It’s not just for Java anymore: Zip Code Wilmington launches data engineering training

More news from Zip Code Wilmington, which has undergone several changes over the past few months: Starting in February 2020, there will be a new data engineering and analytics bootcamp offered along with its popular Java coding bootcamp.

The expansion is in response to the organization’s corporate partners, who have expressed interest in access to graduates with various data engineering and analytics skills, as well as the findings in the new Tech Impact report “Delaware Thriving: The Case for Investment in Delaware’s Tech Talent Pipeline,” which points to need for talent with a variety of skills, including data analytics.

“[Our partners] are very, very interested,” said Kris Younger, Zip Code’s director of education. “They’ve told me if you can start creating talent with those types of skills, we will definitely be hiring.”

Major Zip Code partners include Bank of America, Capital One, M&T Bank, CSC, Comcast and JPMorgan Chase, among others. The program will include:

• Data engineering methods and processes
• Database setup
• R programming
• Intro to Python

“A lot of businesses of all sizes and shapes are starting to do a lot of data science,” Younger said. “They use a lot of the data that’s generated and they build complicated models that try and predict patterns — if you buy this brand of coffee, maybe you’d be interested in that brand of sheets and so forth.

“That actual data pipeline needs to be handled by a group of people currently called data engineers, and there’s an awful lot of data engineering and analytics that goes on to basically supply and clean up all of the data that flows into an organization so it can then be transformed into something like a recognition engine or other form of machine learning,” he said.

The tuition structure for the new data engineering and analytics bootcamp will remain the same as the school’s coding bootcamp: The cost is $12,000, with students paying $3,000 in upfront tuition costs. Upon completion of the course, if the student receives and accepts a job with one of Zip Code’s corporate partners, the remainder of their full tuition costs are paid back by the corporate partner. Students who do not receive an offer from a corporate partner, or decline such an offer, are responsible for a remaining balance of $9,000 (maximum).

Zip Code will be holding an “Ask Us Anything” information session on Wednesday, Nov. 6, from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. at its HQ at The Mill in Wilmington. Click here to register.

But wait, there’s more: In addition to expanding its program, Zip Code will also be expanding its space. By the time the data engineering and analytics bootcamp kicks off in February, it will have additional space at The Mill, in the space currently occupied by TrafficCast. (TrafficCast is expected to remain with The Mill, according to its founder Robert Herrera, though its new location is yet unannounced).