Updated in 2023
- What does CareerFoundry do?
- Who is CareerFoundry for?
- What does CareerFoundry cost?
- Ratings and reviews of CareerFoundry
- Alternatives to CareerFoundry
- How does CareerFoundry compare to Pathrise?
What does CareerFoundry do?
CareerFoundry is an online bootcamp that helps people learn the technical skills necessary to land a job as a UX designer, UI designer, web developer, or data analyst. The immersive bootcamps cover design fundamentals and the student’s choice of specialization. For beginners, CareerFoundry offers introductory courses in UX design, UI design, front-end dev, and data analytics. For advanced designers, they offer 3 different skill courses. The options are: voice user interface design, UI for UX designers, and front-end development for designers.
CareerFoundry’s immersive bootcamps use a project-based curriculum, which emphasizes portfolio building. Students work 1-on-1 with a tutor who assists with technical questions and a mentor who supplies job-hunting resources. Also, they can connect with their peers through the course Slack channel.
CareerFoundry’s recorded lessons are self-paced. Therefore, participants can finish the program in 4-5 months working 30 hours per week. Alternatively, they can spend up to 9-10 months working at least 15 hours per week. The UI design program takes 360 hours to complete. Students enrolled in the web development track and UX design track should expect to spend 420 and 600 hours to complete their respective programs. On the other hand, advanced courses take about 120 hours to complete. Students should expect to work at least 15 hours per week for 8 weeks.
The UX fundamentals course includes 8 exercises meant to introduce students to design thinking. Similarly, the intro to data analytics course includes 10 exercises, which cover creating, organizing, finding, using, and visualizing data. Both courses can be completed in 1 month by working 15 hours per week. But, students can take up to 2 months to finish the exercises. Each student also participates in 2 calls with a career mentor throughout the program and receives individual feedback on each exercise.
Who is CareerFoundry for?
People with no experience in UX/UI design, web development, or data analytics but are looking to move into these roles could benefit from the online bootcamps offered by CareerFoundry. Alternatively, the advanced courses can help designers with previous experience transition into a new speciality.
What does CareerFoundry cost? How much work is involved?
Tuition for the CareerFoundry programs in UX and UI design are $6,555 upfront. Students can also choose to do 9-10 monthly payments of $550-$600 after an upfront payment of $1400-$1,500. The web developer program tuition is $5,225 or 7 monthly payments of $600 plus $1,300 upfront.
The UX fundamentals course costs $690. Students who go on to enroll in the UI design, UX design, or web development bootcamps receive a $590 tuition credit. Tuition for the intro to data analytics course is $690. Advanced courses in voice user interface design, UI for UX designers, and frontend development for designers cost $1,900 for students who pay upfront. Students can also pay $800 upfront and make 2 monthly payments of $600.
Before applying to the bootcamp, CareerFoundry recommends taking their short, free courses in the topic of choice. These courses include 6 daily lessons that each take around 15 minutes to complete. There is not a lot of information online about the CareerFoundry application process.
Ratings and reviews
The reviews online of CareerFoundry are generally positive. On CourseReport, students said that they learned a lot from the UX design, UI design, and web development bootcamps, though some did not think that the career coaches provided adequate job-hunting assistance. One grad mentioned that he benefited immensely from the instructors and the community.
Students on SwitchUp felt that the UX design, UI design, and web development bootcamps were helpful for creating a portfolio and jumpstarting a design career. One grad said that his UX design bootcamp was “super informative”. Here, they noted that “some of my fellow CareerFoundry ‘classmates’ got internships and even careers” after finishing the immersive program.
Alternatives to CareerFoundry
If you decide not to enroll in CareerFoundry, there are a number of alternative bootcamps and online resources that can help aspiring product and user experience designers.
- Students interested in taking online self-guided or instructor-led product design courses can check out DesignerUp. Learn more about DesignerUp in our review.
- Aspiring designers can consider Designlab. This online bootcamp teaches the necessary skills to land a job as a UX designer. Read more about Designlab in our review.
- HackDesign sends weekly design lessons right to your inbox for free, which can be a useful resource for aspiring and current product designers.
- Similarly, UX Pro Academy has courses for beginners as well as more experienced people. Or, consider Beginex, Design Sprint School, and Memorisely, UX design bootcamps with part-time courses.
- GrowthX Academy is an online bootcamp with courses in growth marketing, UX design, and sales and business development.
- One of the most well known bootcamps is General Assembly. They offer full-time, part-time, and 1-day courses on a variety of topics like software engineering, data science, UX design, digital marketing, product management, and more. Read more about General Assembly in our review.
- Likewise, Prime Digital Academy and University of Arizona Bootcamps have full-time and part-time courses in UX design and software engineering.
More alternatives
- edX is one of the largest online learning platforms. They have courses from top universities like Harvard and MIT as well as big tech companies like Microsoft. Learn more about edX in our review.
- You can check out Udacity and Springboard. These are online educational platforms that students can use to brush up on the basics or advance their current tech skills. Read more about Udacity and Springboard in our reviews.
- Similarly, Coursera, Udemy, Learn UX, Treehouse, Interaction Design Foundation, and Pluralsight are online learning platforms with thousands of courses in a variety of topics.
- Students can also consider Kenzie Academy. A full-time tech bootcamp, Kenzie offers in-person and online courses in 2 tracks: software engineering & UX design and front-end engineering. Learn more about Kenzie Academy in our review.
- Or, they can look at Bloc and Big Nerd Ranch. Both cover web dev and design, but Bloc is online and Big Nerd Ranch is on campus.
- As tech bootcamps, Thinkful, Helio Training, V School, UX Design Institute, and BrainStation have tracks in product design and other topics.
- Students located in the Bay Area or looking to work in Silicon Valley can check out Tradecraft, which has tracks in product design, growth marketing, engineering, and sales.
- Similarly, Miami Ad School and Avocademy have design courses where students can build portfolio projects.
How does CareerFoundry compare to Pathrise?
CareerFoundry is a bootcamp and online resource with courses for people who are interested in learning the skills to become a product designer or web developer from scratch. In comparison, Pathrise fellows should already have some background in the field they are interested in. This is so that they can participate in and fully benefit from our technical workshops, where we provide a specific curriculum based on questions they will see in their interviews.
Pathrise helps you land the best possible job. Our mentors have years of experience on both sides of the hiring table. Fellows receive 1-on-1 support every step of the way. The workshops and personalized sessions focus on technical and behavioral interviewing, as well as resume and LinkedIn optimization, portfolio building, cold emailing and reverse recruiting lessons, and negotiation guidance.
Our program is flexible, with only 2-4 hours of sessions per week and 1-on-1 sessions that can be scheduled whenever job-seekers need them. The Pathrise income share agreement means that we never require upfront payments or deposits and fellows don’t pay anything until they start working at a new job they love.
Pathrise is a career accelerator that helps students land their dream job in tech through 1-on-1 mentorship. If you are interested in optimizing your job search, join Pathrise.
Apply today.
