For many service members, exiting the military to enter the civilian workforce can be stressful and even difficult as they leave a stable career behind. The workforce they are entering is likely very different than they one they knew before entering the service.
One boot camp program called Operation LevelUp aims to make that transition successful by using the final phase of active duty to teach soldiers the skills they need to enter the in-demand field of software engineering.
“We’re not only teaching them these technical skills, we are teaching them how to learn, how to solve problems, and we’re helping them along the way,” says Matt Elledge, a former U.S. Army Colonel who is director of military affairs at tech ed company Galvanize, which runs the boot camp.
The company embeds itself on bases including Fort Hood and four others to offer an 18-week immersive program to active-duty personnel about to exit the service. Elledge says software engineering skills were chosen because of the high demand from all kinds of industries.
Openings for software and application developers top the list of hiring activity among tech positions, according CompTIA, a trade group tracking tech employment in the U.S.
“They are needed everywhere and that’s why there are so many job openings in this field. “I don’t see software engineering ever going away,” says Elledge. And the majority of the jobs don't require four-year degrees.
These jobs are projected to grow 8% between 2019 and 2029, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, with a median salary of $77,000.
Increased Demand for Software Engineering Skills
“In the last few years, there has been a correlated increase in demand for software engineers,” says Dave Walters, CTO at Hired, an AI-driven marketplace matching tech talent to companies.
Software engineering can include different roles depending on skill level and job functions. Web developers that focus only on web applications, explains Walters, is one specific role falling under the broader software engineering category. He says web developers are in high demand especially for candidates skilled in the coding languages of Python, Java and JavaScript.
Software engineers not only build software for web applications but also for desktop and mobile applications, explains Walters, lists Redux.js, Google Cloud, AWS, and React.js as the highest in-demand coding skills. For coding languages, he says Go and Scala top the list.
As for education levels required for these jobs, a traditional university degree is not always needed. Hired finds that while 45% of software engineers have a computer science degree, and 22% have a relevant college degree, another 23% are self-taught, and 10% went to a boot camp program. While the cost of coding boot camps can vary, the average cost is estimated at $13,584.
Operation LevelUp
28-year-old Army veteran Zach Yusef learned his software engineering skills during his final months of active duty at Fort Hood, Texas through Operation LevelUp.
His tuition was paid through the U.S. Veterans Affairs program and one year after leaving the military, Yusef says, his salary has roughly tripled from his military paycheck.
“It was honestly life changing for me,” says Yusef. He calls it a “no brainer” for him to decide to learn skills for a career in software engineering. “Careers in tech are offering the highest starting salary for people who did not have any experience and it was fun,” he adds.
Yusef also describes the coursework at Operation LevelUp as intense. Days are typically 10 hours long and he describes daily coding challenges, individual work, and team work.
Matt Elledge, director of military affairs, Galvanize (Photo: Galvanize)
Galvanize’s Elledge says coursework starts with providing programming fundamentals in web development. It then delves into software engineering and works up to a final project with everyone working as a team much like they woul...