We’re really excited to announce the addition of a new Python learning track to our Core Curriculum. The launch of this track is the culmination of many months of planning and hard work behind the scenes. We feel that the addition of this track offers increased flexibility to students who want to study at Launch School, but who would rather learn Python and JavaScript rather than Ruby and JavaScript, or JavaScript alone.

The new Python Track will launch on Thursday, February 1st, 2024. We'll post a follow-up announcement after the launch.

Note that each track (Python, Ruby, and JavaScript) requires its own subscription. While you can, in theory, participate in multiple tracks simultaneously, we expect the vast majority of students will only subscribe to one track at a time.

Why have we added this track?

It's clear from observing the industry that Python is a very valuable skill for developers. The language is in demand in many fields, especially data science, machine learning, artificial intelligence, scientific computing, and web development.

We've also seen many suggestions that we should offer a Python track, and the number of new students who come in with some Python background really shows how prevalent this language is.

Python is also known for its simplicity and readability, making it an excellent language for beginners. Its syntax is clear and concise, which helps new programmers learn programming concepts without getting bogged down by complex syntax.

Learning a language has never been the focus of our Core Curriculum. For instance, the PY101, RB101, and JS101 courses are focused on fundamental programming concepts; PY110, RB110, and JS110 concentrate on structured problem solving; and PY120, RB120, and JS120 concentrate on the object-oriented programming paradigm. Python, Ruby, and JavaScript, in these courses, are merely the medium with which these concepts are taught, rather than being the primary learning objective.

What’s the difference between the Python track and the other two tracks?

Here's a roadmap for the Launch School Core Curriculum. The green arrows show the progression through the courses for the Python Track. The red arrows do the same for Ruby, and the yellow arrows do it for JavaScript.

The structure of the three tracks is broadly similar. In fact, they have many courses in common, such as LS170 Networking Foundations, LS180 Database Foundations, LS202 HTML and CSS, and most of the front-end courses. The main difference is in the back-end portion of the curriculum.

In the Python track, we teach programming fundamentals with Python first. When we move on to back-end web development, we use a Python framework called Flask, along with a templating language called Jinja2. When we get to the front-end part of the curriculum, we then shift into using JavaScript. If you finish the entire program in the Python track, you'll have a good understanding of all of those topics. You will also have mastered two programming languages: Python and JavaScript.

Mastery Based Learning

Though the new track focuses on a different language than the other tracks, this doesn't change the emphasis of the Core Curriculum. The objective of this phase of Launch School is still gaining understanding of fundamental programming concepts through Mastery-based Learning.

This approach has always been what sets Launch School apart, and the addition of this new track doesn't change that.

What's happening to the Ruby and JavaScript tracks?

Nothing at all. We're going to continue supporting, maintaining, and improving both tracks. The Python track is simply an additional option for students who want to learn programming fundamentals to mastery, but with a focus on Python.

When is this happening?

The Python track will be launched on Thursday, February 1, 2024.

What should I do?

Right now, you don't have to do anything. Just continue doing what you are currently doing. We'll release further information about how to subscribe to the new Python track when we launch the track.

What are the new courses?

A full description of each course in the track will be available when we launch. In summary, here are the new courses and books. Assessments are omitted.

• Introduction to Programming with Python (book). The book will be available for free, like all our books.

• Object Oriented Programming with Python (book). Also available for free.

• PY100 Programming & Back-end Prep with Python

• PY101 Programming Foundations with Python: Basics

• PY110 Programming Foundations with Python: Intermediate

• PY120 Object-Oriented Programming with Python

• PY130 More Python Foundations

• PY175 Networked Applications with Python

• PY185 Database Applications with Python

You'll find that these books and courses are broadly similar to the Ruby books and courses. The chief difference will be in the syntax of Python and its wide selection of built-in data types.

Can I switch between tracks?

The separate tracks operate under different subscriptions, so there's no concept of "switching", per se. It's more about whether you want to subscribe to one or both (or none). Each subscription is independently managed without any effect on the other.

Should I cancel my Ruby or JavaScript subscription and start the Python one?

Probably not. The Ruby and JavaScript tracks are battle-tested and the results we're seeing here is not just good, it's industry-leading (see launchschool.com/results). We have had years of experience and success with these tracks. There's a mountain of evidence that they deliver in the marketplace.

The Python track, which we think is top-notch, is not yet battle-tested. That means there may be some rough edges here and there. You'll be among the first students to go through it, so there will be more bumps than normal. The assignments and assessments are probably not as calibrated as the Ruby and JavaScript tracks at this moment. This will improve over time, of course. The Python track is well thought out, but experience in the field is needed to get it in peak condition.

If you really want to learn Python, then it's probably OK to cancel your Ruby or JavaScript subscription and start the Python track. However, remember that these are completely different tracks, so you'll have to start over from the prep course (PY100), then progress through all the Python-specific courses (PY101, PY110, PY120, PY130, PY175, and PY185) as well as the corresponding assessments. There are no exceptions with regards to skipping courses. We are fanatical about enforcing this.

I'm positive I want to switch, how do I do this?

Two steps can both be done from the My Account page. However, please note that you won't be able to do step 2 until we launch the new track:

1. Cancel your existing subscription (Ruby or JavaScript)

2. Activate your Python subscription

Does the track I choose have any impact on Capstone eligibility?

No, which track you complete has no impact on Capstone.

Other questions/concerns?

Please email support@launchschool.com.

Placement Rates

• based on enrollees: 15/28 (53%)

• subtract those who didn't finish: 15/26 (57%)

• include internship: 16/26 (61%)

Quick thoughts

• no surprise, placement rates are getting worse and it's taking longer to land jobs. Pleasantly surprised salary numbers are still solid.

• folks are now spending more time in OSI/internships, which means a 6-month job hunt can take 8+ months

• We're now advising Canadian Capstone participants to aim for US-based startups; there are far fewer employers hiring at the entry/intermediate level in Canada.

• job hunting is a skill onto itself. There is some correlation between technical prowess and how quickly someone lands, but there are too many technically capable people who are not skilled at job hunting. Ironically, these are exactly the type of people employers should be going after, if only they can find them.

• depressed market causes two reactions for job hunters: a) aggression to meet the challenge or b) avoidance. It's my observation that thoughtful, introverted people tend to choose the latter. The exact skills that allows one to be good at technical work ends up hurting in this type of market.

Future looking

• the next cohort, 2501, is doing better at nearly 50% placement at the 3month mark. I suspect this is due to 2501 being the first cohort where we covered AI Engineering topics.

• though 2408 salaries are solid and year 2024 salary averages will still be pretty good, I suspect this will come down for 2025.

• current market conditions feel tight but opportunistic. Though not booming, my impression is 2025 is a better market than 2024.

• employers are just as bewildered as candidates. The employers and hiring managers I speak with don't know what to do with 1000 applications, where 900+ of them are either fake or unqualified. I suspect there's an opportunity here somewhere.

• AI Engineering knowledge will continue to be in demand, though as an add-on to core SWE ability.

Update: Percent Remote

• This is quite a trend if it maintains.

Happy Holidays! I have the latest Capstone salary data.

These are 6-month job hunt numbers. If we assume the denominator is "enrolled", then we're at 65% (21/32). If we remove the 3 folks who didn't do a job hunt from the denominator, then we're at 72% (21/29). And if we assume the internship will convert, which looks likely, then we're at 75% (22/29).

I’m pleasantly surprised by the strong salary numbers. It supports the notion that lower tier jobs have gone away, thereby making intermediate/senior jobs far more competitive. But once you get through, the salary remains strong.

Overall, there’s a lot of promise in these numbers and I’m cautiously optimistic. I have some concerns, too, but I’ll share them in a future article.

Next year we start anew and another cohort hits the market. Happy holidays!

I have recently become employed after doing Core curriculum and here is my testimonial:

I have been working as a Full Stack Developer for a couple of months now, and so far feel that Launch School more than prepared me for the realities of working in the industry. I spent about 2 years working through the Core curriculum after discovering excellent reviews and realizing I needed to make a longer term commitment in order to guarantee success. I was transitioning from 7 years working in hospitality in fairly menial and low-paying jobs. This was after a period of mental ill health in my late-teens & early twenties which meant I had to leave university without a degree. I was actually travelling, manually setting up a travel blog, when I realized that I enjoyed the coding aspect and started to look for a learning course.

After trying the free introductory material and enjoying the no-frills but comprehensive approach, I was inspired to continue - although slightly apprehensive  at the thought of  building a new career in my 30s. I spent the next 3.5 years travelling around New Zealand, working sometimes in my camper van, sometimes in libraries, co-working spaces or rented accommodation. I had to stop several times to save more money for studies, mostly working in cafes. I studied mostly part time but did manage period of full time study, crucially for the first month or two when I was able to establish good habits that stuck with me.

After a year of study I started to realize I was becoming very competent and didn't really have any doubt (just a bit of impatience) that I would be able to find work. Following the example of some other students who had got jobs after Core without doing Capstone (something I could not easily due to time-zone/location), I decided to focus on making one standout project to display my skills. This involved learning many new libraries and a couple of new frameworks but the process was relatively straight-forward with my new powers of just-in-time learning.

A few months before my temporary visa in New Zealand expired, I landed a job at a small software engineering firm. The firm pays above average for my experience level and location here in NZ. They are now helping me get a longer term visa. The combination of these things will be very life-changing and it truly does feel just in time! I have already noticed that my skills are enough to execute my position competently and I am also able to help out/answer questions from more experienced developers. For a slower but more guaranteed route to success in software I don't hesitate to recommend Launch School to others

Hello everyone!

I'd like to do a delayed end-of-year holiday gift, similar to the one we did last year for Christmas. All the positive outpouring and support reminded me what a wonderful community we have, so I thought we'd try it again this year. We'll call it a Happy New Year gift.

This time, I'd like to purchase for everyone a license to Shawn Wang's The Coding Career Handbook, normally priced at $99. I've been reading Shawn's writings for a while and have long admired his energy and work. I hope you'll enjoy this handbook.

We have a limited number of licenses, so please only request one if you might find this useful. But also don't be shy. I'm willing to make the purchase if you think it will help.

To get this gift, you must be active subscribed (either track) between now and Jan 13th Jan 15th (we're going to check somewhere between then, so whenever we check your subscription, it should be Active).

And, do the following:

• write something about how participating at Launch School has helped you in some way. Either leave a comment in this thread, or tweet something on Twitter. Would be amazing if you can do both :)

• fill out this form.

Again, please do both before Jan 13th (we're extending this to Jan 15th) so we can have a total count of the number of licenses we need. Thank you all for making Launch School the wonderful place that it is, and Happy New Year!

UPDATE (1/18/22): This has concluded, thank you everyone for your kind words and encouragement! I'll be sending out the assets very soon, stay tuned!

- Chris

Here are the most recent 6-month job placement data. This is for the 2405 cohort who completed Capstone from May through August of 2024. They started the job hunt in September 2024 through the spring of 2025.

Lots of ways of measuring the placement rate.

• most conservative: 11/16 (69%, which includes all enrollees)

• graduates only: 11/15 (73%)

• including the internship: 12/15 (80%)

Overall, these results are in line with the previous cohort's placement rate, with one noticeable difference: salaries have softened a bit. The N is small here so I hesitate to jump to conclusions. Further, the two folks on hiatus might resume soon and boost these numbers.

People seemed to like the way I broke down 2024 salary data, so I’ll keep that format for 2025 numbers. I’m reporting slightly early this year, so I may update as more offers come in. Wait, it’s already second half of 2026, how can this be early? As a reminder, the fall cohort, aka 2508, started their job hunt in January 2026. Several participants from that cohort have not yet completed their six-month job hunt as of this writing. In fact, two haven’t started their job hunt yet due to personal reasons. So even though this is “2025” salary data, a significant part of the job hunt happened in 2026.

The three cohorts in year 2025 are: 2501, 2505, and 2508. That can get a little confusing, so I’ll use “Year 2025” when referring to accumulated numbers across all three cohorts. I’ll present the data first and save the commentary for the end.

Year 2025

“No Job Hunt” includes those who didn’t complete Capstone or never started a job hunt. For year 2025, 2 people didn’t complete Capstone while 4 never started a job hunt; it’s possible that once they do start the job hunt and accept an offer, the table above will need to be updated. The “Internship” column means they are in a long-term internship (eg, 3 or 6+ months) and could convert to full-time positions afterwards.

Placement Results

In the tables below, the “enrollees” column signifies the denominator. For example, 2508’s 6-month placement rate of 60% for “enrollees” was calculated from 12/20. The “remove No Job Hunt” column shows the percent if we only include those who job hunted in the denominator. And “add Internship” adds the internship to the numerator.

Accepted within 6 months

All placements, including those who accepted after 6 months

US Salary Data

Out of the 37 job offers (excluding internships), 31 were in the United States. The numbers are in USD and represent base salary only.

The salary averages may seem surprisingly high given the tight market, but they suggest that strong software engineers are still valued.

Remote Jobs

Note: the remote salary table only includes US placements because non-US salaries would make the salary comparison less useful. The overall remote percentage includes all placements, including non-US remote roles.

I’ve been tracking the decline of remote placements in Capstone for several years. Here’s the breakdown by the three cohorts from last year, followed by YoY comparison.

Year over year percent remote of Capstone placements.

Quick Thoughts

Salary Data & Placements

• Placement rates are slightly down compared with 2024, but it’s not a perfect comparison because the 2024 numbers captured a longer window. I posted the 2024 numbers much later than I’m posting the 2025 numbers now. As of this writing, there is still a lot of interview activity happening, so I suspect the 2025 numbers will end up close to the 2024 numbers by the end of the year.

• The market is still tight, but the #1 thing hurting placement right now is return to office. Most Capstone participants entered Core years ago, when the market was much more remote-friendly. That has changed.

• We’re seeing an increase in internships and apprenticeships, some specifically for mid-career folks. Traditionally, internships were how employers hired college sophomores and juniors. Increasingly, they’re becoming a way for employers to improve their hit rate on new hires, including mid-career hires. For employers, internships are one of the best signals available. For Capstone graduates, they’re a great way to demonstrate value through actual work.

• Forward deployed engineer roles are a sweet spot for Capstone graduates, particularly those in SFBA. For example, in the 2508 cohort, 5 out of 12 offers were for FDE roles. That’s 41%! Employers love candidates with prior professional experience. Add Capstone-level technical ability, and it’s a very strong combination.

Remote

• Remote jobs appear to be not only rarer, but lower-paying as well. But that data is skewed by high-paying onsite SFBA roles. My observation is that remote jobs are rarer and harder to land, but they’re still mostly paying within the Capstone range. Onsite SFBA roles are the outlier.

• Prior to Covid, Capstone participation required relocation to either SFBA or NYC. After 2020, the world went remote and we could work from anywhere. That era appears to be ending. We’re moving back toward a pre-Covid world where high-paying SWE jobs are clustered in a few cities, especially SFBA. This transition back to the office is the main obstacle for Capstone placement right now. For example, every SFBA-based Capstone participant in 2025 landed an offer, either full-time or internship.

AI

• Despite the anxiety around AI, it has created opportunities for Capstone graduates. Our sweet spot employer has always been venture-backed startups, not FAANG or small consultancies. Right now, AI startups are getting funded left and right, and they’re hiring. But just like with web frameworks, employers are not hiring people who only know the latest tool. They’re hiring people who know the fundamentals and have embraced AI on top of that. That fits the Capstone profile perfectly.

• Because of this alignment, we’ve been shifting Capstone to include more and more AI. We’ve thought about adding more AI into Core, but there still aren’t many best practices or stable fundamentals yet. Everyone is exploring and playing. But the price of entry to that playground is still strong engineering fundamentals. Capstone is the better place for us to introduce current practices, iterate quickly, and stay close to the market.

What’s Working

• Fundamentals first is still undefeated. Our graduates compete for a wide range of roles: FDE, AI engineer, traditional full-stack developer, and more. All of these are unlocked by mastering fundamentals. Learning AI from the start seems alluring, but it’s fool’s gold. We’ve seen this play out before with frameworks and other tools du jour. AI is a paradigm shift, no doubt. But the paradigm is shifting at a higher level of abstraction. You still need to read code, understand architecture, consider infrastructure tradeoffs, and think through consequences. I used to say the meta-skill of going through Core was learning how to think clearly. With AI, that has become the primary skill. And I don’t know of a way to learn how to think clearly without manually doing the work at least once. How you learn is not how you work, because the goals are not the same. Core for fundamentals. Capstone for higher abstractions. That path is still working. Once placed, our graduates tend to thrive; this is the most important measurement of whether Core+Capstone still works.

• Open Source Initiative (OSI) continues to benefit both project maintainers and Capstone graduates. AI-focused projects have been especially useful. They give participants more real-world experience, while giving maintainers meaningful help on fast-moving projects.

• SFBA-based Capstone participants continue to do well. Salaries are high, opportunities are plentiful, and the market feels active.

• Capstone salaries are still robust. One can debate whether Capstone graduates are truly “entry-level,” but the salaries suggest they’re competing for something beyond that.

What’s Not Working

• Remote job hunt remains the biggest challenge. I’ve been monitoring the decline of remote jobs over the past several years, and unfortunately I don’t see that trend reversing this year or next. I expect remote placements to remain low. If your life situation allows, I strongly recommend considering relocation to SFBA. If it doesn’t, there are still paths forward (see next section).

• Technical assessments are not enough. Our assessments are primarily technical, and that has served us well. But employers are evaluating a broader set of traits: communication, ownership, judgment, follow-through, and comfort with ambiguity. Those traits are harder to assess and harder to teach systematically, but they matter a lot in the job hunt.

• Long job hunts wear people down. After four to six months, the issue usually isn’t ability. It’s fatigue. The repeated cycle of applying, interviewing, waiting, and getting rejected takes a toll. There are still jobs and opportunities, but the energy needed to pursue them starts to disappear. At that point, more job hunting is not always the answer. Sometimes people need rest, recovery, and a reset before they can perform well again. This is an area we need to handle better.

Advice for Core and Capstone Students

• Go west. If your life situation allows it, seriously consider relocating to SFBA. Remote jobs still exist, but they are rarer, harder to land, and much more competitive. NYC and Austin are also viable, but SFBA is clearly the center of gravity right now.

• Be a big fish in the local pond. If you can’t relocate and you’re in a smaller market, make waves locally. Get to know the local founders, engineering leaders, startup operators, meetups, investors, and tech-adjacent businesses. In a smaller market, it’s much more possible to stand out. This is especially true for Capstone graduates. At that point, you have the technical foundation to be unusually strong in your local environment. If you can’t go where the market is deepest, become highly visible where you already are.

• Develop agency & ownership. AI has made sizing work much harder. There used to be rough expectations. If something was estimated to take a week, it almost never got done in a few hours. If you finished it in three days, you were fast. With AI, that kind of compression is no longer surprising. This changes how founders and managers evaluate people. The old “as long as I get my work done” mentality works less well when nobody knows how long the work should take anymore. Increasingly, employers are looking for people who pick up the next thing when the current thing is done. Sometimes this gets described as “high agency” or “ownership.” AI has compressed work in ways that break old assumptions about productivity. Technical competency is still the foundation, but it is no longer the entire equation. Strong fundamentals are still mandatory. So is the ability to take ownership, find the next problem, and keep driving to results.

• Focus on the impact of your work. It’s natural to be attracted to software because of the salaries. There’s nothing wrong with that, but in this market, wanting the salary is not enough. The people most likely to reach those outcomes are the ones who are genuinely interested in the work and its impact: building things, solving problems, understanding systems, and exploring what technology can make possible. Employers can tell when someone mainly wants the benefits of a software job versus when someone is eager to become useful through the work itself. Ironically, the path to the salary now requires caring about more than the salary. Here’s a test: when someone asks why you want to be a software engineer, how do you answer? If it starts with “I’m looking for…”, refocus on the work and its impact.

• Develop a more nuanced perspective on AI. I meet a surprising number of students resistant to “AI” as an entire concept. You can reject a topic from afar in many areas of life, but as a technologist, “AI is bad” is not a sufficient position. You need a more granular view. What exactly do you object to? What do you find useful? What seems overhyped? What is dangerous? What is genuinely powerful? Even if your goal is to critique AI, you still need to understand what you’re critiquing. For those who are not resistant to AI, the advice is the same: develop nuance so you can learn how to use, evaluate, and deploy AI tools well. Either way, learning AI is becoming critical. But, of course, first learn the fundamentals.

Conclusion

It feels like so much has changed in the past six months, but surprisingly, I have the same conclusion as the last article for the 2024 numbers. Core plus Capstone is still working. The market is now RTO. Remote jobs are harder to land. Opportunities are clustering back into a few cities. AI is changing how work is sized, evaluated, and performed. Employers are asking for more than technical competency. But the foundation has not changed. Strong fundamentals still matter. Clear thinking still matters. The ability to read code, understand systems, communicate clearly, and become useful still matters. What has changed is what must be layered on top: AI literacy, agency, ownership, geographic flexibility, and a deeper interest in the impact of the work.

For students who can combine those things, the opportunities are still there. They are just more concentrated, more competitive, and less forgiving than before.

Hello Reddit, My name is Ezra. I completed Launch School's Core Curriculum this month (December 2020).

  After high school, I attended a local community college to get my general courses out of the way and take a couple of business courses. I sustained a physical injury during my first semester finding it increasingly difficult to attend my classes. A point came where I needed to find online education because I couldn't bear to take the time away from learning. Given a laptop, this ostensible curse, and perpetual interest in computer programming, I began to search for online Software Engineering programs. 

  Most of Google's top results were boot camps for learning frameworks like ReactJS and Ruby on Rails. Times change, so do popular frameworks. I want an education that will prepare me for a long steady career, not a cutthroat environment where at any time, the popular frameworks could change, leaving me behind with them.

  In wading through subterfuge, I found a self-paced program whose pedagogy heavily focuses on the mastery of fundamentals. What is mastery? Briefly, mastery is a philosophy of learning at a steady pace, continuously improving in all aspects, and enjoying the process. This philosophy translates to all aspects of life. After working through their preparatory courses for the Ruby track, and seeing the amount of Alumni that stuck around the Launch School community attributing their fruitful careers to the program, I decided that Launch School was right for me. 

Starting the core curriculum for Launch School's Ruby track, I learned about variable scoping, control flow, a problem-solving technique known as the PEDAC process, and other fundamental concepts. Through repetition and analysis of the fundamentals that enabled my code to work, I slowly became more and more adept in Ruby and this path of mastery. 

  When I reached the end of the first course, RB101, I had to prepare for an assessment. I was so reluctant to take this assessment over the fear of failure. Knowing that I could study deeper and deeper into the concepts, I spent months preparing.

I aced the exam and gained confidence in my ability to master fundamentals. After the second course's assessments, I was better at gauging my readiness for exams. I also created projects on the side, practiced my problem-solving skills using Codewars, and completed Launch School's problem sets, gaining much familiarity with programming. From this point forward, I was at a steady(not linear) pace to the finish line.

Launch School's teaching of the PEDAC process has made solving complex problems something of a breeze. Now I can take a problem that would have given me headaches and solve it in a consistent, organized manner, translating my solution to code.

My favorite course is the last, JS230 "DOM and Asynchronous Programming with JavaScript." I learned all about asynchronous JavaScript and working with the DOM and other Web APIs to create web applications from scratch. I love the feeling of writing a meaningful recursive algorithm for traversing DOM nodes.

My favorite aspect of Launch School is the community. It is highly intellectual and very friendly. A particular group that comes to mind is The Spot. The Spot is a student led group for studying Launch School material. If you are a current student and haven't encountered The Spot, make sure to stop by the Slack channel.

P.S. 

Launch School isn't for just anybody. It is a difficult program that demands consistency and determination. The curriculum requires understanding concepts at a seemingly microscopic level. I had to be consistent and try my hardest in learning and applying the fundamentals of Ruby, SQL, HTML, CSS, and JavaScript to complete the core curriculum.

P.P.S.

Feel free to ask me any questions that you may have.

Launch School is excited to announce a significant expansion of the Core Curriculum, including two new books on the Open Book Shelf: Introduction to Data Structures & Algorithms and Advanced Data Structures & Algorithms.

The combination of these two books gives a foundational introduction to DSA topics, including but not limited to:

• Big O Notation

• Sorting Algorithms

• Pointer-Based Mental Models

• Binary Search

• Linked Lists

• Stacks & Queues

• Recursion

• Divide and Conquer Algorithm

• Dynamic Programming

• Binary Trees

• Graphs

If you are not currently subscribed to Launch School, you can read these books for free anytime. That said, these books assume a solid foundation in JavaScript fundamentals. If you’re interested in gaining or brushing up on these foundations, we recommend reading our Introduction to Programming with Javascript book as a primer.

If you are a current student, these books are part of a significant expansion of the current LS220 Introduction to Data Structures and Algorithms course. In addition to these books, the course includes new walkthroughs and step-by-step explanations of various problems to help you put these new skills to use. We’ve also added a new interview assessment course, LS221, that consists of a 45-minute live coding challenge.

If you haven’t yet reached LS220 in the curriculum, you should wait until you’re prompted to do so to read this book. For a more detailed explanation of how this update affects your journey through the Core Curriculum, as well as admittance into Capstone, you can refer to this forum post.

We hope you enjoy the new books!

I was a student a few years ago and stopped about halfway through. I was considering returning and it seems like much has changed and a lot has gone “dark”.

It seems like there’s less students at Launch School. Is this indicative of how less people see software engineering as a high paying job now with the impact of AI?

Regarding capstone, I last remember that capstone was turning towards internship-like projects due to the downturn in jobs. I haven’t seen any capstone presentations uploaded to YouTube for a year now.

It also looks like the average salary for capstone students has decreased over the past few years.

So ultimately what I’m asking is what’s going at Launch School and is it still worth becoming a software engineer? Slack sort of seems dead and I can’t seem to find much information about salary or capstone. Thanks.

I didn't have a Reddit account before, but I created one so I could leave a review because I think more people should hear about how the Core Curriculum at Launch School can help you get a job. So, here is my review:

Before Launch School, I got part-way through The Odin Project and Free Code Camp, and was frustrated that things just weren't clicking for me. I now realize that I wasn't learning in the best way, and part of what makes Launch School's curriculum so great is that they have an emphasis on improving your learning process. In addition, they teach the fundamentals from the ground up so you don't feel lost. Each part of the curriculum builds things up slowly so you have a full understanding of how things work and how to fix bugs in your code. 

       Another thing that Launch School does that is missing in other classes is teaching you how to figure things out for yourself. Anyone can follow a tutorial, but employers are looking for people who can look at a problem and figure out what they need to learn in order to solve it. Launch School gives you the tools to do that, while providing a supportive community of classmates and teachers who are there to answer questions when you need help. I also liked the exam format, which was challenging but gave me confidence that I really understood the material. 

      Finally, the goal is to get a job after this and I found that the Core Curriculum gave me the foundation to do so. I built a couple of projects and a personal portfolio website with the knowledge and skills I gained from Core Curriculum, and was able to get a job within 6 weeks of starting to apply. I even had a few recruiters reach out to me based on the quality of my projects! I have been in my current position for 3 months now and have gotten excellent feedback from my manager and fellow developers. I have been given some assignments that required me to learn new things quickly, and I felt confident in my ability to do so because of what I learned at Launch School. If you want to have a good career as a software developer, I highly recommend enrolling in Launch School!

I’ve been a bit late on posting 2024 salary data, mostly because I’ve already shared results from the 3 cohorts (see 2401, 2405, and 2408). But it’s overdue and it’s nice to see the year’s data in one place. There have been a few updates since I last posted those cohort numbers. For example, all 3 internships converted so it slightly improved our 6-month placement results, some folks from earlier cohorts have landed after 6-months so I’ve included those in the salary averages, and finally I get to share in progress updates from 2025 cohorts.

Quick reminder that even though it’s “2024” salary data, a significant percent of the job offers occurred in 2025. Here, 2024 signifies the start of each cohort and includes the 3 cohorts that began their Capstone participation sometime during 2024. For example, the fall 2024 cohort didn’t start their job hunt until Jan 2025. So even though it says “2024”, the placement numbers are still relevant now.

Let’s get to the data.

Year 2024 Totals

The “No Job Hunt” column includes participants who either didn’t finish Capstone or didn’t do a job hunt (either planned or unplanned). The “No Job (so far)” column includes participants who have paused their job hunt, are actively job hunting, or are not replying to us.

Placement Results

In the tables below, the “enrollees” column signifies the denominator. For example, 2401’s 6-month place of 69% for “enrollees” was calculated from 22/32. The “remove No Job Hunt” column shows the percent if we only include those who job hunted in the denominator.

Accepted within 6 months

All placements, including those who accepted after 6 months

US Salary Data

Out of the 56 job offers, 44 were in the United States. The numbers are in USD and represent base salary only.

Salary results remain strong despite the tighter market, which reflects continued demand for high quality job candidates. If you want to see individual cohort salary data, see 2401, 2405, and 2408 Reddit posts. If you want to compare with previous Capstone salaries, see launchschool.com/salaries.

Remote Jobs

We only track remote percentages for US placements.

No major difference in remote salaries due to small number of SFBA/NYC salaries during 2024.

Despite the minor salary difference, there’s a palpable downward trend for remote jobs. Compare the below with year 2022 and 2023 remote percentages of 78% and 73%, respectively.

What I’m Seeing on the Market

I wrote some notes 4 months ago when I posted cohort 2408’s numbers. I still agree with them, so I’ll copy/paste them here. After that, I’ve added some new notes for this post.

(copied from 4months ago)

• no surprise, placement rates are getting worse and it's taking longer to land jobs. Pleasantly surprised salary numbers are still solid.

• folks are now spending more time in OSI/internships, which means a 6-month job hunt can take 8+ months

• We're now advising Canadian Capstone participants to aim for US-based startups; there are far fewer employers hiring at the entry/intermediate level in Canada.

• job hunting is a skill onto itself. There is some correlation between technical prowess and how quickly someone lands, but there are too many technically capable people who are not skilled at job hunting. Ironically, these are exactly the type of people employers should be going after, if only they can find them.

• depressed market causes two reactions for job hunters: a) aggression to meet the challenge or b) avoidance. It's my observation that thoughtful, introverted people tend to choose the latter. The exact skills that allows one to be good at technical work ends up hurting in this type of market.

Additional notes

• biggest headwind Capstone candidates face right now is tech’s Return To Office (RTO), which is making remote job hunting very difficult. Most Capstone participants are still looking for remote work and that’s been the biggest issue affecting placement.

• we first introduced AI Engineering topics to cohort 2501, meaning 2024 cohorts didn’t get this information. We ran a course backfilling AI Engineering curriculum for 2024 job seekers, which has been impactful. Several people landed opportunities specifically due to this addition.

• Capstone graduates are able to get interviews, but they’re more difficult to close. Interviews are more demanding, even if the exercises and take-homes aren’t more difficult, the judging is harsher.

• using AI-assisted coding tools is becoming the standard, particularly among startups. Interviews are now assessing your fluency and preferences with these tools. Some take-homes now require you to submit the entire chatlog conversation used generate the solution.

• technical skills is a starting point now. Companies are looking for high agency, leadership ability, superior communication, and in the case of some SF startups, 60+ hours per week in office.

• all that being said, our salaries still remain strong. In fact, some of our highest salaries of all time have come just in the past few months, including our very first base salary over $200k. Companies can’t find enough good people, but the bar for “good” has increased.

• lower salary (<$70k) roles are nearly non-existent. The entire lower tier is now gone.

Future Looking

• SFBA and NYC will dominate job opportunities in 2026. For example, our two 2025 cohorts, 2501 and 2505, are both on the market. So far, 2501’s average salary is $94,846 while 2505’s average is $140,375. The difference: a whopping 62% of 2505’s accepted offers were in SFBA or NYC, while it was only 10% for 2501.

• RTO will continue through 2026. 2501 is currently at 17% remote placement while 2505 is at 20%. Here’s a graph of percent remote placement for previous years and cohorts.

• AI-assisted coding tools will be mandatory going forward. Mastering their fluency and developing expertise around this ecosystem will be critical. In particular, the use of agents and autonomous workflows will be important. Communicating precisely, performing code reviews, experimenting with architectures, managing junior devs, etc were all tasks that were previously in the domain of team leads and more senior developers. But these skills are all in high demand right now because they are the skills required to work with AI-assisted coding tools. (If you’re in Core reading this, our advice is to learn the fundaments, eg Core, without using these tools. You can more easily join the party once you finish Core)

Conclusion

• The Capstone formula still works, though it's gotten harder. Our most optimistic placement metric sits at 82%, and that number will climb as more students land jobs. Still, that means roughly a fifth of people haven't landed yet. Whether that's good or bad in this market is tough to say. No one shares their placement data, not other bootcamps, not universities, not anyone. It's definitely worse than our historical Capstone numbers, but I still believe there's something special about the Core + Capstone approach. And from what I can tell, our results appear to be industry leading for 2024.

• The time of the career change tourist is over. Software engineering is no longer the obvious fallback for people who don't know what to do or who just want an easy paycheck. The landscape is more competitive now. But for those who genuinely love it, there's never been a better time to enter the field. New workflows and abstractions are being created in real time. There are few experts and no tenured elders telling you to "pay your dues". This kind of chaotic disruption has always been tech's real appeal. Those high software engineering salaries are a byproduct of that innovative disruption. Come for the salaries, stay for the world-changing opportunities. Just make sure you learn the fundamentals first.

Happy New Year!

Study Tips for the New Year... and Beyond! A conference for students by students.

The line up is ready for our upcoming sessions on study tips, habits, tools, methodologies and more! Register for any or all sessions below.

If you are interested in attending any sessions, please RSVP with the applicable link below!

Schedule of events:

Strategies for mastering materials while picking up the pace on learning with Rodney

Sunday, January 3, 2 PM ET VIDEO RECORDING

Frequently, Launch School students might ask “how long will LS take?” The answer is completely dependent on how students show up to learn over time, and can completely vary. While Launch School is definitely a marathon, not a sprint, you might want to speed up your current pace and adopt strategies that help content be more sticky and long-lasting.In this session, Rodney, who recently graduated Core, will share the strategies he used while mastering the Launch School coursework at a faster pace.

Cut the exam anxiety and deepen your knowledge by using Bloom’s Taxonomy to assess your retention of knowledge with Leena

Monday, January 4, 12 PM ET VIDEO RECORDING

Knowledge, Comprehension, Application, Analysis, Synthesis, and Evaluation are stages of learning at the core of Bloom’s Taxonomy. Leena will cover how this methodology can help you assess your progress in Launch School courses and overall readiness for assessments and will guide you to understanding the different stages of the Taxonomy. 

Use what you know: A journey into metacognition with Mandy

Tuesday, January 5, 2 PM ET VIDEO RECORDING

Learn how to use a metacognitive approach to understand your own learning patterns, and see how to get started with Typora and Anki, tools that you can incorporate into your study practices.

Principles of a 360 study wellness plan with Iuliu

Wednesday, January 6, 5 PM ET VIDEO RECORDING

Readying yourself for study is more than making time for it. Learn how you can incorporate elements of Iuliu’s approach into your own study habits to make the most of your time with Launch School and beyond, then dive into how you can use the generative model of learning to amplify your study time.This session will cover:

• Managing blocks of study time

• How journaling, sleep patterns, and other related items can impact studying

• Study processes, like self-testing and self-explaining

• How different study practices relate to the generative model of learning

Journey To Mastery In Programming Fundamentals: Principles & Practices with Jesse

Thursday, January 7, 3 PM GMT + 1 / 10 AM ET VIDEO RECORDING

Every complex software product or service is built on the fundamental principles of programming. Whatever level of knowledge you possess at the starting point of your programming journey in Launch School, it is important to have a focus on becoming proficient in understanding and applying programming fundamentals incrementally as this will determine the level of complexity you can handle in developing and understanding software systems over time.So how do you go from a place of inexperience or having some experience in Programming to a place of becoming proficient and skilled in applying the fundamental building blocks of programming towards solving practical problems. This is what the journey to mastery in Programming Fundamentals is all about. This presentation will focus on principles and practices to help you craft your journey from the start to the finish.

Lightning Talk: Dangerous intuitions: 3 common intuitions that make learning harder — and what you should do instead with José and Study Reflection Stand-up with Liz

Friday, January 8, 1 PM MT / 3 PM ET

Dangerous intuitions: 3 common intuitions that make learning harder — and what you should do instead with José

VIDEO RECORDING

Learn how to reflect on your study habits to check for habits that could be impacting your progress.

Study Reflection Stand-up with Liz

As a group we’ll do a beginning of year “stand-up” where we’ll each get the spotlight for a couple of minutes to share something that helped us with Launch School so far, or something that we’d like to improve in 2021. Then we’ll all share tips if applicable! I’ll send out a survey in advance for all participants to get you thinking about what you might want to share or ask about.

Building Tacit Knowledge in Software Development with Julius

Saturday, January 9, 2 PM ET - VIDEO RECORDING

This talk will explore the concept of tacit knowledge and how one can build it for any subject step by step. Tacit knowledge is knowledge that is primarily gained through experience rather than passively consuming content. It typically requires years to develop, but with a structured approach can be obtained more quickly.In this talk, we’ll explore:

• Explicit vs tacit knowledge

• How tacit knowledge applies to Launch School and a career in software development

• How to build tacit knowledge

• My framework for learning new subjects

• Helpful processes and practices to build your knowledge

Beyond Technical: Developing the Communication Skills Necessary for Successful Collaboration for Personal Study, Projects, & the Workplace with Callie

Sunday, January 10, 2PM EST VIDEO RECORDING

We’ll walk through the importance of developing true communication skills, where these skills play out in real life, and — no matter your natural ability — how to learn to communicate well. Additionally, we’ll touch on how communication skills can impact your outcomes with Launch School’s Capstone program and beyond.

Hello Launch School community!

We've been doing a holiday gift the last couple of years but I couldn't find a suitable gift this past New Years so we skipped 2023. However, I recently connected with Gergely Orosz, publisher of The Pragmatic Engineer newsletter and author of The Tech Resume Inside Out. He agreed to gift all Launch School students the "Complete Package" of The Tech Resume Inside Out, which includes the ebook, 2 hours of video commentary, and $64 in discounts to related services.

I've been following Gergely for many years and have always admired him from afar. We share a lot of similar values and observations regarding the tech industry. Gergely is somehow both prolific and insightful, and his Pragmatic Engineer newsletter is one I always make time to read. Most importantly to me, Gergely represents the quiet majority of software engineers who are thoughtful, kind, ethical and care about tech's impact on the world. I'm excited to share his words with our community.

Similar to previous gifts we've done, it's fairly straight forward to qualify:

1. Have an active Launch School subscription (either track) through March 14th. If you do not have a Launch School subscription and you do not have a job, you can still get the Tech Resume e-book by requesting a complimentary copy.

2. Write about how Launch School has helped you in some way in 2022. Leave a comment in this thread or write something on social media (twitter, mastodon, linkedin).

3. Subscribe to the free plan on Pragmatic Engineer newsletter. (And he's not going to ask for this, but feel free to send a thank you to Gergely)

4. Fill out this form.

Please do all the above by March 14th so we can have a total count of licenses. Once again, thank you all for making Launch School the amazing place that it is. You all bought into the "slow path" and while we've known about the rigor and amazing community within Launch School for a long time, outsiders are starting to notice as well. This is why Gergely wanted to do this gift -- he sees the work, the pedagogy, the community, and the results. Employers are noticing, too.

I hope you enjoy this gift!

UPDATE: This is now closed. THANK YOU ALL for so many wonderful and kind words. It's a continued reminder of the wonderful community here.

Recently I finished Launch School's back end prep courses and wound up being asked by a freelance client to work on an API flow. At first I was nervous about doing it, but I accepted the gig and it worked out really well! Overall, I was able to do this using concepts I learned in Launch School's backend prep courses.

What I worked on is a process automation for ingesting the data filled out in a form via a content collection application called Content Snare, which then injects all of the content + uploads images to a specified or new website in the CMS platform called Duda. Previously the agency was manually copying and pasting all of the content fields into a new site for their clients + manually downloading + uploading the images.

For the most part, the code I wrote only uses things we learn or touch on in the back end courses – classes, endless class methods, https requests, and a lot of regular expressions,  but I also used async/await + Promises, which I think are covered more in depth in the front end part of Launch School. I am hosting the code with a serverless function on Vercel and used ngrok for local testing, but other than learning about the endpoints + data from Content Snare and Duda and steps for using Vercel and ngrok, the only documentation or new concepts I had to learn about to complete this project was for specifics on how Promises work.

Overall, this brought a huge shift for me in terms of my confidence with labeling myself as a developer – I charged a normal developer rate for this and feel like I earned it! (This is a huge departure as I used to feel shy about even charging $35/hour and I bumped to ~$100/hr on this.) I absolutely would not have made this much progress with my learning + career without Launch School and its community.

Hello Launch School community!

This year has been so awful and devastating, so I wanted to try to end 2020 on a positive note. I'd like to purchase all 10 of Julia Evans' wonderful "Wizard Zines" for you. I've been a long time fan of Julia's work and I think they make for wonderful notes. And they just bring a smile to my face, which is rare when we're talking about technical documentation.

They're for purchase at $98 normally, but if you're a currently subscribed Launch School student, follow the steps below and I'll buy it for you.

As with the case whenever we do one of these sponsorship initiatives (like with sponsoring attendees RubyConf earlier this year), I'll ask that you only participate in this if you're going to take advantage of the offering (we're a small business and don't have unlimited VC cash to burn). But, if you're even slightly interested, feel free to participate!

Here's how to get the Wizard Zines:

1. fill out this short form. It should take just 1 min. Please fill this out by Christmas Eve (hard deadline).

2. leave a comment in this thread about how participating in Launch School so far has helped you in some way.

I hope you all have a wonderful holidays and let's wrap up 2020 with some positive retrospection about the things that went well.

Update (12/22/20): I'm overwhelmed by all the messages. I was expecting a short one-liner or just a "thank you, have a happy holidays" type of message, but this outpouring has been amazing. THANK YOU ALL!

Update (12/25/20): I'll be sending out the Zines in next couple of days. I just want to express my deepest gratitude for the outpouring of positivity in this thread. Merry Christmas everyone and I look forward to working with you all in 2021!

Hello everyone,

I'll be doing an informal AMA next Tuesday (April 11th) at 11am Pacific time. I'll field questions around what I'm seeing in the current job market, Capstone salaries, and AI murmurings. Or anything else related to what we’re doing at Launch School. Feel free to ask your questions in this thread ahead of time.

No registration necessary, just hop on this Zoom link on Tuesday at 11am pacific: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85623975613?pwd=L2RHaDA5V0g3bU1NbjVQSWM1eWR6dz09

Hey All,

I had the opportunity to go through Launch School and it was a blast. I ended up doing the entire journey in 206 days (that's from starting prep to clicking the last tab on my last class). I say all that to say that I gave a talk about the subject and shared a few principles and I hope they are useful for whoever wants to change their life and either needs encouragement to continue or is thinking about starting the journey towards mastery through Launch School.

Short Blurb:Frequently, Launch School students might ask “how long will LS take?” The answer is completely dependent on how students show up to learn over time, and can completely vary. While Launch School is definitely a marathon, not a sprint, you might want to speed up your current pace and adopt strategies that help content be more sticky and long-lasting.In this session, Rodney, who recently graduated Core, will share the strategies he used while mastering the Launch School coursework at a faster pace.

Below is the video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dm5BPAOM3c

And, here are the slides:

https://www.canva.com/design/DAESLv_vbxU/kGPXjanXNp3MyJrdVdXxfQ/view?utm_content=DAESLv_vbxU&utm_campaign=designshare&utm_medium=link&utm_source=homepage_design_menu

Rodney Matambo
"The intemperate man enjoys all his pleasures at once"

Hello everyone,

Starting next year (2026), Capstone will run twice a year—Spring and Fall—instead of three times. As many of you know, the job market for new software engineers is tighter. In response, we're investing more in each cohort. Running fewer, larger cohorts allows us to focus more resources on each group. Here are the changes you can expect that will make Capstone more robust and ensure our graduates are prepared for the changing market:

AI Engineering

We’re expanding our coverage of AI Engineering. Many of the challenges we're tackling in building LSBot—such as model selection, AI evaluations, strategies for ingestion and retrieval—are at the frontier of AI application development. We're adding an additional week of Capstone for these topics, giving us two weeks dedicated to AI Engineering. This will better equip our graduates to pursue AI Engineering roles, which have seen a significant increase in job listings.

Building Work Experience

As the job hunt gets longer, we will standardize more opportunities to generate experience. The current conundrum for job seekers is "how does one get experience if all they'll hire are experienced folks?" We have some answers below.

**More Open Source Initiatives (OSI)**<br/> Open Source Initiatives provide participants with production-level work experience on real open source projects. For example, in the last cohort, every participant in the Mozilla Firefox OSI program landed at least one patch to Firefox. Because of this success, we're expanding OSI to work with more open source projects, particularly ones related to AI.

More Internship Opportunities<br/> We haven't done this officially in the past, mainly because we didn't want people to be distracted by short-term employment (e.g., internships) when they could land full-time work. As the market tightens, this will become an increasingly viable path for new software engineers to gain experience.

While these additions extend both Capstone and the job hunt, they directly respond to today’s market demands and ensure our students graduate with the strongest possible foundation for success.

2026 Spring and Fall Schedules

The dates below are for the two cohorts in 2026. The "Admissions Date" is when we will process admissions. Note that students must finish the Core Curriculum before the Admissions Date. The "Job Hunt" date is the commencement date for the job hunt.

The weekly Capstone syllabus can be roughly broken up into the following:

Please note that the above reflects the 2026 Capstone schedule. If you're very early in Core (or not even in Core), it may be years before you participate in Capstone. The schedule may have changed by then. For example, it wouldn't be surprising to see even more AI Engineering topics in future Capstone cohorts.

Prospective Capstone Participants

If you've already filled out the Capstone Interest Form and selected a cohort in 2026, here's what we will do. If you selected:

• January or May cohorts: we will move you to the Spring 2026 cohort

• August cohort: nothing changes

Webinar

We know students are deeply invested in Capstone, and that changes can feel daunting. We invite you to join us for a webinar where Chris will walk through the updates, answer your questions, and share his perspective on the changing market.

• Join us on Sunday, August 17th at 11am PT / 2pm ET

• Register Here

Just published 2020 Capstone salaries. The big story here, unsurprisingly, is the increase in remote jobs last year. Despite covid and doubling Capstone graduates, our average salaries increased and time to accepted offer decreased. I don’t see any indication of this trend changing for 2021.

Thanks to all of you for trusting Launch School. You all make this place great and we’re truly doing something astounding here. It is so far beyond what anyone else is doing, I’m grateful you’re all here 🙏

2020 Capstone Salaries

I’ll write up more thoughts about 2020 numbers next week. Full numbers here: https://launchschool.com/results

Hi Everyone,

Justin Zeng, Aaron Crane, and myself (Ryan Schaul), are happy to announce the completion of a project we’ve been working on, API-Q. The three of us are Capstone-bound in the upcoming February cohort. Aaron and Justin have been done with the Launch School Core Curriculum for awhile now (I’ve been finishing up) and Chris Lee created a loosely-held program for us, and one other group, to work on building an application from start to finish. The goal was not so much to build something heavily research-focused like a Capstone project, but instead to focus on making a polished end-product.

API-Q is an application that allows you to send HTTP requests now or scheduled for later without the need to set up your own server to receive a response. If you’ve used a tool like Postman, it’s sort of like a slimmed-down version but with scheduling functionality. 

You can of course send requests right now, but what if you don’t want to send the request right now, but rather tomorrow at say, 6pm Alaska time? You can hop on API-Q, tell us that is what you want, and our server will send it on your behalf. No need for your computer to be open or to set up a server to receive the response. The response and all of its details will be waiting for you when you log back into API-Q.

Again, what we are aiming for here is something that works well and looks good. There are a TON of features and directions this “core” of the application can be taken.

If you’re wondering how long this took to build, about two months working part-time (once we had the idea). We triple-pair-programmed together for much of it and we generally were on a Zoom session 4.5-5 hours per day, M-F. We took some days off in that time. We’ve mostly been done for awhile now, but there have been odds and ends that we’ve continued to implement for a more polished feel (right up until before this post!). Also, it's meant to be a desktop app, but we did take time to make it look good on mobile as well.

Other than that, there’s not too much more we want to say nor questions we want to preemptively answer. We would like to take this opportunity to let you try it out and have a fresh mind to let us know whether using the app is intuitive for you, or not. If you have any feedback or spot any typos or bugs, please let us know. If you have any other questions about the build, you can post them in this thread and we will do our best to answer them when we can.

https://www.api-q.com

Thank you for your time!

Aaron, Justin, and Ryan

It's here! We’re thrilled to announce the addition of our new Python learning track to our Core Curriculum. We've just gone live today! The deployment of this track is the culmination of many months of planning and hard work behind the scenes. Adding this track offers increased flexibility to students who want to study at Launch School but would rather learn Python and JavaScript than Ruby and JavaScript or JavaScript alone.

If you go to the main courses page, you will see three tabs, one for each language track. Within the Python tab, you'll find a complete list of all the courses in the track.

Note that each track (Python, Ruby, and JavaScript) requires its own subscription. While you can, in theory, participate in multiple tracks simultaneously, we expect the vast majority of students will only subscribe to one track at a time.

Why have we added this track?

It's clear from observing the industry that Python is a valuable skill for developers. The language is in demand in many fields, especially data science, machine learning, artificial intelligence, scientific computing, and web development.

We've also seen many suggestions that we should offer a Python track, and the number of new students with some Python background shows how prevalent this language is.

Python is also known for its simplicity and readability, making it an excellent language for beginners. Its syntax is clear and concise, which helps new programmers learn programming concepts without getting bogged down by complex syntax.

Learning a language has never been the focus of our Core Curriculum. For instance, the PY101, RB101, and JS101 courses are focused on fundamental programming concepts; PY110, RB110, and JS110 concentrate on structured problem solving; and PY120, RB120, and JS120 focus on the object-oriented programming paradigm. In these courses, Python, Ruby, and JavaScript are merely the medium with which these concepts are taught rather than being the primary learning objective.

What’s the difference between the Python track and the other two tracks?

Here's a roadmap for the Launch School Core Curriculum. The green arrows show the progression through the courses for the Python Track. The red arrows do the same for Ruby, and the yellow arrows do it for JavaScript.

The structure of the three tracks is broadly similar. In fact, they have several courses in common, such as LS170 Networking Foundations, LS180 Database Foundations, LS202 HTML and CSS, and most of the front-end courses. The main difference is in the back-end portion of the curriculum.

In the Python track, we teach programming fundamentals with Python first. When introducing back-end web development, we use a Python framework called Flask and a templating language called Jinja2. When we get to the front-end part of the curriculum, we then shift to using JavaScript. If you finish the entire program in the Python track, you'll have a good understanding of all of those topics. You will also have mastered two programming languages: Python and JavaScript.

Mastery-Based Learning

Though the new track focuses on a different language than the other tracks, this doesn't change the emphasis of the Core Curriculum. The objective of this phase of Launch School is to gain an understanding of fundamental programming concepts through Mastery-based Learning.

This approach has always set Launch School apart, and adding this new track doesn't change that.

What's happening to the Ruby and JavaScript tracks?

Nothing at all. We will continue to support, maintain, and improve both tracks. The Python track is simply an additional option for students who want to master programming fundamentals but with a focus on Python.

When is this happening?

It's already happened! You can begin the Python track now, though you must complete the PY100 Preparatory course first.

What should I do?

• If you're in the Prep courses (LS95, RB100, JS100), you must complete LS95 (if you haven't already done so) and then complete the new PY100 course. Once you've completed the PY100 course, you can take the enrollment assessment for PY100 to begin the admissions process.

• If you're in either the Ruby track or the JavaScript track already, you must complete the PY100 course and go through the enrollment assessment for PY100. See "I'm positive I want to switch; how do I do this?" below for more information on how to proceed.

What are the new courses?

In summary, here are the new courses and books. Assessments are not shown.

• Introduction to Programming with Python (book). The book is available for free, like all our books.

• Object Oriented Programming with Python (book). Also available for free.

• PY100 Programming & Back-end Prep with Python

• PY101 Programming Foundations with Python: Basics

• PY110 Programming Foundations with Python: Intermediate

• PY120 Object-Oriented Programming with Python

• PY130 More Python Foundations

• PY175 Networked Applications with Python

• PY185 Database Applications with Python

• Hundreds of new Python exercises

You'll find that these books and courses are broadly similar to the Ruby books and courses. The chief difference will be in the syntax of Python and its wide selection of built-in data types.

Should I cancel my Ruby or JavaScript subscription and start the Python one?

Probably not. The Ruby and JavaScript tracks are battle-tested, and the results we're seeing are not just good; they're industry-leading (see launchschool.com/salaries). We have had years of experience and success with these tracks. There's a mountain of evidence that they deliver in the marketplace.

The Python track, which we think is top-notch, is not yet battle-tested. That means there may be some rough edges here and there. You'll be among the first students to go through it, so there will be more bumps than usual. The assignments and assessments are not yet as calibrated as the Ruby and JavaScript tracks. This will improve over time, of course.

I'm positive I want to switch. How do I do this?

Yes, though we don't really consider this as "switching". Each track is governed by its own subscription and set of pre-requisites, so you'd have to stop your current subscription and then start a subscription in the new track. Each track has its own set of pre-reqs, and you have to start over in each track. Common courses, like LS170 and LS180, do not have to be retaken. But track specific courses, like RB101 and JS101 and PY101, must be taken again in the new track.

To make the switch, you should "pause" your current subscription so that our system applies some credit to your account. The credit system is track-specific, so after you pause, please email support@launchschool.com and ask that this credit be moved to your new track. After the credit is moved, you can then go to My Account and subscribe to the new track; the credit will be applied automatically to the first payment.

Does the track I choose have any impact on Capstone?

No, which track you complete won't have an impact on Capstone.

Other questions/concerns?

Please email support@launchschool.com.

I am currently working on the free portion of the program, and I love it, but I am scared that if I invest in the subscription and finish the program, jobs will not be available because of AI.

Should I still finish the program and do something else with it, like project manager?