Sneak Preview of Ironhack’s Brand New Bootcamp in Barcelona

If you asked a linguist what language to learn 10 years ago he might have said Chinese, Spanish or Arabic, but today that’s all changing.

Due to our digitalized world increasingly intertwined with rapidly advancing technology, the most effective way to truly communicate as broadly as possible is through the ability to both understand and write code.

HTML, CSS, Javascript, Objective-C, Xcode, you name it, they’re all a part of the programming language family connecting the world through technology.

Spain’s fast-growing Ironhack bootcamp wants to connect you to these languages and a whole new world of programming, and they’re doing it from Barcelona.

New Barcelona Campus

On Friday, May 20th, Ironhack Barcelona is opening their brand new campus in the city – together with Moritz and a blasting hackshow.

Outside of Barcelona, Ironhack has offices in Madrid and Miami and so far they have graduated more than 500 students who now have the ability to code.

The demand for Ironhack’s programs in Barcelona has grown, and they quickly needed a bigger and better space to house their bootcamp – which now is finished and ready in Poble Nou, Barcelona’s designated 22@ innovation district and hottest tech neighborhood.

Campus manager in Barcelona, Marc Collado, is more than excited about the new space in the city:

“We envision our space as a hub in the intersection of education, technology and startups. We want our space to become the home for new ideas and innovation happening in Barcelona.”

There have been an increasing amount of hacker schools established in Barcelona over the last couple of years and, due to it’s growth and performance, Ironhack is becoming recognized as one of Europe’s leading coding bootcamps.

#IronBUS

However, Ironhack is not only opening a new campus, their vision is much larger than that.

That’s why they’re inviting teams with a great idea for a startup to join their #IronBUS.

The bus will grant five lucky teams to take part in the ride from Madrid to Barcelona, where they will work together with experts to develop or realize their idea.

When the bus arrives in Barcelona, they’ll pitch their ideas to the 200 people at the new Ironhack bootcamp, filled with entrepreneurs, investors, and other startup experts.

So, if you think your idea is good enough, remember to apply before the 16th of May.

All eyes on the screen

Even though Ironhack promises new skills and new opportunities along with this new knowledge, it does not come free.

Its fast-paced learning environment is designed to provide years of coding education in the most efficient way possible.

This means long hours at the campus, but also homework and pre-requisite assignments. It’s not for everyone, but it is for those who want to learn some very relevant coding skills in just a matter of weeks.

Both their official testimonials, Course Report, Switchup and Quora posts reveals the environment at Ironhack:

“You should be prepared for an intensive workload, starting four or five weeks with the “pre-work” materials before the bootcamp starts and be aware that this is a total retreat: forget work, family, friends and immerse in the bootcamp 10-12 hours every day, if you want to profit from the experience. If you do, you’ll be rewarded with new skills and/or better job opportunities”, says an ex-Ironhacker on Quora, and this is only one of many similar statements.

Work possibilities

What kind of possibilities actually exist after a short course of 8 weeks (they also offer longer part-time courses)? Most people today spend years in university and business schools to gain the training and education necessary to become what they aspire to be.

Is it really possible to actually land a job after 8 weeks at the Ironhack campus? Apparently, the answer is a resounding YES.

Ironhack itself says they have 94% job placement rate.

After graduating from Ironhack, their student have gone on to work for companies like Google, Rocket Internet, Telefonica, Cabify, El Corte Ingles, etc, all with the skills they’ve learned in the program.

Barcelona manager Collado says there’s a couple of things that’s different at Ironhack compared to other similar schools:

“The main thing that sets Ironhack apart from other schools is our community and the way we are connected with the industry and the ecosystem. We have been active in Barcelona for almost two years now, and graduated more than 150 students that are already working in Barcelona startups.”

Before you graduate, Ironhack provides career coaching, job preparation and networking events to help you meet your future co-workers.

Struck a nerve

Ironhack was founded in Madrid in 2013 by Ariel Quiñones and Gonzalo Manrique in the midst of the economic crisis in Europe.

Although jobs were scarce in general, the demand for IT professionals with coding skills was booming, and already 700.000 coding/IT jobs were sitting vacant throughout Europe.

Now, three years and over 500 alumni later, it’s safe to conclude that the co-founders struck a nerve.

The American campus in Miami was opened in 2015, as the founders saw a high demand for coding jobs in a startup ecosystem that was outpacing the supply of technical talent.

Collado explains how Ironhack is part of the Barcelona startup ecosystem:

“A key part of the Ironhack experience is our community. We want to be home for all the cool initiatives happening in Barcelona, so a lot of people comes to us in order to collaborate and co-organize events. In this regard we are hosting the AngelHack Barcelona, the SIC during Sonar and plenty of initiatives we love to be involved with.”

It’s unknown where the next Ironhack campus will be launched, but after watching their vision unfold with their new campus in Barcelona, there’s no doubt there will be more of these campuses springing up around Europe.