GA grad Tim Bruns is back with another guest post.
This year’s Teacher Appreciation Week may have already come and gone, but it’s still a fitting time to spotlight a group of educators who often fly under the radar: instructors at 足球竞彩网 Assembly. These professionals don’t just teach—they transform.
From the bootcamp perspective, they’re the cornerstone of an intensive, life-changing experience that takes students from total beginners to confident, job-ready professionals. As someone who’s gone through a GA bootcamp—and as someone whose best friend, Zac Messinger, spent years teaching for GA—I’ve seen both sides of this dynamic. What makes these instructors so effective isn’t just their technical prowess. It’s how they show up, every day, for the people in their classrooms (whether digital or in-person).
This post is a reflection on what makes a GA instructor not just good, but great—from the eyes of a student trying to survive their first JavaScript function, and from the perspective of a teacher who’s guided hundreds through the fire.
Meeting you where you are
When you first enter a GA bootcamp, you’re stepping into a new universe. Whether it’s software engineering, data, or UX design, the language is foreign. Words like “asynchronous” or “design systems” might as well be sanskrit. The best instructors know how to meet you at that starting point—not judging you for what you don’t know, but patiently guiding you through the foundational blocks that make the unfamiliar start to feel familiar.
They don’t just explain complex ideas—they translate them into something you can hold onto. When I started out, “fetching data from an API” might as well have been black magic. But my instructors never made me feel small. They’d break down each concept into digestible chunks, building one piece on top of another until it finally clicked. That patience, that grace, is the first marker of a great GA instructor.
Knowing when to hold your hand—and when to let go
The first few weeks of any bootcamp feel like drinking from a firehose. The pace is fast, the material is dense, and your confidence will be shaky. During that period, your instructors are your lifeline. They’ll help you troubleshoot the smallest errors, sit with you through “install-fest,” and somehow never show the exhaustion that must come from answering the same question five (or more) different ways.
But what makes them truly exceptional is their sense of timing. They know when to start letting go—not because they’re abandoning you, but because they understand that growth only happens when you start solving problems on your own. The end goal is to make you self-sufficient long after the program ends.
I’ll never forget a moment during Project 2 when I was trying to integrate the Yelp API. I was stuck. My instructor walked over and said, “Why don’t you try writing a filter function?” At the time, I hadn’t heard that term before, but something about the simplicity of that suggestion opened a door. I wasn’t handed the answer—I was given just enough direction to find it myself. That shift—from guided support to self-driven discovery—is the secret sauce of GA’s instructional model.
Pushing you beyond your comfort zone
No matter how intense a GA bootcamp is, there’s always a danger of plateauing once you start to feel confident. That’s when great instructors turn up the pressure—not to crush you, but to stretch you. They introduce challenges that push your perceived limits, helping you build not just knowledge, but resilience.
They understand that the real world isn’t as forgiving as the classroom. Deadlines are tighter. Problems are messier. Feedback is harsher. Good instructors won’t coddle you. But they also won’t throw you in the deep end unprepared. They walk the line between support and challenge with careful precision.
From the instructor’s chair: Insights from Zac
Zac Messinger, my best friend and a former 足球竞彩网 Assembly Web Development Immersive (now Software Engineering Bootcamp) instructor, gave me a behind-the-scenes look at what it takes to lead a cohort. His insights gave me even more respect for the role.
Mastery of the subject
First, Zac emphasized the obvious: you can’t teach what you don’t know. Instructors need deep technical knowledge. But more importantly, they need to understand the “why” behind the code (or the design, or the data)—because students will ask. And they’ll ask good, hard, sometimes weird questions. Instructors need to be ready to dig into the guts of a topic.
Communication is everything
Mastery doesn’t mean anything if you can’t explain it clearly. Great instructors can take a complex concept and boil it down to something a total novice can grasp. They use analogies, metaphors, whiteboards—whatever it takes. Their ability to teach is a direct reflection of their ability to empathize.
Preparation over improvisation
No one’s winging it at GA. Instructors are expected to bring structure and coherence to each lesson. They don’t just teach JavaScript—they tell a story about how components fit together, why certain tools exist, and how each decision in the development process can affect the final product. That kind of flow doesn’t happen by accident.
Human connection
Zac shared one of the most important parts of the job was being relatable. Instructors aren’t just walking encyclopedias—they’re mentors, confidants, and occasional therapists. Students need to feel heard and seen. They need someone who understands their strengths and weaknesses, and helps them bridge the gap from “I can’t do this” to “I’ve got this.”
Zac also praised GA for how seriously they invest in preparing instructors. He and his co-instructors weren’t just handed a slide deck and told to “go teach.” GA trained them to stay current with industry demands, balance fundamentals with the latest trends, and iterate on curriculum every cohort based on what worked (and what didn’t). That’s why GA students graduate with more than just conceptual knowledge—they graduate with real skills, ready to contribute.
The GA standard
At 足球竞彩网 Assembly, Instructors aren’t just guides—they’re gatekeepers to transformation. They take students from zero to career-ready in a matter of weeks or months. And they do it with empathy, rigor, patience, and—perhaps most importantly—a relentless belief in the potential of every student who walks through the door.
Whether you’re a student on day one, trying to understand what “object-oriented programming” means, or an instructor pulling a late night tweaking lesson plans for tomorrow, the dynamic between you shapes everything that comes next.
Here’s to the GA instructors who make the impossible feel possible. You’re not just teaching code or design—you’re rewriting futures.Ready to learn real, in-demand skills to take your career to the next level? Check out all GA’s course offerings (from free classes to full-time bootcamps) here.
ABOUT TIM BRUNS
A few years after graduating college, Tim realized his lifelong dream of becoming a sales trader. But after reaching the summit, he quickly realized his dream career was the wrong fit — for a litany of reasons. So at 27 years young, he had a “eureka” moment, quit his supposed dream job, and attended a 足球竞彩网 Assembly coding bootcamp. It was both the most radical and important decision he’d ever made. With help from 足球竞彩网 Assembly, he re-learned how to learn immersively, acquired domain expertise, and landed as an early employee at a scrappy tech startup — where he still works today as a Team Lead & Sr. Solutions Engineer. Check out Tim’s blog for everything from advice on choosing a coding bootcamp to no-nonsense LA restaurant reviews.