We started Lambda School just over 30 months ago to give people a lower-risk path to rewarding, well-paying careers – regardless of their circumstances. 

In that time, our student body grew from the first beta cohort of 10 students to about 2,900, our team grew from two to 200, and we moved from our beloved 100 square foot office in San Ramon to our San Francisco headquarters in an actual office building downtown.

As I reflect on this report, I think about all the people behind these numbers, individuals who successfully shifted into higher paying careers. The focus, grit, and dedication of these students enabled them to make meaningful changes in their lives and the lives of their families and it is a privilege to be able to help make that happen.  

Here are just a few of the student stories that stood out to me: 

Sara Fritz 
“I started Lambda when my youngest son went to kindergarten. It was perfect timing because I could do it from home while my kids were in school or even while they were in the other room destroying the house. I had zero self-confidence before Lambda. All of the instructors were so caring and really went out of their way. They showed me what I could do.”

Joshua Vandergriff
“I got the offer when I was crying at my grandmother’s table. They said, ‘Josh, we were beyond impressed with your dedication to the auto industry and the tech you have learned in such a short amount of a time; we would love to have you join us!’ I froze, dropped my phone and almost passed out. I could not believe it.”‍

Leianne Louis
“I graduated from Lambda School in July and I applied to the Twitter apprenticeship and got it. To not have that traditional background and schooling background and be able to get a job and an apprenticeship with Twitter and have such an increase in my pay has been amazing. And I know now the sky's the limit.”

Our mission from day one has been to align the incentives of school and student, giving more people the opportunity they deserve to land a great job with a higher income. If our students don’t succeed, our school shouldn’t either. 

To that end, we designed every part of our school to keep incentives aligned:  

• Our curriculum is mastery-based, meaning students repeat sections if needed and we don’t hold students to specific graduation dates. We care about mastering material over checking a box.  
• Career support starts at week two, and in 2019 we hired an additional 17 full-time employees to focus on securing students interviews and building partnerships with companies hiring tech talent. 
• We offer Income Share Agreements (ISAs), so students have the option to pay nothing upfront, and only pay a set percentage of their income when they land a job making $50k or more. We also recently announced a new ISA financing model that allows us to support long-term the costs of running the school while keeping incentives aligned.  
  

We're proud of the results we've achieved thus far, but we'll never stop pushing ourselves to be better. Our students place great trust in Lambda School when they enroll, and they make incredible investments of time and energy while engaged in our programs.

This report is the first in a new process we're building to improve transparency, consistency, and accountability around outcomes reporting at Lambda School. We plan to release this report every six months, and we hope to continuously improve it, based on the feedback we receive. Until then, thank you for joining us on this journey.

You can download the full H1 2019 Outcomes Report report here.

— Austen Allred, Lambda School Co-Founder & CEO