As the region continues to garner a reputation as a growing tech hub, a coding bootcamp is expanding to DFW to help train the next wave of technology professionals.
Called Tech Elevator, the Cleveland-based technology skills and education provider is opening its first location in the Lone Star State in Dallas, kicking off its first remote 14-week cohort on June 28.
“Our goal is to help the people that live in and around Dallas qualify for one of the many in-demand opportunities popping up left and right in their own backyard,” said Anthony Hughes, co-founder and CEO at Tech Elevator, in a statement.
Tech Elevator was launched in 2015, and has since opened locations in Ohio, Chicago, Charlotte, Detroit and Pennsylvania. The company’s programming spans from intro to programming courses and API building to project-based code reviews. It also boasts a job placement rate of around 92 percent.
The company was acquired late last year by Pittsburgh’s K12 Inc. for an undisclosed amount, combining the entities under the name Stride Inc.
Hughes said the company chose Dallas due to the “thriving” tech business community in the region, as well as the demand for tech talent. While the number of tech job openings in the region declined last month, adding about 1,580 new positions, DFW still remain in the top ten metros with the most tech-related job postings in the country, according to a CompTIA and its analysis of job-posting data from Burning Glass Technologies Labor Insights. The region has gained other recent accolades, including being ranked No. 2 on the CompTIA Tech Town Index and coming in as one of the top ten “hottest” startup cities in the U.S., according to Inc.
Over the years, Tech Elevator’s strategy has been to identify and expand into cities that are growing but not yet known as major tech hubs. In Dallas, the company joins a number of other coding schools, including Codeup, which expanded to DFW early 2020, and Linux Academy, which was acquired by Austin’s A Cloud Guru in late 2019.
Tech Elevator’s move to the region also comes as Dallas’ unemployment rate remains more than twice as high as it was at this time the previous year, according to the most recent data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Hughes said that, coupled with the rise in high school students exploring non-traditional paths to employment also played a part in Tech Elevator’s move to Dallas.
“One of the biggest challenges facing the city is how to ensure that the local Dallas community has access to the same opportunities as recent transplants, and that’s a problem we at Tech Elevator intend to solve,” Hughes said.
