Best Coding Certificates Pittsburgh, PA: Find Courses & Onsite Training

Learn More About Pittsburgh Coding Certificates

What is Coding?

Coding is simply writing instructions for a computer to follow. While computers will one day become self-aware and assume control of the world, humans today remain their creations’ masters, and are still in a position to tell them what to do. One way in which computers remain inferior to humans is in the languages they speak: while human (or natural) languages are rich in subtle ambiguities that can fuel double entendres for the delectation of other humans, computers have no sense of humor and need to be told exactly what to do in literally no uncertain terms.

Although, therefore, English, Estonian, Efik, or Ekoti simply won’t do for instructing computers, ECMAScript, Edinburgh IMP, Emerald, and, yes, one called just plain E are languages that were designed to allow human-to-machine communication. Computers have their own native language in binary code, i.e., very long strings of 1s and 0s, but writing instructions in binary code is hopelessly cumbersome and utterly impractical for even simple undertakings, let alone the kinds of programs that computers have to execute today. Programming languages are a middle-ground between natural languages and binary code, and vary in their proximity to one or the other. High-level languages are the ones that are most readily intelligible to speakers of human languages (or at least English), low-level languages are the ones that bear little resemblance to what their programmers employ when communicating with each other, and middle-level languages lie somewhere between the two. The first high-level language was FORTRAN from the 1950s. It remains in use today (chiefly for scientific projects) and has become enough of a household word to have lost its capitals (rather like EPCOT.) Over the course of the subsequent 75 years, hundreds of computer languages have been developed (as opposed to natural languages that develop of their own accord), with names ranging, literally, from A to Z[ed]. Neither of those is widely used today. Languages that are in use have names like Python, JavaScript, Java, C#, Ruby, Rust, and Go. And, just as Italian is the language of romance, these languages all have their preferred uses, although some have overflowed their linguistic levees and are used for purposes never envisioned by their creators.

Why Become Certified in Coding?

Barring a complete breakdown of technology and a return to the days of living in caves and hunting dinosaurs, computers are only going to assume more importance in the daily existence of homo sapiens, which means that there is going to be a need for homo sapiens who can run them. There aren’t enough people to write code, while there are reams and reams of code to write. The Human Genome Project, which wrapped up operations in 2003, mapped 92% of the human genetic code, and took three trillion lines of code to do so. That’s the longest computer program on record, and makes the 2 billion lines of code making up the Google genome seem like one of La Rochefoucauld’s maxims in comparison. Less lengthy is the Windows code base, which runs to 50 million lines, while a good standard estimate for the length of a contemporary app is 50,000 lines. That doesn’t seem all that long when compared to the Iliad and the Odyssey together, which come in at 27,803 lines, but someone still needs to write it.

People who write code are called either coders, or, if they’re involved more holistically with the process of creating software, software developers. There is a burning need for people who can perform both roles, one that is not going to go away anytime soon. Even the strides being made by AI today (they’re even using ChatGPT to debug code) aren’t going to make the coder extinct for another while yet.

There are basically two ways to become a coder: getting a four-year computer science degree (and a diploma) or signing up for a concentrated program that teaches you how to be a professional coder (and a certificate.) These certificate programs, often called bootcamps, teach the coding skills required for landing a job in the field. That they can do that in months rather than years is because they teach precisely what you need to know to get a job, as opposed to the more leisurely rounded curriculum you’d find in a four-year college program. Thus, you’ll be spared a great deal of advanced math, distribution requirements, and the otherwise inevitable five-page papers on Homer.

What You’ll Learn While Becoming Coding Certified

Since computers began communicating with humans, some 700 different programming languages have been invented, although programmers today tend to keep coming back to the same ones. The role of a bootcamp is to make you fluent in some of those. You’re thus not going to learn Rockstar (a programming language that creates programs that are also song lyrics) or Whitespace (another comic language that uses only whitespace characters, i.e., spaces, tabs, and newlines) as part of your certificate program, but you are going to learn an amalgam of HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and, maybe, Java, Python or C#.

HTML and CSS

Most coding bootcamps are going to begin by teaching you to use HTML (hypertext mark-up language) and CSS (cascading style sheets) to create web pages. Some bootcamps even relegate these two languages to pre-work modules or assume that you know how to use them already. HTML’s job is to get text and images up on the screen, while CSS is there to style the text visually. Although you use HTML and CSS to give a computer instructions, neither is a programming language, strictly speaking. You can find somewhat heated debates on the subject online as to the Turing completeness of HTML or whether CSS constitutes a programming language, and you may be puzzled why anyone would choose to die on either of those hills, especially as, if you’re new to coding, your commands in HTML and CSS are still writing code, and they’re most likely going to be your first experience of typing information into a code editor and finding out whether a computer will run it for you.

JavaScript

HTML and CSS are, in truth, inevitable, not as twins, but as triplets, as the language JavaScript (and it is a full-fledged Turing-complete programming language) is required to turn a static webpage into something dynamic that does things besides sit there and stare back at you. Virtually every web browser in existence comes complete with a JavaScript engine that allows it to run the JavaScript code necessary for such taken-for-granted phenomena as drop-down menus and shopping carts. Although that is the use for which JavaScript’s inventor, Brendan Eich, envisioned the language, it’s since expanded far beyond that into a language that today is used for both front and back end development (the parts that the user sees and the parts with which the client interacts, respectively.) Eich made up the scripting language for the Netscape web browser in ten days in 1995, at which point it was reverse-engineered by Microsoft into a scripting language for its Internet Explorer browser, which they called, not very originally, JScript. Soon, it became apparent that there was a need for a standard scripting language that would work across browsers, and JavaScript (under the guise of the European Computer Manufacturers Association’s ECMAScript) became that language. JavaScript is quite possibly the most popular language among programmers today due to its versatility and relative ease of use. It is also probably the most popular language on bootcamp syllabi, often to the exclusion of any of its rivals.

MERN Stack

One of the reasons behind JavaScript’s success is the so-called MERN stack, a collection of technologies and tools that let developers turn a scripting language into one that can build entire applications on its own. Stacks are generally configured from a database (since any application will eventually have data to store) and technologies for back- and front end development. MERN is no exception to this pattern. The name is an acronym for MongoDB, Express.js, React.js, and Node.js. Mongo is a non-relational database (a much more freely constructed type of database than the traditional sort) framework; Node is a runtime environment for building the back ends of applications using JavaScript; Express is a handy framework built on top of Node and makes programmers’ lives quite a bit easier; and React is the front end component, a code library that assists in the creation of user interfaces. Although MERN is the most popular JavaScript stack, there are others, including the ill-tempered-sounding MEAN stack that substitutes Angular, a more general-purpose front end library, for React.

Python

The programming language that rivals JavaScript’s popularity at the present moment is Python. It, too, was invented by one person, Guido van Rossum, who named his 1991 invention, not after the snakes that allegedly can dislocate their jaws so they can swallow their prey (that’s an urban legend; snakes just have freakishly flexible jaws), but after Monty Python, a very zany British comedy troupe that first came to notice in the 1970s with such dazzling creations as a three-and-a-half minute sketch that is nothing more than a prolonged riff on spam and eggs. In addition to a comedic pedigree few other computer languages can command, Python has its own philosophy, too. The Zen of Python states that “readability counts” in the code written in the language, and that “simple is better than complex.” While it is considered difficult to master, the first part of Python’s learning curve is more readily negotiable. When that is combined with the language’s adaptability to a multitude of purposes, Python is taught in a large number of bootcamps, especially those devoted to data science.

Java

Java is another high-level multi-purpose language that turns up on bootcamp curricula. Although the name suggests that Java would be some kind of a non-scripting version of JavaScript, the two languages actually aren’t related, and originate from different development companies: JavaScript was the work of Netscape, while Java was the child of coffee-drinking developers at Sun Microsystems. When JavaScript was released, Java was extremely popular, and someone had the extremely confusing idea to try and capitalize on the success of Java by giving the new scripting language a name that sounded like that of the earlier language. While you can do a lot with Java, it’s perhaps best known as the language of choice for developing apps to run on Android mobile devices. Although it’s not as readily graspable as JavaScript, it’s still comparatively easy to acquire, which explains why it appears on a lot of the more polyglot bootcamp syllabi.

Coding Industries in Pittsburgh

Few cities have as fabled an industrial history as Pittsburgh. And few cities’ histories demonstrate the dangers of concentrating on a single industry the way Pittsburgh’s does. In the late 19th century, thanks to Andrew Carnegie and his eponymous steel company, and to the abundance of primary materials (iron ore and coal) in the area, the region became literally a hotbed of steel production. Carnegie eventually sold his steel works to J.P. Morgan in a transaction that made the rich even richer (Carnegie walked away from the deal with the equivalent of $300 billion in today’s money), and U.S. Steel was born. U.S. Steel grew to become a world leader in metallurgical production, and, by the time the World War II effort came around, was producing more than half the country’s steel needs. Where there’s a boom, there’s eventually a bust, and, in the 1970s, both due to national insecurity and international imports, the Pittsburgh steel industry collapsed. People left the city in droves, and Pittsburgh became a byword for the downturn taken by heavy industry in the United States.

Pittsburgh, however, managed to rise phoenix-like from the ashes of its steel furnaces. The city focused its attention on newer, lighter, high-tech industries, and, thanks to the presence of institutions such as Carnegie Mellon University (originally founded with a few of Carnegie’s millions), ultimately emerged as the country’s preeminent center for the development of robotics and artificial intelligence. The city is also a leader in the future of space exploration and defense innovation, including the efforts of companies such as Astrobotic that chose Pittsburgh, rather than Florida or Texas, as their home. The result is a vibrant city that regularly receives accolades such as 24th most fun city in the United States, best city for Christmas 2023, and, far more importantly, consistently ranks as one of the most livable cities in the United States. Indeed, Forbes even ranked Pittsburgh as America’s Most Livable City for reasons that range from opportunities for higher education all the way through to a trio of major-league sports teams that includes a football team named for the city’s smokestack past.

The modern industries encountered in the city, beyond robotics and space, include advanced biotech companies (Bayer’s global headquarters are located in Pittsburgh, and the company manufactures a whole lot more than aspirin tablets today), cybersecurity firms (for which an entire ecosystem is in place, from universities to incubators), and a fair amount of software enterprises at various stages in their development. Pittsburgh is emerging as an important tech player, although it has yet to garner a moniker that starts with Silicon. All these high-tech activities are constructed out of code. Even getting Pittsburgh to the moon is going to require coders as well as robotics experts. The sky seems literally to be the limit for the formerly so earthbound Steel City.

Coding Careers in Pittsburgh

Coding is such a multi-purpose activity that coders can find work almost anywhere computers are present. It’s the one discipline that brings all branches of computer science and research together. Coders can accordingly wear a number of hats, including Full Stack Developer, Front-End Developer, and, for those who specialize in the language, JavaScript Developer. For the purposes of the Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics gathered by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the job categories that cover coders most closely are Computer Programmers (those whose jobs call primarily for writing code) and Software Developers (who are further occupied by other aspects of software creation.)

According to 2022 OEWS figures, there were some 8,000 Software Developers active in the city, and their average salary was in the $105,000 to $110,000 range. Computer Programmers were fewer in number (they are for the overwhelming majority of American cities): there were about 1100 of them, earning an annual salary that lay between $90,000 and $95,000. Those numbers are markedly below the national averages for both occupations, which are $133,000 and $103,000 approximately and respectively. The manageable cost of living in Steel City (roughly equal to the national average, with housing 7% lower than that and bananas priced at $3.63 a bunch) compensates to a degree for the lower numbers. The whole story of Pittsburgh’s tech sector hasn’t been written quite as yet, and these numbers are sure to fluctuate as start-ups mature and as investment continues to be made in the city’s silicon- rather than steel-based future.

Should You Pursue a Certificate or Certification

While the words certificate and certification are very similar and often can be used interchangeably, the words aren’t interchangeable in today’s HR-speak. You get a certificate in coding by completing a certificate program (or bootcamp): it’s what you get to show for your efforts, and it’s what does duty for a diploma in a non-degree awarding context. Certifications are a different matter, and result from passing a third-party-administered examination that is designed to test your knowledge of a particular language or technology.

Both certificates and certifications will play a role in your career as a coder. Your bootcamp certificate is going to play a key role in finding your first job, as you obviously won’t have a great deal of experience to show as yet, and you’ll, therefore, have to depend more upon your education to get noticed by hiring managers. Junior developer roles are designed for people with more education than experience, and, thus, your certificate is one piece of the tricky puzzle that is getting past an Applicant Tracking System. Certifications become more of a factor when it comes to more senior positions for which the hiring manager is going to expect some tangible proof that you’ve learned the language in-depth and on the job. That notwithstanding, there are entry-level certifications available in some of the better-known languages for which your bootcamp may prepare you. The International JavaScript Institute offers certifications of this sort. While not essential for getting a JavaScript coding position, logic dictates that certification won’t hurt your chances of getting one.

Top Coding Certificate Programs in Pittsburgh

A bootcamp or certificate program will give you the knowledge you require to get a position as a software developer or coder. You’re going to discover quickly that there is no shortage of courses from which to choose. Pittsburgh differs from most markets in that it offers live, in-person instruction, which should be welcome news if you feel you learn best when you’re sitting in a classroom. If, on the other hand, you don’t want to have to commute to a school five days a week for upwards of twelve weeks, you’re probably better suited to an online bootcamp that will let you choose the place you study, which is guaranteed to have more comfortable chairs than you’ll find in a brick-and-mortar school. Online courses can be just as live as in-person ones: they keep to the same schedules, and you have the same degree of contact with your instructor. They can also be self-paced and consist of video lessons that you can take in whenever you want, but which don’t allow you to raise your hand when you don’t understand something. You’ll have to weigh these differences and determine which teaching modality suits you the best before you select your bootcamp.

Academy Pittsburgh: Developer Bootcamp

Academy Pittsburgh’s 12-week learn-to-code program has a number of features that set it apart from most other bootcamps on the market. It is, first of all, an in-person course that takes place at a brick-and-mortar North Shore school on South [Allegheny] Commons, a stone’s throw from the Andy Warhol Museum and an even shorter one from the Children’s Museum. The school is part of the Nova Place corporate complex, which includes a pair of restaurants and a built-in branch of Coffee Tree Roasters. Academy Pittsburgh is actually one of the few bootcamps that does not offer online training, a further distinction that sets it apart (if not necessarily ahead) of the pack. Its most unusual feature, however, is its curriculum. It doesn’t even begin with HTML and CSS, although it does get to them in week seven, together with JavaScript in a module devoted to web programming. Instead, the bootcamp starts out by teaching basic computer programming operations using the C# language. It follows that by teaching students the same things, only in Ruby. This interesting choice of languages was motivated by where demand lies in the Pittsburgh area. Other technologies covered are MySQL databases, Git, the Microsoft Model-View Controller (MVC), the Ruby on Rails framework, and React. The price of the program is $10,000 if paid upfront, although the school has on offer an Income Sharing Agreement (ISA) that allows you to begin paying for the bootcamp only once you’ve obtained employment. (The terms and conditions are complicated; read them carefully before signing anything.)

Academy Pittsburgh participates in the Apprenti program, a Pittsburgh Tech Council initiative that seeks to match new talent with companies that will hire them and pay for their training. Prospective students can apply for the Apprenti program; if accepted, they’ll have an employer who will pay for their course of study, a stipend while studying, and a position waiting for them upon graduation.

Tech Elevator: Java Web Application Development Bootcamp and .NET Web Application Development Bootcamp

Offering bootcamps since 2015, Tech Elevator presents two different 14-week full-time bootcamps, one that concentrates on Java, and the other concentrating on C# with the .NET framework for developing Windows applications. The school teaches classes on the ground in Pennsylvania and Ohio’s main cities (including Pittsburgh) as well as live online to the entire continental United States. The Java program covers both client- and server-side programming, and includes databases with SQL and front end interfaces with CSS, JavaScript, and the Vue.js framework. The C# with .NET program’s syllabus is very similar, the chief difference being that the main programming lessons are in C#. Both curricula conclude with a two-week capstone project in which students work together to create a fully functional web application using what they’ve learned in the previous 12 weeks. The admissions process involves a preliminary assessment, a substantial application, an interview, and a further full-length assessment of the student’s ability to think algorithmically. Classes meet all day every day at the campus in Manchester. A part-time online-only version of the Java program is available as well; it involves 30 weeks of study, including four hours of lectures and pair programming per week, as well as a substantial amount of self-paced study. You can do the latter at places like Espresso a Mano in Lower Lawrenceville, Big Dog Coffee in Southside Flats, Tazza d’Oro Cafe in Highland Park, or, if you prefer beer to java to go with your Java, check out Bierport in Central Lawrenceville. Price of both versions of the program is $16,625. A number of third-party lending arrangements are available, including an ISA (income-sharing agreement) that, however, is not available in every state.

Students are issued a laptop and a fob for 24-hour access to the school’s premises for the duration of their program. Tech Elevator also puts students through the paces of its trademarked Pathway Program, which is its career services program that runs parallel to the technical course. The Pathway Program™ covers building an elevator pitch, developing a personal brand with a resume and LinkedIn profile, practicing interviewing techniques, and a number of workshops and assignments. The school may also offer Employer Matchmaking events that directly connect students with businesses in Tech Elevator’s network. Upon completion of the course., students in Pennsylvania receive diplomas rather than certificates.

Noble Desktop: Software Engineering Bootcamp

New York City is home to Noble Desktop, a school that has provided IT education since 1990. It offers a 20-week full-time Software Engineering Bootcamp that consists entirely of live instruction. The curriculum is built from HTML and CSS, then JavaScript with the MERN stack for front end development, and then Python with its Django framework for back end programming. In addition to 35 class hours per week, you will have to complete 10 to 20 hours of homework per week as well. The price is $10,995, and you’ll find a profusion of different financing options available. A shortened version of the Noble Desktop program that omits the Python and Django modules, the Full Stack Web Development program, is also offered; it is priced at $7,995.

You’ll find a bountiful selection of extras included with your Noble tuition. The Software Development Bootcamp includes 12 1-to-1 mentoring meetings that you can use for everything from classroom review to putting together an effective resume and portfolio. You can even use them for interview coaching. (Noble Desktop does not offer job-search services, however.) You’ll also get a free retake option that gives you a year to redo some or all of the course. Noble also records all the classroom sessions; you can consult them if you want to go over the day’s material for whatever reason. You’ll also get the choice of taking either the SQL Bootcamp or the WordPress one, by way of a bonus that will help round out your newfound coding skills.

Coding Dojo: Software Development Bootcamp Online

A branch of Colorado Technical University, which has specialized in business and technology degrees since 1965, Coding Dojo’s online bootcamp offering, the Software Development Bootcamp, can be taken either full- or part-time. The full-time version takes about four months to sew up, meets every day, and calls for 70 to 90 hours of work every week. The part-time version can be completed in as few as 18 and as many as 34 weeks. Coding Dojo’s curriculum teaches three stacks, the underlying assumption being that, the more languages you know, the easier it will be to learn further languages as your professional life unfolds. The bootcamp begins with an introduction to programming, HTML, and CSS. The three stacks covered are Python with MySQL and Flask; JavaScript with the MERN stack; and then a choice between Java and C# with .NET for the final four weeks of the bootcamp. The full-time program is taught entirely live online; the part-time version involves a considerable amount of self-study along with lectures three times a week. The price of the full-time course is $16,995. The part-time course offers the additional flexibility of studying one, two, or all three stacks; the price ranges from $9,995 to $16,995.

Capacious career services are included with Coding Dojo tuition. The program pairs students with a career services manager who not only assists with preparing resumes, GitHub portfolios, and LinkedIn profiles, but also guides them through the entire job-search process. That includes coaching for both technical and HR interviews, as well as salary negotiations. The career services department remains at the disposal of graduates for their lifetimes. Note that the school hosts virtual open houses, and makes several free educational resources available on its website.

General Assembly: Software Engineering Bootcamp

Recently linked with the Adecco Group, an international staffing and recruitment concern, General Assembly has been instructing its students in the way of the electronic brain since 2011. It delivers a Software Engineering Bootcamp, a full-time (only) 12-week online program that consists of live instruction, on-demand modules, quite a great deal of faculty-supervised daily practice, pair programming, and nighttime homework. GA makes after-hours teaching associates available, so students are never left to their own devices. The program starts off with 14 hours of asynchronous pre-work that introduces HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and basic programming concepts. The actual course fundamentally teaches full stack JavaScript with side trips to technologies such as Angular, Ember, AJAX, and even AI. The tuition for the program comes to $16,450. A medley of payment plans, third-party loans, and prepayment discounts is on offer.

A personal career coach works with each student starting from the first day of classes. The coach will help develop the students’ personal brands, polish their GitHub portfolios, prepare them for behavioral and technical interviews, and generally assist with the job search process. Students also get to participate in hiring panel discussions and to hear talks from guest speakers. Graduates are entitled to discounts on further GA courses as part of the school’s lifetime of learning philosophy.

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Full-Stack Web Development Certificate Learn The Skills Guarantee™

Key Insights

Learn More About Pittsburgh Coding Certificates

What is Coding?

Why Become Certified in Coding?

What You’ll Learn While Becoming Coding Certified

HTML and CSS

JavaScript

MERN Stack

Python

Java

Coding Industries in Pittsburgh

Coding Careers in Pittsburgh

Should You Pursue a Certificate or Certification

Top Coding Certificate Programs in Pittsburgh

Academy Pittsburgh: Developer Bootcamp

Tech Elevator: Java Web Application Development Bootcamp and .NET Web Application Development Bootcamp

Noble Desktop: Software Engineering Bootcamp

Coding Dojo: Software Development Bootcamp Online

General Assembly: Software Engineering Bootcamp

Pittsburgh Coding Courses by School

Software Engineering Bootcamp (Online)

Data Science Bootcamp (Online)

Full-Time Software Engineering Immersive (Online)

Developer Bootcamp

Pittsburgh Coding Corporate & Onsite Training Noble Desktop

Coding Training Locations in or Near Pittsburgh

Pittsburgh Careers & Salaries Related to Coding

Related Classes

Pittsburgh Coding
Corporate & Onsite Training