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The following was written by Mike Adams, graduate of Hack Reactor, to a potential computer programming school student via LinkedIn. This person presents a unique situation in that they already have a career.

In summary, whether it's worth it or not all depends on your goals. There are a couple of business people that have done Hack Reactor and are now not working as software engineers, b/c that was likely never their intent in the first place, they just wanted to be able to "speak the language".  I'm personally glad I didn't stop here, but if this is your goal, I would talk to some of the alums that are not currently working as devs to see their perspective.  My gut says it's still probably worth it but you'd have to ask them.

Most business people that have been through Hack Reactor have been of the mindset of wanting to be able to actually build real stuff quickly enough to make it worth their time, and with the confidence that their code doesn't suck.  

This takes years of experience and I personally don't think you can get that out of any programming alone, but only after working exclusively as an engineer for a year or so. If this is your goal, there is no better accelerator for becoming a legitimate dev than Hack Reactor and it will get you there 10x faster than learning on your own (or any other school IMO).

Hack Reactor is worth every penny (especially when you factor in opportunity cost of your time when trying to teach yourself). I finished up Hack Reactor in April, and I still feel like I need at least another year of experience working exclusively as an engineer to feel like I'd be confident enough in my abilities to build a product on my own (or in a more senior/management role) that is of the quality I demand.  I plan to move back towards the strategy/economist/founder side of things in a year or so but as a technical founder and I'm 100% confident I wouldn't be even close to where I am on this path without having gone to Hack Reactor.

The other huge value prop I've gotten out of HR is the network... There are a half dozen brilliant people that would be the first people on my list that I'd want to start a new venture with (over my TechStars/Entrepreneur network). 

Feel free to call whenever to chat for a few.

- Mike