Coders unite
Startups join together to offer boot camp for mobile apps
Two of New Mexico’s high-flying startups, Cultivating Coders and Pixegon, have joined forces in a new private venture to offer the state’s first brick-andmortar boot camp for mobile apps. Cultivating Coders, which offers training in underserved communities for web and software developers, joined Rio Rancho-based coding company Pixegon in December to create the Parallax Code Academy LLC. The 12-week boot camp aims to turn students, working people and transitional veterans with little or no coding experience into junior-level IOS app developers for Apple and Mac devices.
Those are high-wage jobs in strong demand today, said Cultivating Coders founder and President Charles Ashley III.
“We’re concentrating on people who either had or have careers who want to learn to do something new,” Ashley said. “These are highly sought-after skill sets.”
A global explosion of mobile devices is pushing app development to the forefront of the coding industry, and qualified programmers are in short supply, said Pixegon founder and CEO Brandon Trebitowski. That includes in Albuquerque, where many companies must seek developers from out of state.
“Albuquerque needs a mobile app boot camp to train people,” Trebitowski said. “We’ve already had an overwhelming response from people interested in joining.”
Parallax differs from other local training programs, which focus on general web and software development. Most schools do include some mobile app training for Android devices. But Parallax focuses solely on mobile app development specifically for Apple and MAC.
“It’s a steeper learning curve than for web development,” Trebitowski said. “It requires a lot of expertise, and it commands high salaries if you know what you’re doing.”
CNNMoney’s new 2017 list of the 100 best jobs in America placed mobile app developers as the No. 1 job today, commanding a median salary of $97,100.
The course costs $8,950. Average tuition for the nearly 100 coding schools in the U.S. today is $12,147, according to Course Report, a website that allows students to rate schools.
The first boot camp starts in March at Cultivating Coders’ new office space at the Simms Building Downtown at 4th Street and Gold Ave. Parallax hopes to offer five classes a year.
The new joint venture was a natural fit for Cultivating Coders and Pixegon, two fast-growing local startups.
Cultivators launched in December 2015. It graduated 55 students last year, and it expects to train 150 this year.
Pixegon, a comprehensive coding business that launched in 2012, reached $1.5 million in revenue last year, up from $1 million in 2015. It was included on the Journal’s Flying 40 list of fast-growing technology companies with under $10 million in revenue last June.