Join our tight-knit community of coaches, mentors, and mentees that are all working towards one common goal. Level up to become competitive for all entry-level and intermediate level roles.
Outwit your competition, many of whom are CS/SWE graduates and experienced software engineers, to land your dream job.
Bootcamps and related services might teach you how to build personal toy projects or how to grind obscure leetcode questions.
We teach you the software engineering, technical fundamentals, and unnegotiable habits that employers expect you to bring to the table, in addition to building your ability and confidence to excel working in a fast-paced and modern software engineering team.
If you're trying to build a house, would you build it on quicksand? At least we wouldn't.
That's why we focus so much time to teach you SWE fundamentals. How to produce clean, readable, and efficient code. How to efficiently work with a complex git/PR workflow. How to effectively clean and test code, and set up a CI/CD pipeline. How to effectively exchange feedback in a PR process and cross-pollinate knowledge through pair programming. How to ask good questions and break past technical roadblocks.
We strongly believe that having such a foundation and being able to confidently demonstatre it is much more important than learning about the latest greatest features in NextJS v42.159. We also think most employers will agree with us on this.
To the surprise of most of our mentees, what they struggle with most is building and demonstrating core, unnegotiable habits expected of software engineers - not picking up new technical skills.
Very few employers today are willing to hire engineers that don't know how to write clean code, create solid PRs, navigate complex git workflows, architect for reliability and scalability, collaborate with diverse teams, and accurately scope and deliver work reliably and on time. Employers, especially today, typically do not have the time to teach you these habits as you onboard.
We help you identify and quickly improve on habits you either lack or struggle with, through rapid iteration and learning through failure - so that you don't have to struggle during interviews, and especially on the job.on what's important.
Being a great software engineer means being an indispensable team mate, project contributor, and communicator.
The most complex problems you'll run into as an engineer are often related to people, not systems or code.
We help you gain experience working both sync and async with a fully distributed team, following full modern agile methodology (Agile/SCRUM/Kanban). In additional, you will gain experience architecting projects from scratch through PRDs and RFCs/ERDs. Learn how to manage up, down, and across.
This might sound a bit overkill, and maybe it actually is. However, speaking from experience, employers today usually don't have the patience to teach you all of this from a blank slate.
Learn the most in-demand skills that employers expect you to know on day one. More importantly, build the CS and Software Engineering foundations to be able to acquire these skills on your own.
Employers care about your ability to build distributed, scalable, and resilient systems on modern cloud infrastructure. They want to know that you can hit the ground running.
The boom times of 2022 are behind us. In 2024, most employers don't have much interest in your ability to build to-do or calendar apps, so why would we spend any time on that? We dedicate our time to solidifying your technical foundations, teaching and applying CS and Software Engineering fundamentals that you will be using every day on the job - the same fundamentals that come up on interviews.
Employers in this job market usually don't have the luxury of spending six to twelve months to slowly train and ramp you up.
You're expected to have experience building and maintaining scalable and reliable distributed systems, usually on the cloud. In addition, employers expect you to be able drop right into a matrixed or multi-disciplinary team following modern software development practices and full SDLC.
Instead of wasting time working on personal toy projects, we are laser focused on equipping you with the skills that employers are looking for today, so that you're able to show that you can be a net positive contributor on day one.
All the learning we do culminates in translating the results into interviews. From a job search perspective, there is not much point in learning something if you cannot demonstrate or sell that skill or experience during an interview.
Depending on your foundations and previous interview experience, we will spend upwards of 33% of the time on setting you up to dominate your interview loops. We do pre-interview preparation, mock interviewing, interview debriefs, group interview practice, and somuch more multiple times a week.
The way we see it, we're not trying to "survive" interviews. We're trying to leave no doubt in the interviewers' minds that you are the obvious right hire.
If you want to learn how to interview at the same level as software engineers with several years of experience, we teach you advanced techniques you won't find anywhere else. You'll be going through many interviews, making massive improvements each step. Join us, we've got lots of work to do.
We build everything on AWS, but the concepts and patterns that you'll learn will be applicable to all cloud platforms. Learn core AWS services can be used to design and build a cutting-edge full-stack distributed system, from system diagram to implementation.
We don't just "code". We build real, living systems, and place special emphasis on proper testing, CI/CD, safe deployment strategies, and post-deployment monitoring and observability. You know, the parts that employers expect you to be very comfortable with.
Employers don't put much value on personal projects - they want to evaluate your experience working in a real team environment. Well, it's good that we're fully Agile - sprint planning with Kanban, ticket scoping, standups, retrospectives, pair programming, advanced git workflows, and intense PR reviews.
No PHP. No RoR. No Angular. We purposely use and help you learn a cutting edge stack - the same stack that many employers are explicitly looking for. Oh, and we also work with LLMs/AI models.
Instead of grinding leetcode and system design questions, we help you learn DS&A, system design, and software engineering fundamentals through actually embedding the concepts in the code you ship.
Employers expect you to integrate quickly integrate into their environment an start shipping. We help give you the experience to make that second nature, and teach you how to sell and prove your experience in interviews.
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We're not a bootcamp. We don't teach you how to build toy projects. We're not a leetcode grinding assembly line. We're not trying to somehow teach you a four year CS curriculum in 8 weeks. In fact, if you're looking for any of the above, you can find great resources to help you on Youtube - for free.
We're a highly focused and intensive community built around one goal - to help our mentees become extremely competitive in today's job market and land great software engineering jobs. If Virgl seems so out of place, this might be why.
Our mentees usually go through 5 to 20+ interview loops before accepting their final job offer. This might sound a bit crazy, but there is logic in this madness.
You probably realize that just having technical skills is not enough to get a great job today. You have to be able to sell your skills to employers, and convince them why you're the best out of hundreds of applicants. We take this principle to a whole other level, and use it as our guiding principle for both learning and building.
Receive intensive 1:1 coaching from industry veterans with decades of experience, to rapidly develop fundamentals that often take software engineers years to master on their own.
Work 1:1 with our mentors - all of whom Virgl alumni currently working in industry, that know exactly what you're going through because they've walked the same path.
Code reviews, design discussions, mock interviewing, peer teaching sessions, and working as a team on the capstone.
As a tight-knit community, we help each other look out for opportunities, whether that's an internal job posting, networking opportunity, or event to help you grow your network.
We continuously practice advanced interview techniques 1:1 and in small groups to ensure that you'll be ready to outdo your competition, even in your first interview loop.
We schedule additional sessions to help you prep for upcoming interviews, and debrief interviews you just completed. More importantly, we continuously share our learnings with each other.
We actively pair program throughout the week, whether it's for a mock technical interview, learning a new concept, or collaborating on a capstone ticket.
Many of our alumni that are now working in industry return to support our community as mentors, guest lecturers, and speakers.
The program doesn't end when you start your job. We run regular fireside chats and ad-hoc coaching sessions to help you succeed in the long term.
Whether you're facing a roadblock, a fork in the road, or just got a last minute invite to an interview, we are there to help, immediately.
Our mentors are specifically selected only from our alumni, because they best understand the challenges and path you're facing. They've been in your shoes, and you can lean on them to guide you through your journey.
We take great care in helping you set up a personalized plan towards your end goal, taking special care in making sure that you're always on a sustainable pace while making steady and measurable progress.
Work as a team to architect, build, and deploy scalable distributed systems on the cloud.
Help each other get ready for the big day through mock interviews and interview debriefs.
Support each other's growth through peer-driven teaching, design feedback, and code reviews.
You have solid work experience and technical foundations, and mostly need to fine-tune and master advanced interviewing skills.
The plan that most mentees choose. Work with us to build a solid technical foundation, consistently land interviews, and master interviews.
If you are on a tight timeline or need help with a specific subset of issues during your job search, chat with us to explore setting up a custom plan.
Maybe! 😁
Some of our most successful mentees only have a high school diploma. While some old-school employers are very rigid about post-secondary education or specific majors, we frankly don't care.
Whether you're self-taught, graduated from a bootcamp, studied arts history, or have a formal CS education, we seek mentees that have key qualities beyond their educational background. If you love solving problems with your technical skills, have a thirst for knowledge and learning, are highly motivated, a good communicator and team player, and actively strive to continuously improve yourself - this is the program for you.
Having said that, this is not the right program for you if you've just started to code. We'd still be happy to chat with you and give you any guidance or advice that would be helpful in your journey, and also help clarify at what point this program would make sense for you.
You might have heard that we're very selective about the mentees we work with. That's absolutely true. However, we are not picky about your background - we don't really care!!!
In a nutshell, anyone that is seeking a structed path towards landing their dream job in tech, supported by experienced mentors from the industry and a very tight-knit community.
While our mentees come from a wide variety of backgrounds and different stages in life, we've observed some common patterns of those that are very successful. This is of course not an exhaustive list, but if you meet some of these criteria, chances are you're the type of mentee that would benefit exponentially from what we do in the program:
- Did complete a four year software engineering or computer science degree
- Do not have the time and resources to invest four years to acquire such a degree
- Is excited about technology, and is self-driven to learn and adapt new skills to build out their toolset
- Thrives on feedback and is seeking to iteratively improve on their technical foundation and software engineering skills, as well as communication and teamwork skills
- Is not afraid of tackling new and unfamiliar challenges
- Has a growth mindset and is always looking to improve and grow
- Is pursuing a role in tech not (just) for the obvious benefits, but also because of their strong interest in writing high quality code and building systems to solve real world problems
If this sounds like you, please schedule a chat with us!
There's no secret trick (that every recruiter and hiring manager hates).
Many of the shortcuts and tricks that are embellished by other programs might have worked in 2021/2022, but they are no longer relevant in today's job market - the worst job market for tech in 20 years.
We believe in working smart and working hard. When your competition consists of hundreds to thousands of other applicants, many of whom have a CS degree or relevant work experience, it's important to be realistic about the challenge ahead. You outcompete the competition simply by being smarter, hungrier, and more prepared during the job search and interview process.
In a nutshell, we will help you acquire the most relevant and marketable skills in an environment that replicates what you'd find at work. We help you fine tune your job search strategy to gain an edge on the competition. Then, we teach you how to sell your strengths and distinguish yourself from the competition. Finally, we coach you into being able to interview at a level that most software engineers take five to ten years to reach, highlighting your ability to hit the ground running. Make no mistake, this takes a lot of work. We're looking to work with potential mentees that are excited by this challenge.
Our process is built on and continuously fine tuned from the hundreds of live interviews, online assessments, and take homes that our mentees have experienced. All of this is built on the experience of being on both sides of the table for 1000+ software engineering interview loops ranging from junior to principal levels.
Everything! 🚀
Our mentees are working in software engineering roles focused heavily on frontend engineering, backend engineering, data engineering, mobile engineering, systems/infra engineering, and of course - full stack engineering (the most popular choice 😅).
We don't have a strong opinion on what you want to pursue, and as a result, we cover all these tracks in depth. We're able to accomplish this through running a very small and tight-knit program, where we're able to keep the bar very high and afford to highly personalize our program components to your goals.
Having said that, we will spend a lot of time getting to know you, and understanding your strengths and weaknesses. This is especially important if you're changing careers from a different field. While many mentees initially think they only have a choice between frontend and full stack engineering roles, we've worked with them to find a path that makes sense both in the short and long term. There's a broad and exciting world out there with many additional opportunities and career paths.
To be clear, we're not trying to replace a formal education in computer science where you can choose to specialize over four or more years. If you have the time and budget for that, we'd always recommend taking that route. However, unless you just finished high school, this might not be the most realistic option.
Yes, and no. 🤔
Yes, in the sense that everything we do is meant to help you beat out the competition in your interview loops.
No, in the sense that while we do spend a significant amount of time of learning "The Art of Interviewing" and putting it to practice in 1:1 and small group sessions, that is not even close to all we do.
However, what makes us really stand out is how nearly all of the work we do is meant to increase your edge in interviews. Our strategy for preparing for, executing, and debriefing interviews could stand on its own as a top-notch interview prep program. That, in addition to how much time we spend on mock interviews in 1:1 and group settings already makes us unique. However, we don't believe just focusing on interview prep is nearly enough in today's job market. That might have worked in 2021/ 2022, but it's not a good strategy for today's reality.
In the end, in comes down to where you stand when you join the program. We've worked with mentees with significant work experience that mostly needed to build up and polish their interview and communication skills. We've also worked with mentees that were naturally strong communicators, but needed a lot more work on their technical foundations. As you can tell if you've been going through this FAQ carefully, this is a highly personalized program. We'll figure out what exactly you need to work on, in what order of priority, and allocate time and resources accordingly. Then we keep iteratively fine tuning this until you land a great job.
No. In fact, we despise leetcode! 😡
Leetcode is a tremendous waste of time and braincells. There, we said it. In fact, you can quote us on it. It is absolutely not even remotely a good predictor of a software engineer's ability to succeed on the job.
However, it is a necessary evil, as many companies (roughly one third of all interview loops our mentees have experienced) still throw leetcode problems into their interview loop. Therefore, we will spend the necessary time to help you build a solid foundation in data structures and algorithms, and spend plenty of time practicing leetcode problems together. Can't say we love this part though...
If you only need help with Leetcode, this is not the program for you. We'd be happy to point you to free (or severely overpriced) resources that primarily focuses on the leetcode grind.
You can think of the program as three parallel paths - optimizing your job search, building a rock solid technical foundation, and mastering advanced interview skills.
How much time you spend on each is highly dependent on your strengths and weaknesses, and could vary significantly across mentees. Your program coach and mentor will help you iteratively fine tune and prioritize your focus and time allocation to maximize your progress, as you rapidly make progress throughout each track.
However, even with the personalized approach, we do meet multiple times a week as a group to discuss and learn about deep dives into foundational technical, computer science, and software engineering concepts. In additional, you will be continuously meeting and pair programming with your team to build complex distributed systems on the cloud, across the entire stack, to gain hand-on experience with the skills that are most in demand by employers in today's market.
However, just working on technical skills is not going to get you a job in today's market. That's why we'll actively help you balance your technical growth and learning with helping you convincingly sell your acquired knowledge and skills in interviews, as well as with all the steps you'll need to take to get interviews in the first place.
Whether you join our program or not, we strongly believe that you should treat your job search as a full-time job.
What that looks like if you're a part of the program is 30-40 hours a week. This includes everything we work on, whether it's part of our tight-knit group of mentors and mentees, or async on your own. It also includes the time you'd spend on searching for jobs, applying, networking, etc. We've helped many mentees that have successfully balanced the program while working part-time jobs.
If you have a full-time job, this will be much harder to balance, unless that full-time job is already very technical in nature. We've helped mentees successfully in this situation, but generally do not recommend it. However, if your full-time commitment has some flexibility, you should still chat with us.
It never ends! 😱
You're in the program for as long as it takes to find a great job. For some mentees, that takes 2 months, for others it might take 8 months. There is no set end date, and we're here to fully support you until you have found a job you're ecstatic with. For as along as it takes.
This is a massive and risky commitment for us to stand by, and it's also why we have a rigorous selection process. If we see your potential, we will help you achieve it, whatever it takes.
Even after you land your job, we're here to support your career growth. We've helped many of our mentees navigate the onboarding process, negotiate salary bumps, and even land promotions within 6-12 months of joining. This is the "lifetime benefit" that you get as part of this program, and we have a tight-knit and supportive community to support your long term career growth. We're always here to help if you need it.
