Smoothstack helped me bridge the gap the between my non-CS degree and a career as a Software Engineer. This program was a great fit for me out of college.

I’ve been with Smoothstack for almost 2 years, and it’s been a very exciting journey. Great mission, nice staff, and very friendly atmosphere!

Ive worked here for a year and a half now. Ive had nothing but a great experience. From the start I had a warm experience with the warm and supportive environment fostered during the training program. The work Im doing now is exactly what I set out to do during college; its challenging, rewarding, and substantial.The initial training they provided definitely proved to be essential in my daily work life. A track that taught me a lot of the essentials of modern software development. I sincerely believe choosing to work here was an important and positive choice in my life.

Worked at Smoothstack for a few months now. I was able to grow personally and professionally through the program. I was able to meet people that share common interest as me outside of work. Training can be though but I promise it’s worth it. The results speaks for itself

Ive been working with Smoothstack for a year and a half now, and its been a wonderful journey. My colleagues here have always been motivated and driven to achieve every step of the way. The company has a well sense of direction and fairness to the employees. I was able to learn and grow as an individual as well as a professional. Its a great place to work!

The program is authentic, rewarding, challenging, and extremely rigorous designed to shape you into a Software Engineer in just 14 weeks. I was truly amazed by our generous benefits package, competitive pay, and full support while enrolled in the program. I highly recommend Smoothstack to anyone looking to get into IT and to any organization looking to hire talented and hardworking software gurus.

The program challenges you and brings out the best in you.It offers a great benefits package, but more than that, the good culture of the company, the harmony, team environment, and the support that you receive, make you feel very comfortable. Smoothstack is a family!I strongly recommend Smoothstack if youre looking to grow into your IT career, learn, and develop your skills.

Smoothstack apprentices walk in with a variety of backgrounds (self-taught coders, CS graduates, second-careers) and walk out as skilled developers with the industry experience needed to get to work. In my experience, you’ll do extremely well as long as you have the grit and motivation to put the work in.They took COVID-19 in stride, transitioning to fully-remote training quickly. They continue to place apprentices with clients who are on-boarding remotely.Compared to their competitors, Smoothstack is far superior at every level. The internal staff is kind and nurturing, and the trainers are extremely well-equipped industry-professionals who want you to succeed. (Also, bonus, they pay you more than other similar programs both in training and uponplacement... oh and the benefits are AMAZING!)If you’re left with questions and feel like you’re not finding answers, reach out to them!! There are endless opportunities for you to connect with someone who’s been through the program to find out for yourself. Truly a stellar opportunity for anyone wanting a jump-start for their tech career!

Smoothstack helped me bridge the gap between my computer science education and the skills that employers are looking for. I chose this program because I was unwilling to take on anymore debt to go thru a bootcamp or graduate school. Smoothstack pays you for the time you spend training. The program was challenging but the class sizes are small and instructors are very accessible. The program simulates an agile environment and encourages collaboration on group projects. I have had an amazing experience here. The staff at Smoothstack are friendly and professional. I have become very competent and confident as a full stack developer thru my time at Smoothstack.

I found Smoothstack when all doors were closed to me. I had graduated with a CS degree and couldnt find a job for about a year and a half after graduation and was driving a Uber to make ends meet. I had almost given up on a career in IT when I heard about this program.Initially I did not apply as I thought it was a bootcamp and I would have to pay to participate. It was only later when I researched more that I found that it was merit based. You actually get paid to learn and this leads to a full time job in 3 months.I was in the Java Dev Ops program and the training was intense as they simulated an agile environment where I was able to pick up coding skills while being exposed to a real time project. Its a very collaborative environment but to excel you also need to be driven and wiling to put int the hard work.I would strongly recommend both the program and organization! Its a great place to learn and build your career!

For those who are looking let me share my experience on Smoothstack as someone who recently went through their program and was placed.The agreement between yourself as a prospective employee is such that they will offer you training, direction, educational resources, and set up interviews and prep with their clients, and In return you work for Smoothstack as a contractor for 2 years, in my case starting at 55k with a 10k increase to 65k after one year. As someone with neither a college degree, nor programming portfolio, I personally consider this both a good and my best opportunity, and this is something youll need to consider when weighing your own options.To that end there is a lot of misconception that Smoothstack will just hand you a job as a result completing their program. Smoothstack provides you with all of the tools you need to be successful in landing a good job with one of their clients. That being said it is up to YOU to utilize them, and they will be more than happy to help you do so. I see a lot of entitled reviewers citing lack of training and quite frankly its ridiculous. If you intend to coast through the program doing the minimum and be placed into a cozy job, Smoothstack is probably not a good fit for you.If you relocate, the apartments are decent and the location is very nice. The office is clean, trendy, and is very open. I made good connections with many of the students in other batches there, as well as the staff who were extremely friendly towards all the students.As of July 2020 there are 2 batches, Java and MS Dynamics. I was in the dynamics batch. Anecdotally, the MS Dynamics batches seem to have an easier time finding clients. There is a big need for Dynamics developers, and Microsoft/.NET ecosystem devs in the government space right now, and that is likely where youll end up. Some of the devs in my batch are working with Dynamics 365 Customization, some writing custom front-end components with react, and others like myself on the .NET backend. The client and location are not up to you, however, each of us were given the opportunity to display our strength areas and placed accordingly, so thats something to keep in mind if you are leaning towards a certain area.The Java batch is much broader, so there is a lot more material covered, from devops and core java, to exposing it out and building a full blown web service with a JS frontend as well. It is a bit intimidating and not for the feint of heart, and my roommates who were Java batch often seemed to have their hands full, but if youre comfortable and eager to stay in the Java ecosystem there is a lot to be learned in their program.While my experiences was overall pleasant, internal communication between staff, instructors, and clients is not the best. I very often had to take things into my own hands and pester about course direction or client information. Theyre a new company so I am patient with them, but this is where Id reiterate that you have and should exercise the opportunity to take this into your own hands, be proactive with staff and instructors to ensure you are going in the right direction throughout the programs duration. It is very much a cooperative effort, and in both yours and Smoothstacks best interest to have you happily contracted.TLDR: While yes, Smoothstack is certainly not every college grads dream job, it IS a good opportunity for those who havent had success getting into the CS industry due to lack of education, portfolio, or interview skills. Each of these areas is addressed in the program and if youre willing to work for it they will facilitate you getting your foot in the door and starting your career.

Do not work for this company or get involved! This company will call you and have a take a test on Codility which is extremely difficult. The business model is that they will train you for the IT without much guarantee for a job after the training program.According to a reddit post, the OP from the post I linked gave a pretty good description of their shadiness: you make $8 an hour during the 3 month program and can be fired for any reason after having to move out to the DC area, and after the 3 months you arent actually guaranteed employment anywhere. The other big red flag is the complete lack of info about them online outside of their own site/social media and a fishy glassdoor review.

Great people.