outside of tech, and seventeen didn’t respond to our surveys.

Our graduates’ success rate is attributed to many factors that make Code Platoon unique:

• Military coding students show unwavering commitment to learning and growth each day.
• Our exceptional staff, partners, and supporters collaborate to provide a supportive learning environment. 
• Hands-on learning is a cornerstone of Code Platoon’s Coding Bootcamps. Students apply their knowledge through project-based assignments, workshops, and pair-programming exercises.
• Code Platoon can accept the GI Bill®, VET TEC, and VR&E VA education benefits. We awarded students 1.3 million dollars in scholarships during the last two years.

Code Platoon’s curriculum offers comprehensive training in full-stack software engineering and DevOps and cloud engineering. Full-stack software engineering students learn in-demand programming languages Python and JavaScript, practice using essential frameworks React and Django, and prepare for Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) Practitioner professional certifications. 

DevOps and Cloud Engineering students learn continuous integration and deployment, configuration management, and end-to-end automation. Graduates gain experience with industry-standard tools: Docker, Kubernetes, Terraform, Github, and AWS.

Code Platoon also understands that success extends beyond technical expertise. Our graduates are equipped with skills to navigate the transition from military service to the tech workforce.

• Code Platoon’s programs are designed specifically for the military community. Students practice describing their military experience and tech skills in extensive behavioral interview prep.
• Students prepare for the complexities of post-military life in Beyond Tech workshops on personal finance, imposter syndrome, and other essential transition skills.
• Resume preparation, LinkedIn profile building, and exposure to Agile software development principles help students become well-rounded software developers.
• Each student receives a volunteer industry mentor to ask questions about the tech industry and receive feedback.
• Graduates may compete for paid apprenticeships after graduation to help bridge the gap between service and the tech industry. Graduates may also apply to positions with Code Platoon’s preferred hiring partners, including Accenture, Affirm, and Booz Allen Hamilton.

Every aspect of Code Platoon’s programs, combined with our military coding students’ dedication, contributes to our graduates’ success. If you’re part of the military community and aspire to enter the tech industry, we invite you to explore our program offerings.

Rod Levy is the Founder and Executive Director of Code Platoon. He holds undergraduate and Master’s degrees in engineering from Cornell University and an MBA from The University of Chicago Booth School of Business, where he graduated with honors. Rod has completed Dev Bootcamp’s web developer program.

Code Platoon celebrated our first DevOps and Cloud Engineering cohort’s graduation on Friday, July 21, 2023. The inaugural Immersive DevOps Alpha Platoon featured eight talented Veteran tech students ready to embark on in-demand DevOps careers. 

The students had been working diligently to gain hands-on experience and master essential DevOps skills, tools, and technologies during the program. They deployed real-world applications developed by a previous Full-stack Software Engineering cohort for their final projects. These projects provided the DevOps Alpha Platoon with practical experience and showcased the DevOps practices they learned during their Bootcamp journeys.

Here is a closer look at the two DevOps projects showcased during graduation:

GAMENIGHT

The first team deployed GAMENIGHT, a gaming event planning app developed by Romeo Platoon students. An Air Force Reservist, two Navy Veterans, and an active duty Airman worked on the GAMENIGHT DevOps team.

The GAMENIGHT team first created a multi-stage Docker build to minimize images. They also implemented a custom entry point to automate migrations before executing the Django server. 

The DevOps students leveraged the power of AWS, Kubernetes (a container management system), and Terraform (an Infrastructure as Code tool) to deploy GAMENIGHT. Finally, the team built a GitHub Actions workflow to automate the continuous integration of the Docker images and enable continuous deployment to Amazon EKS.

Romeo’s Adventure

The second team’s project deployed Romeo’s Adventure, an online game built with Django. Two Air Force Veterans, a Marine Corps Veteran, and a transitioning Soldier completed this final project.

The Romeo’s Adventure team also used Docker to build front-end and back-end images for the app. They harnessed Kubernetes to enable horizontal auto-scaling, automatically detect and replace pod failures, and effectively distribute incoming network traffic using a load balancer. 

The DevOps team managed deployments to Romeo’s Adventure via GitHub Actions. When a software engineer commits code to the app, their GitHub build automatically triggers their Docker images and applies changes with Kubectl files. An AWS dashboard monitors the web app’s performance, complete with alarms to notify the team of any health issues. Automatic database backups and EC2 instance snapshots are taken every 24 hours to ensure data safety.

The DevOps Alpha Platoon graduation ceremony and demonstrations can be seen in full on Code Platoon’s YouTube channel. Congratulations once again to the DevOps Alpha Platoon!

First impressions are critical. When recruiters and hiring managers like what they see on your resume, they often do their due diligence and look you up on social media. 

But what truly is the most essential part of your profile? It’s your headshot! According to LinkedIn, “research shows that just having a picture makes your profile 14 times more likely to be viewed by others.”

Our Chicago-based students in the Uniform cohort were lucky to have professional headshots taken by Karla Livney for their LinkedIn profiles. Livney, who donated her time and expertise, believes that “what makes a headshot ‘great’ and distinguishes you from the pack is an authenticity and genuineness that shines through in the eyes and the smile—a palpable connection between photographer and client. Knowledge of lighting and camera is essential, but you really need to find a photographer with whom you feel comfortable.”  

If you weren’t in Chicago to model for Karla Livney’s shoot at Code Platoon, sign up for a photographer from Portraits For Patriots®. According to their website, their volunteer photographers create “portfolio-quality images that showcase the strength and determination” of transitioning service members and military spouses, free of charge.

Remember, your LinkedIn profile photo significantly influences how others perceive you professionally. By following these best practices, you can present yourself in the best possible light and positively impact potential employers, recruiters, and industry peers.

• Dress professionally and appropriately for your industry – not too casual or too formal
• Friendly and approachable expression – this may not be how you were trained in the military, but SMILE at least a little
• Clear, well-lit, and in-focus, the head takes up 60% of the frame
• Up-to-date photo – don’t create confusion by using an image from over five years ago
• Good posture and eye contact exudes confidence
• Neutral background – the focus should be on you
• Square photo of at least 400×400 pixels, jpg, png, and under 8MB for faster loading
• No selfies. This is your professional brand, not your personal social media.
• Not a group shot – don’t edit others out.

Katherine is Code Platoon’s Career Services Coordinator and works with Code Platoon graduates as they seek tech jobs. She comes to this role after many years serving on various nonprofit boards and as Executive Director of Skin of Steel, a melanoma research and awareness organization. She holds a BA in Psychology from Dartmouth College and an MS in Clinical Neuropsychology from Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science. She is the proud daughter of a Navy Reserve Captain.