Beyond the Bootcamp: How Chris Guthrie Became a VP and Senior Engineer at BlackRock

In the world of finance, few names loom larger than BlackRock. With over $10 trillion in assets under management as of January 2022, the investment giant touches nearly every corner of the global economy. And increasingly, technology is central to how BlackRock operates and delivers value to its clients.

Chris Guthrie knows this well. As a Vice President and Senior Engineer at the firm, he leads the development of critical software powering BlackRock‘s services. But just a few years ago, Chris‘s career looked very different. After spending six years as an equity trader, he left the volatile world of stock trading behind to attend a coding bootcamp and break into the tech industry.

Recently, I sat down with Chris to learn more about his inspiring career transformation, get a peek behind the scenes of his work at BlackRock, and hear his advice for other aspiring developers looking to follow in his footsteps.

Learning to Code

Chris‘s path to software engineering was an unconventional one. Though he had some exposure to programming growing up, as his father was a developer, he didn‘t consider it as a career until much later in life. Instead, he studied finance in college and after graduating, moved to New York City to work at a proprietary trading firm.

"It was a very interesting experience," Chris recalled of his six years as a trader. "I learned a ton about how our markets work, but ultimately decided that wasn‘t the way I wanted to spend my whole life because it was a very volatile life – there‘d be some days where you would do very well and some days where you would do quite the opposite. It was a tough way to live."

Seeking a career change, Chris began to explore the world of technology. He started experimenting with coding in his spare time, building small trading algorithms. But it was through a good friend that he learned about coding bootcamps and specifically Programming School.

"I was astounded and blown away how quickly [my friend] was able to transform her career," Chris said. "The amount of stuff you learn in a short amount of time is just incredible. It was very clear the demand for developers in the marketplace is just explosive. Deciding that I couldn‘t pass up that kind of value – a three month investment with tremendous return – I enrolled."

At Flatiron, Chris dove into an immersive software engineering curriculum, learning full stack web development with Ruby on Rails and JavaScript. The program was intense, with students coding for 10-12 hours per day, but highly effective. Core to the approach was a focus on building real-world projects.

"Flatiron didn‘t mess around," Chris said. "On the very first day, they sat us all down and told us we had to push code in like two hours. We all had our five minutes of panic before we settled down and tried to figure out how to actually use Git, write a few lines of HTML, and so on. But that‘s really the only way you can learn to code – by making mistakes, making them often, and figuring out the right way to do things."

By the end of the 15-week program, Chris had gained a strong foundation in both front-end and back-end development, and was equipped with a portfolio of projects to show employers. He quickly landed a job as a software engineer at BlackRock and hit the ground running.

Climbing the Ladder at BlackRock

Chris joined BlackRock‘s Aladdin Product Group, working on the firm‘s investment management platform used by institutional investors and wealth managers around the world. He started out focused primarily on legacy code, making small bug fixes and incremental improvements.

"When I first got to BlackRock, I was working on Java and Scala applications," Chris explained. "I didn‘t know either of those languages coming in, but because I had learned how to learn at Flatiron, I was able to pick them up quickly."

As he grew more comfortable with the codebase, Chris began to take on more responsibility and spearhead larger projects. Seeing an opportunity to have an impact, he taught himself Angular and rewrote one of BlackRock‘s older applications in the new framework.

"Looking back at the code now, it‘s hilariously awful," Chris said with a laugh. "But you have to start somewhere. The cool thing was that I was able to do it and it impressed a lot of people. That kind of cemented my reputation as someone who can figure things out."

Over the next few years, Chris continued to take on new challenges and was eventually promoted to his current role as a Vice President. Today, he leads the development of myBlackRock, a digital experience used by hundreds of thousands of BlackRock‘s wealth management partners.

"The core of myBlackRock is a set of web applications that enable our partners to manage accounts, portfolio data, and risk analytics," Chris explained. "We‘ve built it with a modern Angular front-end talking to a Java microservices-based back-end architecture. It‘s been really exciting to apply a lot of cutting-edge technologies and development paradigms."

The platform also includes a reporting interface that generates over 100,000 PDF reports per day, an alerting system that notifies partners of critical events, and an entitlements system that ensures secure access to sensitive financial data. "We‘re always looking for ways to improve the speed, reliability and usability of the platform," said Chris.

Most recently, Chris‘s team has been focused on a new initiative aimed at protecting investors‘ retirement savings from fraud and mismanagement. "We‘re building diagnostic tools that analyze individual portfolios and flag issues like overexposure to certain asset classes, high fees, or inappropriate risk levels given someone‘s age," he explained. "It‘s really fulfilling to work on something that will help secure people‘s financial futures."

The Bootcamp Debate

As a bootcamp graduate now working in a senior technical role at a top financial firm, Chris is often asked about his views on the coding bootcamp model versus traditional computer science degrees. It‘s a hot topic of debate within the tech industry.

"There are some CS fundamentals that you don‘t always get in a bootcamp, like algorithms, data structures, and lower-level programming," Chris acknowledged. "But what you do get are highly practical skills for building real-world applications. You learn how to quickly pick up new languages and frameworks, which is so important in this field where the tools are always evolving."

He continued: "I think there‘s absolutely still a place for CS degrees, but more and more top employers are recognizing that there are alternative paths to gaining engineering skills. What they‘re really looking for are candidates who can learn quickly, communicate well, and get stuff done using the latest technologies – and in my experience, coding bootcamps like Flatiron prepare you very well for that."

The data backs this up. In its 2022 Student Outcomes report, the bootcamp review site Course Report found that graduates of Flatiron and other top coding schools go on to work at tech giants like Google, Amazon, and Microsoft as well as major financial institutions like JPMorgan Chase, Capital One, and of course, BlackRock. On average, graduates earn a starting salary of around $75,000 and see an average salary lift of over 50% compared to their pre-bootcamp wages.

What‘s more, the overall demand for software developers continues to surge. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that the field will grow by 22% this decade – much faster than the average for all occupations – adding over 400,000 new jobs. And increasingly, those developers are coming from non-traditional backgrounds.

"Some of the best engineers I‘ve worked with are self-taught or have taken unconventional paths into the field, like through coding bootcamps or even the arts and humanities," noted Chris. "There‘s definitely more than one way into a technology career, and I think firms benefit from that diversity of experiences and perspectives."

The Future of FinTech

Looking ahead, Chris sees no shortage of opportunities for software engineers, particularly in the financial technology (fintech) space where BlackRock sits. "Software is eating the financial world," he said. "There‘s so much potential to use technologies like machine learning, blockchain, and cloud computing to solve challenges around financial access, inclusion, security and efficiency."

He pointed to the rapid growth of the fintech sector in recent years. Global venture capital investment into fintech startups hit a record $132 billion in 2021, up 169% from the prior year, according to CB Insights. Established players like BlackRock are also heavily investing in their technology capabilities to stay competitive.

"BlackRock manages over $10 trillion in assets, so the scale at which we operate is immense," said Chris. "For every investment decision or risk analysis, there‘s an engineer building the models and infrastructure to enable that. I think software development in finance is super exciting because your code has a huge real-world impact in moving markets and shaping economic outcomes for millions of people."

As for the future of software development more broadly, Chris sees an industry in constant motion. "The field evolves so quickly and the tools are always changing, which can be both exhilarating and intimidating," he said. "My advice for new developers is to get really good at the fundamentals – learn how to break down problems, think like an engineer, work with others, and teach yourself new things. Those core skills will serve you well no matter what languages or frameworks come and go."

Paying It Forward

When he reflects back on his own unconventional career path, Chris is quick to credit the mentors and peers who supported him along the way. "I‘ve been really fortunate to have managers and leaders at BlackRock who believed in me and gave me stretch opportunities to grow," he said. "My colleagues at Flatiron were also hugely instrumental – we struggled through those long days of coding together, and I‘m still close with many of them today."

Now, as a senior leader himself, Chris makes it a priority to pay that mentorship forward to the next generation of developers. "I do a lot of recruiting and interviewing now, and it‘s always a thrill to see bootcamp grads and career changers succeed in this field," he said. "There‘s still so much work to be done to make the technology industry more accessible and inclusive, but every time I meet an aspiring engineer with a non-traditional background, I‘m reminded of the power of programs like Flatiron to change lives and open doors."

For Chris, the immense potential for software developers to drive progress across industries is what makes him excited to come to work every day. "Technology is transforming every sector, but finance is an area where I think the impact is just massive in terms of both the scale and the societal implications," he said. "It‘s a privilege to be able to build tools that protect people‘s hard-earned savings and help them achieve their financial goals."

He concluded with some words of wisdom for aspiring programmers: "If you have a passion for problem solving and lifelong learning, there‘s never been a better time to pursue a career in software development. The opportunities are boundless, the work is challenging and fulfilling, and you‘ll be part of building the future. Don‘t be afraid to bet on yourself and take that leap – with hard work and dedication, you can achieve more than you ever thought possible. I‘m living proof of that."