TRICIA MILLER KLAPHEKE
Opening Doors For Aspiring Software Developers
The School of Computer Science (SCS) has been training working technology professionals in specific skills since the 1980s. Building on that experience, SCS launched CMU TechBridge: Coding Bootcamp in 2024 to open the door to a new demographic of students.
“Coding boot camps are for a different demographic,” said Ram Konduru, director of Executive Education at SCS
Ram Konduru, Director of Executive Education at SCS
“We created CMU Techbridge: Coding Bootcamp for people who have a high school degree and who want to invest in themselves and get that first entry-level job in the tech industry.”
To qualify, students must have either a high school diploma or GED and must pass a math aptitude test.
The first cohort started in September 2024 with 22 students. The full-time program runs for 16 weeks, with SCS faculty designing the curriculum, creating online content and teaching classes during the students’ two optional in-person campus visits. The course material includes both asynchronous material students can complete on their own time and synchronous lectures delivered live online by SCS faculty. SCS Dean Martial Hebert thought the course should include the two campus visits to give students the opportunity be exposed to other job possibilities in technology, beyond coding.
CMU TechBridge: Coding Bootcamp benefits from a partnership with TalentSprint, an education technology company with deep experience supporting academic institutions, to deliver the program’s content. TalentSprint also handles marketing for the program. TalentSprint instructors receive training in SCS’s content and pedagogy, and they act as teaching assistants during the program, answering students’ questions between live sessions and offering one-on-one mentoring and job search support.
After just four months of training, TechBridge graduates become competent entry-level programmers. Jerry Ginocchi, a participant in the first cohort who had been a freelancer working in audio and video, said he started the course with no previous coding experience. Partway through the boot camp he was optimistic the experience would open job possibilities for him. “It definitely reinforces my thought that everything has some form of tech nowadays,” he told TalentSprint in December. “If it is coding or even something coding adjacent, it really is helping me to say, yeah, I’m feeling more confident in this decision to hopefully lead into something more permanent.”
The coding boot camp costs $18,600, and everyone in the first cohort qualified for the $3,600 scholarship from CMU after they passed the math aptitude test, Konduru said. CMU also offers a generous refund policy for anyone who starts the program and decides it’s not for them.
Two cohorts began in February 2025, one full-time and one part-time, in response to requests from students who wanted to complete the coursework while working at their current jobs. The part-time cohort runs for eight months and covers the same materials. Other coding boot camps often try to grow to graduate as many students as possible, but the goal for TechBridge is to train 30 students in each full-time and part-time session so each participant will receive ample personal support.
SCS will launch an artificial intelligence boot camp under the TechBridge banner in 2025. The course will offer technology professionals, who already have a STEM undergraduate degree, the opportunity to learn key concepts and tools in AI that have entered the market. The class is open to everyone from early career to experienced professionals, and students will be taught about machine learning, deep learning and generative AI.