LaunchCode is a non-profit organization that trains people to work in technology, free of charge. It is supported in part by company and foundation grants. It was founded in 2013, in St. Louis, Missouri by Jim McKelvey, who co-founded Square, a payment processing company, and moved it from St. Louis to Silicon Valley to find employees. McKelvey founded LaunchCode to help people from his hometown find work in tech. LaunchCode offers courses. More than 6,000 people have taken the organization's courses, which include:
is LaunchCode's part-time evening flagship course with curriculum developed to put you on the path to obtaining a job in tech. In a supportive classroom environment with in-person mentoring from instructors, teaching fellows and local developers, students learn foundational programming concepts in JavaScript before moving on to a skill track focused on either Java or C#.
CoderGirl: LaunchCode's education program for everyone who identifies as female was originally created as a meetup by women to lift up other women in tech. Students choose one of seven 24- or 45-week specialized skill tracks that lead to an apprenticeship job program.
is a 14-week, full-time course taking a deep dive into in-demand technologies and skills. Thanks to the smaller class size, each student will have access to more personal, hands-on mentorship and individualized support from our instructors. In addition to gaining the technical skills needed to start your career, Immersive CodeCamp will include a series of career workshops designed to cover all of the additional things employers will be looking for.
is a career readiness and project course focused on getting learners with new coding skills through the challenging last job-readiness phase of their pre-apprenticeship learning journey.
is a free, self-paced online program developed to introduce curious individuals to computer programming and help them determine if continuing on to build the fundamental skills necessary to pursue a career in tech is right for them. Discovery aims to break down barriers by bringing education pathways directly to people in their communities.
LaunchCode also offers apprenticeships: full-time, paid positions with partner companies. More than four out of five apprentices convert to permanent employment at their company in a median of 12 weeks. More than 80% of LaunchCode students do not have a four-year computer science degree. In 2019, 56% of students identified as people of color and 49% identified as female. After being placed into a permanent position, the average LaunchCoder more than doubled their previous salary.[
