Coding classes help women change career

Last summer, Chandra Floyd came to the realization that her dreams carried more weight than the fear of failure.

She quit her job as a special events manager at the Detroit Institute of Arts after 11 years to enroll in the eight-week Experience IT boot camp with Grand Circus, a Detroit education institute that provides a bevy of tech-training programs before connecting its clients to software jobs.

Floyd, 37, of Detroit, had already taken most of the boot camps that Grand Circus had to offer, including a basic 10-week software coding class and an iOS development course, all while working at the DIA. She also enrolled in basic coding courses with Sisters Code and Girl Develop It Detroit — both tech-oriented groups geared toward women — to get a feel for whether she could see herself in the tech world.

"I kept thinking 'Can I really do this?' " she said. "But I wanted to be in IT more than I wanted to be afraid."

Floyd said it didn't take long to realize she was a nerd — it just took awhile to realize that a career change would be worthwhile.

And Floyd is not alone.

Hundreds of people have taken advantage of the dozens of Detroit organizations that have popped up in the past few years that teach anyone interested how to master the ropes of coding and software development.

Classes through Grand Circus run from $500 for the more basic courses to $5,500 for the intensive boot camp.

Armed with her nerd badge and new skills, Floyd started a new job as a quality assurance tester for Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan on Sept. 15. There she's responsible for monitoring and evaluating the company's software to make sure it operates as it should.

"From the minute they start in our class they're learning or working on a project individually, with some group projects as well," said Chioke Mose-Telesford, community programs director with Grand Circus. "It's hard work but it's a warm environment, seeing the conversations and bonds people have; it's like a college freshman dorm room."

Marlin Page made the leap into the tech world, leaving a job that was, well, pretty dead.

As a mortician-in-training, Page took a 13-week coding class. Today, she's the founder of Sisters Code, which, along with other such institutes such as Girl Develop It Detroit, are offering weekend workshops teaching HTML and CSS. Unlike Girl Develop It Detroit, Sisters Code classes are for women only.

Page, 45, says her most-popular class is a "Weekend Website Warrior." Women come in for eight hours a day over a weekend and are exposed to basic coding, then JavaScript and crafting a website. The course costs $155. Participants have been as young as 12 and as old as 67.

"I've had judges, attorneys, multimillion-dollar business owners and someone working at Goodwill take this class," Page said. "You get a group of diverse personalities and magic happens. This isn't just about coding; it's empowering women."

To learn how to code is to learn a complex and varying language, Page said, but it's one you could make an incredible living doing.

Amy Cell, senior vice president of talent enhancement with the Michigan Economic Development Corp., said most in the IT field make $70,000 to $80,000 a year, with software developers usually making more than $80,000 a year. She added, however, that someone with a degree in computer science from a top university could expect to make six figures.

She said there are currently 1,100 available jobs in IT statewide, and more than 750 of those are within 50 miles of Detroit.

"Anybody that has a background in Android or iOS development — they have their pick of the job field," Cell said.

Floyd, who also has a bachelor's degree in interdisciplinary sciences, she saw her salary jump 25% with her new tech career at Blue Cross Blue Shield.

Girl Develop It Detroit, a chapter of the national Girl Develop It organization based in New York City, has garnered more than 1,300 members — 10% of them men, said Nicole Rodriguez, a co-developer for the organization.

Girl Develop It has classes ranging from introductory-level courses to classes teaching JavaScript, PHP, iOS development, Android development and Wordpress.

Rodriguez said the group's most-popular class is basic HTML and CSS coding in a weekend at a cost of $80 to $100.

"Here in Detroit, it didn't seem like there was anyplace to take a class like this: something inexpensive and a low level of commitment; nothing existed for men or women," Rodriguez said of the chapter, which opened in 2012. "We fill this need where people can spend just a weekend learning to code."

Because of the high demand for software developers in Detroit, some companies are even paying students willing to make a career change.

Detroit Labs, an Android and iOS app development company, has taken to hiring a team of about 12 apprentices for three-month periods and paying them "far above minimum wage" while providing full benefits, cofounder Nathan Hughes said. Each apprentice class focuses on a specific facet of software development.

Out of the two apprenticeship classes the company has seen so far, it's hired 20 junior developers. Its third apprentice class closed applications earlier this month.

No experience in software development is required, Hughes said. Hughes simply asks that applicants come with the ability to work as a team, handle stress and provide constant and overwhelming energy to the projects they work on.

"This program and this career is a non-stop exercise; something is always broken and you have to fix it," Hughes said. "That's an exhilarating environment for a lot of programmers; these are people who succeed at an endless supply of challenges."

Matt Chowning was a lawyer at a small corporate litigation firm in Rochester Hills before he signed on to be a Detroit Labs apprentice for iOS development last March. He's now an Android app developer for the company.

"It's been a great experience here; it almost seemed a little too good to be true," said Chowning, 33, of Clawson. "The lawyer in me kept wondering where the catch was, but it's all just fun."

Girl Develop It Detroit:www.girldevelopit.com/chapters/detroit

Classes typically held at Atomic Object, 1407 Randolph in Detroit

detroit@girldevelopit.com

Grand Circus:www.grandcircus.co/

1570 Woodward, Detroit

313-338-2780

Sisters Code: http://sisters-code.org/

269 Walker St., Suite 631, Detroit

313-575-4078

Detroit Labs:www.detroitlabs.com/

1520 Woodward, Suite 600, Detroit

313- 473-0607