Like many other people, coffee drew Aspen James to the Pacific Northwest. It was a managerial role at a coffee company—not necessarily a dream job, but a good opportunity in a new city.
After five years, James knew it was time for a fresh start. Friends recommended looking into programming, something that James had tried before without much success.
“I tried a couple of online courses before, and they 100 percent did not work for me,” said James. “So, I was a little bit concerned that it would turn out the same way.”
James tried Flatiron School’s prep courses, and found they were were interesting and engaging. And the school’s Learn.co dedicated teaching platform made online learning easier.
“We dove right into programming, and that was really rewarding for me,” said James, currently enrolled in Flatiron School’s online software engineering bootcamp. ”I got to see how things worked early on and it kept me engaged.“
Based in New York, Flatiron School has already helped thousands of students start their software engineering careers. The coding academy continues to expand with a new campus in Seattle that will be located at WeWork 1411 4th Avenue.
It’s the sixth new campus since Flatiron School was acquired by WeWork in October 2017 and the first on the West Coast. Flatiron School’s other campuses are located in Brooklyn, Houston, Atlanta, London, and Washington D.C..
The opening of the Seattle location is just one recent development at Flatiron School. It also acquired Designation, a Chicago-based design education school. The move, according to Flatiron chief executive Adam Enbar, was to satisfy the growing demand for digital designers.
Classes at the Seattle location, which begin in early 2019, will include Flatiron School’s signature software engineering immersive course. The Seattle campus will also be the first one outside of New York City to offer a data science immersive career-change course.
Seattle’s tech history goes beyond just Microsoft and Amazon. With innovative companies in the city and the surrounding area needing tech talent, Flatiron School will help satisfy the incredible demand.
“Seattle has done a lot in the last 20 years to build a tech ecosystem, but it’s still just the tip of the iceberg,” said Noam Mintz, director of expansion at Flatiron School. “We definitely want to be a part of that by opening a Flatiron School in Seattle and teaching software engineering and data science. We can be a part of the next iteration of tech growth in Seattle.”
James is excited to be a part of the inclusive tech community in Seattle.
“I think Seattle is an interesting place for tech because the tech scene here feels way more diverse than what I think of as ‘tech’ traditionally,” James said. “It’s been really exciting to see all sorts of people working in tech in Seattle.”
