LaunchSchool: An online school for Software Engineers

The Slow Path for Studious Learners to a Career in Software Development

Structured Curriculum from First Principles

Our program is about slowly building up mastery of fundamentals, so you understand how higher level abstractions truly work from the bottom up. Our goal isn't to teach you how to use React or Rails, but to show you how to construct accurate mental representations of first principles in order to tackle fundamental engineering problems. Our goal isn't to help you find a job, but help you launch a career. Our goal isn't to teach you to code, but to teach you how to deconstruct and problem solve like an engineer.

By Software Engineers for Future Software Engineers

Launch School was founded by experienced software engineers. We know what it takes to not only break into software, but to build and grow a career as an engineer in the software industry. Our objective is to increase your lifetime earnings by millions of dollars. This is what makes Launch School unique and why we focus on the long-term results of a career. Our curriculum was created by software engineers for future software engineers — you.

Knowing when to move on and circle back at a later point, if necessary, has been a skill I did not expect to come away with from the curriculum, but stands out as one of the most useful since it’s so transferable to other areas of my life.

Kevin Counihan

The material is top notch. The assignments, quizzes, and exercises are of such high quality, and made clear many topics that used to be fuzzy. The projects are fun, challenging, and have an appropriate scope. My theoretical knowledge was cemented while building practical skills.

Peter Hua

These courses made me understand what programming is. I had no programming background before this but just learning and becoming familiar with what it takes to build a web application at a foundational level was enjoyable. I found that all the material was clear as to what was important to know.

Bradley Taylor

How I wish I'd learnt about Launch School 10 years ago. The fact that we had to read three books on Ruby, just in prep, and then went so deep into the thing itself in the core curriculum, that was really instructive.

Bharat Agarwal

When I started back in December 2019 I could only write some awfully entangled and impossible to understand VBA scripts for Excel. Today, my code is clean, well-structured and I can tackle complex problems and build applications from scratch by breaking down is simpler parts. Not only I've achieved a level of confidence and fluidity in JavaScript that I couldn't even imagine when I started Core but also I feel I leave Core with a very good foundation in programming fundamentals.

Raul De Hevia

I remember my first tutorials, even good ones. I thought then that I was autonomous, but that feeling never lasts long. Now, after learning fundamentals, I'm never really stuck anymore. I still make a lot of mistakes, but nothing a search in the docs and a few well-placed debugging statements can't resolve.

Laurent Guinotte

"We're one of the oldest and largest coding schools in the world."

Our Learning Goals

The key to unlocking higher level understanding and skills that last a career is focusing on fundamentals. We designed our curriculum with the following learning goals.

Fundamentals first, fundamentals throughout
A focus on learning things that don't change
Learn slowly and deliberately

Learn to be proficient, not just build awareness
Learn to understand problems, not solutions
Learn in a circular fashion

Our students love us, and if you are committed to building a career in software development, you will too

Sienna Wood

Denver

Software Engineer

Experts always return to fundamentals because they are the foundation on which everything else is built. Launch School’s core program embodies this principle by emphasizing mastery of fundamentals through purposeful individual study.

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Steve Kolock

New York

Front-end Developer

I got a different role making significantly more than twice what I had been making as a 'web specialist', putting me firmly in six-figure

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Letladi Sebesho

Johannesburg, South Africa

Full Stack Developer at Co-Foundy

This programme opened possibilities for me that would have taken me years to reach

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Sunny Beatteay

New York City

Software Engineer

From the first glance, it was apparent that Launch School had been founded by industry veterans. I have never encountered a curriculum more in-depth and rigorous

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A Serious Training Curriculum That's Designed to Launch a Career

Core Curriculum

Mastery of Fundamentals

Capstone

Launch Your Career

Complete the Core Curriculum courses and pass their assessments, and you'll have mastered the fundamentals. Participate in our Capstone Program, and you'll launch a career.