Launch School is incredible. It's hard to overstate how effective it is at preparing you for a professional career as a software engineer.

Launch School is incredible. It's hard to overstate how effective it is at preparing you for a professional career as a software engineer.

I had my fair share of doubts all the way through Capstone. I knew I had learned an incredible amount in Core, but I really didn't have any point of reference for how I compared to other people in the job market.

My confidence started to grow during the job hunt - as long as I was able to get past the HR checks for specific degrees or years of experience, things generally went better than expected. I was able to hold my own in technical discussions, and every engineer I talked to was blown away by our Capstone project - multiple people recommended I try to get funding and launch our capstone project as a business.

I ended up accepting an offer as a senior software engineer at an early-stage startup just 2 weeks after I started applying. I was nervous knowing that there was "nowhere for me to hide" on such a small team, but I was excited for the chance to work across the entire tech stack. I've been working as a software engineer for about 6 months at the time of this writing, and the further out I get from Capstone, the more I realize how incredibly well Launch School prepares you for actual working life as a software engineer. I've already taken on a huge amount of responsibility working across our frontend, backend, and infrastructure, and I'm actively involved in planning the future direction of our product.

At Launch School you learn the right collection of core fundamental topics to the correct depth to be an effective engineer. I've had to learn several new technologies on the job, but in every instance, it's been a straightforward process because I have the appropriate foundation to build on.

I am incredibly grateful that Launch School exists. Of all the education paths out there, it is the most practically effective while also being uncompromisingly aligned with the student's interests.