First graduates of Zip Code Wilmington secure jobs, double salaries

Wilmington, Del. — Officials from Zip Code Wilmington, Delaware’s first coding school, announced that the inaugural class of students have already secured jobs at an average of $55,000 per year, more than double the average salary when they enrolled three months ago.

“It’s a pretty awesome thing – for our city and our state,” said Ben duPont, one of Zip Code’s founders and vice president. Much of the $12,000 tuition is covered by partnering Delaware companies as part of the apprenticeship model, and duPont said he anticipates salaries will climb once tuition is reimbursed.

Zip Code Wilmington is a software development training school that combines a rigorous 12-week Java boot camp with a 26-week apprenticeship program at area companies. According to duPont, one-third of the positions offered to Zip Code’s graduating class are not apprenticed, but full-time jobs.

Hiring companies include JPMorgan Chase & Co., Capital One, Bank of America, Chatham Financial, Corporation Services Company, Diamond Technologies and Schell Brothers Delaware.

The concept for the school was developed by duPont, Jim Stewart, CEO of Epic Research, and Porter Schutt of Brown Advisory, who wanted to create a local training source for Delaware coding jobs.

According to the school’s website, 675 jobs in Java and .net came available in Wilmington in just the past year.

duPont said Zip Code students spent an average of 71 hours a week in class as part of the  program, a total of 852 hours and roughly 400 above the what’s offered in the traditional four-year computer science degree.

The school had 142 applicants for its first class. duPont said the school has 195 applicants for its second class, and officials may increase its enrollment to 35 students.

The new class which begins Jan. 11, 2016.