{ The Rithm Blog. }

# Working From Home: A Guide to Success

For years, it's become increasingly common for developers to get to work from home a few days a week or even full-time, as members of "virtual" teams. During the current novel coronavirus pandemic, many tech firms are adopting WFH policies to allow their staff to practice "social distancing", where people limit their contact to fewer people, to help reduce the spread the COVID-19 virus. Many of our readers may be at companies already doing this or will adopt this soon.

March 16, 2020

How To Get Good At Coding Challenges

Learning to code is a lot like learning an instrument. Before you can play a song, you need to learn how to make the notes, then you can put the notes together to make a song. Before attempting whiteboarding challenges it's important to first learn the basic fundamentals. Regardless of the language you are learning you will need to master the following:

March 04, 2020

Avoid Recruiters: Embrace Cold Email

Have you been excitedly sending out your polished post-bootcamp resume and cover letter, but are disappointed with the response rate? Maybe you have sent out over 100 applications but you have only received automated rejection emails? Unfortunately, this scenario is all too common, but it’s easily remedied by using the cold email strategy:

February 26, 2020

4 Strategies for Whiteboarding Success

So you've been practicing JavaScript for a while, and you're feeling confident in your problem solving skills. You land an interview, and you spend hours solving technical challenges. But when you get in the room with the interviewer, your confidence evaporates. You clam up, your nerves get the best of you, and you walk out of the interview feeling shaken.

February 16, 2020

8 Questions You Should Consider Before Becoming A Software Engineer

Have you ever been curious if you have what it takes to become a software engineer? We recently launched a 6-part event series for women, to answer exactly that. Our lead instructor Alissa has been manning the helm of this initiative, and took some time to craft this blog post to identify the top 8 questions successful developers considered before learning to code:

February 13, 2020

Intro To Modern React - Preview

Over the next 6 weeks, Rithm School is offering a new format of full-day coding workshops, available both in-person and remotely. In this blog post, workshop instructor Michael Hueter will give a sneak preview of a topic covered the upcoming Intro to Modern React workshop.

February 05, 2020

Alumni Spotlight: Orlando Wong

Before joining us for Rithm’s 11th cohort, Orlando worked in research at the UCSF Cytogenetic Lab after getting his BS in Environmental Toxicology from UC Davis. He had the opportunity to use Python and R while working in the lab, which set off his interest in learning to code. Orlando decided to study Python and Java at CCSF, where he met his future cohort-mate Aaron and ended up joining Rithm School. Orlando took some time to discuss his student experience, job search, and advice he has for anyone looking to get into software engineering:

January 28, 2020

React Hooks! - useEffect

Welcome back to the Rithm School series on React hooks. In this blog post, I'll introduce useEffect, a very useful and potentially confusing new hook in React. useEffect can be used in place of three lifecycle methods: componentDidMount, componentDidUpdate, and componentWillUnmount. The details of how useEffect replaces all three methods is what we will be exploring in this blog post.

January 14, 2020

It’s 2020: Where are the Women in Tech?

2019 is coming to a close and our staff conversations at Rithm are taking on a more reflective quality: how did we do this year, both as an organization and as individuals? Where did we excel and, more importantly, where could we improve? From curriculum and culture, to the impact of our space and the overall student experience, everything is fair game.

December 20, 2019

Implementation Intentions: The Secret Weapon to Achieve Your Goals

It’s that time of the year again, where everyone is making ambitious goals they will most likely never follow through with. You have probably read about how to set SMART goals and how writing your goals down makes you more likely to achieve them. I recommend both of those strategies, but don’t stop there. Do you set yearly goals? Do you achieve them?

December 12, 2019

An Introduction to GraphQL - Mutations

Welcome! If you haven't seen our first GraphQL tutorial on queries, make sure to check that out first. In this post, we'll talk more about GraphQL and focus on mutations. We previously saw how to access or read data using queries, now let's see how to change or "mutate" information using mutations! Make sure that you have a fundamental understanding of GraphQL and queries before continuing on.

December 02, 2019

Student Interview: Jennifer + Luke on Company Projects

At Rithm, we believe that one of the best ways to prepare students for jobs as web developers is by giving them opportunities to work on real-world projects. Working on personal projects can be fun, but working in a team or on an existing code base gives students insights into the day-to-day challenges of a developer that they might not otherwise learn. Our 13th cohort is wrapping up their company projects with JumpOffCampus, a new platform forging partnerships between Universities and safe, secure, off-campus housing. Jennifer Ma and Luke Nemy have been working on the same team using React, Ruby on Rails, and Google Maps API to incorporate a live map and rental listings with filters based on a user’s selected location. We asked them to share their experience working together with us:

November 07, 2019

React Hooks! - An Introduction

Hooks are here! At Rithm School we are constantly reviewing our curriculum and making sure that we are up to date on the latest technologies. When we notice a new technology or technique rising in popularity (and also becoming a common question that interviewers ask), we have the ability to quickly incorporate it into what we are teaching.

October 22, 2019

An Introduction to GraphQL - Queries

Welcome! If you're reading this, you have probably been told that GraphQL is one of, if not the best thing since the internet. Or maybe you've just been working with REST for so long that you think there's a better way. Regardless of where you're coming from, we'll be introducing what GraphQL is, how it acts as an alternative to REST, and how to get started with queries.

October 15, 2019

Alumni Spotlight: Sandy Cao

With a background in fine art, proudly toting her senior superlative of “Most Artistic”, Sandy Cao didn’t consider herself the typical candidate for a coding bootcamp. She hadn’t worked a full-time job in nearly 3 years (as a business analyst at a fintech startup in New Jersey) before joining us as a student at Rithm School. However, during her time with that job, she taught herself SQL and the thrill of completing code stuck with her. Sandy took some time to discuss her job search, her experience at Rithm, and her wisdom for other women looking to break into the tech scene.

October 10, 2019

Student Interview: Pair Programming And Company Projects

At Rithm, we believe that one of the best ways to prepare students for jobs as web developers is by giving them opportunities to work on real-world projects. Working on personal projects can be fun, but working in a team or on an existing code base gives students insights into the day-to-day challenges of a developer that they might not otherwise learn. Our 12th cohort is wrapping up their company projects with Numero, a modern financial platform that Members of Congress, Senate, and Presidential candidates rely on to manage the $4.5 billion in payment processing, accounting, and compliance for their political campaigns. Gabe and Joanna have been working as a pair, as well have Andrew and Chantal. We asked them to share their experience working together with us:

September 03, 2019

Getting Acquainted With A Production Code Base

At Rithm School, company projects have started. If you’re not familiar with company projects, it’s a three week portion of our curriculum where students work with instructors and outside companies on a real production code base. It can be a challenging time for both students and instructors as we’re all working together on problems and code that we’ve never seen before. But the challenge is definitely worth while. It’s a great tool for teaching good coding practices and how to work with a team. By the end of the three weeks, the students have a lot more confidence that they can contribute to a production code base.

June 18, 2019

Staff Spotlight - Zach DeRossette, Career Coach

We’re excited to have Zach DeRossette join the Rithm team as our Career Coach! You can find him meeting with and supporting our students and alum throughout their job search. Here we learn a little bit more about Zach, his role on the team and his advice to job seekers (including spend less time applying online!)

May 22, 2019

Student Interview: Lena Ryoo on Company Projects

May 15, 2019

Debugging Like a Scientist

When you're first learning how to code, error messages can be intimidating. Because of this, beginners sometimes ignore error messages entirely. Instead, they will favor more of a "guess-and-check" approach to fixing bugs. While we don't encourage this approach at Rithm, we recognize that in the context of solving small, isolated problems, it can be successful. But when it comes to working on larger applications, professional engineers need a more sophisticated set of tools to fix problems.

April 29, 2019

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