Officials mark launch of downtown Las Vegas coding school

By Daniel Rothberg

Thursday, Aug. 20, 2015 | 2 a.m.

Hoping to capitalize on what it sees as high demand for developers in the Las Vegas Valley, the national coding academy Iron Yard officially unveiled its downtown Las Vegas campus with a ribbon-cutting ceremony and dinner Wednesday night. Among the attendees were Mayor Carolyn Goodman, who presented a proclamation, and an official from the office of Rep. Dina Titus.

Iron Yard, which has 19 locations across the U.S. and one location in London, offers 12-week intensive courses in back and front-end coding. The Las Vegas location is already into the eighth week of its first session, with one full-time and one part-time course. Classes started because students were excited to begin, said Iron Yard Chief Marketing Officer Eric Dodds, but the official opening and ribbon-cutting was delayed until the final touches — furnishings, creating a common room — were in place.

“We had a bunch of eager students who wanted to start class,” Dodds said at the event.

The Las Vegas campus is Iron Yard’s westernmost location, and Dodds said the city, given its demand for developers, is a prime location for a coding academy. Dodds cited data that every 90 days, almost 100 new job openings appear for entry-level developers.

He said the statistic comes from a variety of market research firms, including Burning Glass.

“Las Vegas is experiencing a huge amount of growth,” he said. “Really, we’re excited to help Las Vegas grow by meeting that demand."

Located on the corner of Charleston and Casino Center boulevards, the Iron Yard campus falls outside of the Downtown Project’s sphere of influence. Although they plan to work with Zappos and the Downtown Project they operate completely independent of DTP. Rather than only focus on training students to code for the startups that the Downtown Project is hoping to incubate, Dodds said Iron Yard’s local campus plans to train students to work in a variety of environments, such as for large companies or agencies.

Goodman, who presented a proclamation from the city, said the Iron Yard is fulfilling the important role of training coders who will in turn help shape the future. “It’s all about innovations,” she said. “It’s all about growth. It’s all about change.”

Ward 3 City Councilman Bob Coffin was scheduled to attend the event, but Goodman said he had recently been in a car accident and was exhausted after a daylong City Council session Wednesday.

The official opening in the Iron Yard space, which resembled something of an art gallery opening — high walls, open ceilings, large rooms that flow into one another with dates wrapped in bacon and a chocolate fondue fountain — drew more than 50 attendees interested in the academy. Some came with little expert coding knowledge but curiosity about their programming. Alex Karbowniczek, a junior at UNLV studying radiology, said he’s unlikely to change his career course but still came to scope out the alternatives.

“If you can get a job after three months," he said, "that’s pretty solid.”

Tisha Looker, the Las Vegas campus director for Iron Yard, said placing Iron Yard applicants is a big part of their mission. As a result, she noted that the application process is a high priority for the organizers of the courses and involves several in-person conversations.

“It’s a huge thing to us,” she said. “We want to make sure people we are accepting in the class are people we believe in.”

Classes for Iron Yard cost about $12,000 but are small — about 15 people — and promise individual attention. Iron Yard has a license from the Nevada Commission on Postsecondary Education.

Eric Turner, a current student at Iron Yard, is taking a class in Python and hopes to land a job doing analytics. He said Iron Yard can only benefit Las Vegas, where many have said there is a shortage in qualified coders.

“Having a bigger job pool will definitely attract more business,” he said. “It certainly can’t hurt.”