The Slow Path for Studious Learners to a Career in Software Development

Structured Curriculum from First Principles

Our program is about slowly building up mastery of fundamentals, so you understand how higher level abstractions truly work from the bottom up. Our goal isn't to teach you how to use React or Rails, but to show you how to construct accurate mental representations of first principles in order to tackle fundamental engineering problems. Our goal isn't to help you find a job, but help you launch a career. Our goal isn't to teach you to code, but to teach you how to deconstruct and problem solve like an engineer.

By Software Engineers for Future Software Engineers

Launch School was founded by experienced software engineers. We know what it takes to not only break into software, but to build and grow a career as an engineer in the software industry. Our objective is to increase your lifetime earnings by millions of dollars. This is what makes Launch School unique and why we focus on the long-term results of a career. Our curriculum was created by software engineers for future software engineers — you.

I have been programming with various programming languages for close to a decade and I have never felt more comfortable with the fundamentals. I feel like working through the back-end portion of the core curriculum has filled all the knowledge holes left behind by my self-education.
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Joshua Leath
The flexibility of setting my own schedule has allowed me to stick with it, and something I really appreciate. Balancing my learning with life's other demands has been manageable, while still feeling like I've made ample progress in learning fundamentals. The structure of Launch School has allowed for that.
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Katherine Beck
The way Launch School has created courses and used the course assessments to push for mastery level learning has been a real help. I absolutely feel like I have a full and deep understanding of the JS language and the concepts that can really transfer to a lot of other programming languages now.
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Justin Gustafson
It was fun being able to put the front end concepts together to do cool, interactive things. Really find that all the foundation building we go through before is necessary and it pays off.
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Josh Nelson
Whenever I take a chance on Stack Overflow to help me understand something, I'm often surprised at how little others understand at a fundamentals level, and how much people rely on resources like SO for the most basic information. I typically end up feeling like I'd rather just go to the docs. So grateful to LS for giving me the confidence to go get the information I need from the right place.
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Wendy Kuhn
Thinking of solving problems as a process rather than a hack/slash type of activity has been very helpful for me. In the past, I've always been able to come up with a solution to a problem eventually, but trusting the process has made it much more efficient and I think has prepared me to solve more difficult problems in the future.
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William Baker
"We're one of the oldest and largest coding schools in the world."

Our Learning Goals

The key to unlocking higher level understanding and skills that last a career is focusing on fundamentals. We designed our curriculum with the following learning goals.

  • Fundamentals first, fundamentals throughout
  • A focus on learning things that don't change
  • Learn slowly and deliberately
  • Learn to be proficient, not just build awareness
  • Learn to understand problems, not solutions
  • Learn in a circular fashion

Our students love us, and if you are committed to building a career in software development, you will too

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    Sienna Wood
    Denver
    Software Engineer

    Experts always return to fundamentals because they are the foundation on which everything else is built. Launch School’s core program embodies this principle by emphasizing mastery of fundamentals through purposeful individual study.

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    Steve Kolock
    New York
    Front-end Developer

    I got a different role making significantly more than twice what I had been making as a 'web specialist', putting me firmly in six-figure

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    Letladi Sebesho
    Johannesburg, South Africa
    Full Stack Developer at Co-Foundy

    This programme opened possibilities for me that would have taken me years to reach

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    Sunny Beatteay
    New York City
    Software Engineer

    From the first glance, it was apparent that Launch School had been founded by industry veterans. I have never encountered a curriculum more in-depth and rigorous

A Serious Training Curriculum That's Designed to Launch a Career

Core Curriculum

Mastery of Fundamentals

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Capstone

Launch Your Career

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Complete the Core Curriculum courses and pass their assessments, and you'll have mastered the fundamentals. Participate in our Capstone Program, and you'll launch a career.

The Proof is in the Results

The average starting salary for 2024 Capstone graduates is

$115,766

(See Results & Outcomes for more details.)

Our graduates have been hired by industry leading companies and some of the most competitive startups

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Start our preparatory courses now for free. When you're ready for the real courses, it's just

$199/month

Continue reading about how our pedagogy works and why we're able to produce such amazing results. This is how we're different. You should really read this.

Our Pedagogy