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Former high salaried person who jumped ship for a coding bootcamp here with some quick thoughts. 1) The negative image of coding bootcamps on HN is worse than

Former high salaried person who jumped ship for a coding bootcamp here with some quick thoughts. 1) The negative image of coding bootcamps on HN is worse than in industry, not the other way. There are plenty of coders who came from bootcamps now working in industry. I agree that you aren't as well regarded a CS major, but it is definitely better than self taught. 2) The things you listed he should do are pretty much the things you'll do at a coding bootcamp. If you can stay on a good course and keep yourself motivated, it is completely reasonable to think you can be in a similar position in the same time frame (with an extra 10-20k in the bank.) However, you should be very honest about those two qualifications. It's quite easy to get side tracked/not do as much work as you think you will. 3) You're right on about the new tech. The reason that we think it's cool is because it's the thing that everyone is talking about on HN. The reason there is so much traction with all of these topics is because there aren't a lot of applications for them and a lot of people are playing with them. I'd expect an entry level coding job to be writing REST APIs and front ends for CRUD apps. You might be pleasantly surprised, but I wouldn't quit your job expecting otherwise. a) The thing that isn't frequently talked about wrt bootcamps is that you don't get a job after the bootcamp. I'd expect 30-60 days of applying and interviewing before you get the job, just FYI.

shoefly 10y ago
The best software engineers at my company are self-taught.
- drawnwren 10y ago
  That is entirely reasonable. I wasn't commenting on how good the programmers are, just how well those specific things are perceived on resumes with no prior coding-as-a-professional experience.
- Boromir35 10y ago
  IMHO, if you are self-taught, have been able to build a portfolio of projects showing your skills with several of the latest technologies, your profile is much more valuable than if you have been to a bootcamp. Going to a bootcamp shows you are just another good student, who can sit in a classroom for 10hours straight in a day, during 12 weeks, and get good marks. When you are self-taught, you show that beyond your new technical skills, you have the self-discipline, and drive to learn and practice new skills from scratch, without someone holding your hand. This must be a skill that any employer would value highly. Employers would want their SW engineers to be autonomous, and have the self-discipline to initiate to keep learning, because with SW, you need to constantly learn if you want your skills to remain up to date. Teaching yourself SW is hard. If you manage to do that, the proof is there that you are passionate about what you're doing, because I don't believe it is possible to teach yourself SW without being passionate about it. There are heaps of resources online nowadays to teach yourself SW engineering.
  - drawnwren 10y ago
    It's clear you have very little knowledge of what happens at bootcamps. I would think of them more as a place where they give you a path to accomplish self study tasks than a classroom. Also, I don't know about other bootcamps, but I came out with a reasonable portfolio. That's a big part of the program.
    - wanderr 10y ago
      The portfolio is usually not worth much. Each project has ~4 people working on it, so it's hard to tell how much credit / blame you should get for it. And since you were at a bootcamp motivated to see you finish, how much hand holding did you get from them? Another problem is that I've seen the same, probably 10 projects implemented dozens of times each at this point. They are all almost exactly the same, with very little difference in implementations. When I try to dive in and ask about implementation questions or how they would change it to support a particular feature or why they think this glaringly obvious bug exists, most of the graduates can't answer my questions, often because "oh, I didn't work on that part". Don't get me wrong, I've met some brilliant and capable bootcampers, who I suspect would've done just as well or better outside of a bootcamp, but my point is that having a bootcamp portfolio isn't much of a signal.
  - tells 10y ago
    This is more or less false. Most bootcamps don't give 'marks'. Most of them are also not lecture based. Instead, they are likely to assess through assignments and/or projects. They help you progressively build towards a solid base of knowledge while you work on building out a portfolio. I would say the accelerated time span is due to curated resources and the immediate feedback loop. Concepts that normally take a week or longer to grok from searching on the web, can be reduced to a few hours at a bootcamp. You also seem to think attending a bootcamp automatically precludes a student from being able to provide themselves with continuing education. There are different motivations for people entering a bootcamp and some are looking for that paycheck. But again, that does not necessarily make them a bad SW engineer. And if those people would like to keep their salary, they will learn soon enough that they will not get very far with stale knowledge.
- alexbanks 10y ago
  Bootcamp != self taught.
mathgenius 10y ago
> you don't get a job after the bootcamp. I'd expect 30-60 days of applying and interviewing before you get the job, just FYI. It completely boggles my mind that someone can just go and do a "bootcamp" and then land a job two or three months later. Is there really that much demand for coders out there? Such a person could easily do more harm than good.
- ryuker16 10y ago
  I suspect alot end up in intern or QA roles or and some less than reputable company looking good for warm bodies.
- GFischer 10y ago
  A company I know of (in a not-so-hot city in the U.S.) was so desperate for coders that they hired a Physics student with basically no coding experience. He was a disaster, they'd have been much better off with a bootcamp graduate.

shoefly 10y ago

The best software engineers at my company are self-taught.

drawnwren 10y ago
That is entirely reasonable. I wasn't commenting on how good the programmers are, just how well those specific things are perceived on resumes with no prior coding-as-a-professional experience.
Boromir35 10y ago
IMHO, if you are self-taught, have been able to build a portfolio of projects showing your skills with several of the latest technologies, your profile is much more valuable than if you have been to a bootcamp. Going to a bootcamp shows you are just another good student, who can sit in a classroom for 10hours straight in a day, during 12 weeks, and get good marks. When you are self-taught, you show that beyond your new technical skills, you have the self-discipline, and drive to learn and practice new skills from scratch, without someone holding your hand. This must be a skill that any employer would value highly. Employers would want their SW engineers to be autonomous, and have the self-discipline to initiate to keep learning, because with SW, you need to constantly learn if you want your skills to remain up to date. Teaching yourself SW is hard. If you manage to do that, the proof is there that you are passionate about what you're doing, because I don't believe it is possible to teach yourself SW without being passionate about it. There are heaps of resources online nowadays to teach yourself SW engineering.
- drawnwren 10y ago
  It's clear you have very little knowledge of what happens at bootcamps. I would think of them more as a place where they give you a path to accomplish self study tasks than a classroom. Also, I don't know about other bootcamps, but I came out with a reasonable portfolio. That's a big part of the program.
  - wanderr 10y ago
    The portfolio is usually not worth much. Each project has ~4 people working on it, so it's hard to tell how much credit / blame you should get for it. And since you were at a bootcamp motivated to see you finish, how much hand holding did you get from them? Another problem is that I've seen the same, probably 10 projects implemented dozens of times each at this point. They are all almost exactly the same, with very little difference in implementations. When I try to dive in and ask about implementation questions or how they would change it to support a particular feature or why they think this glaringly obvious bug exists, most of the graduates can't answer my questions, often because "oh, I didn't work on that part". Don't get me wrong, I've met some brilliant and capable bootcampers, who I suspect would've done just as well or better outside of a bootcamp, but my point is that having a bootcamp portfolio isn't much of a signal.
- tells 10y ago
  This is more or less false. Most bootcamps don't give 'marks'. Most of them are also not lecture based. Instead, they are likely to assess through assignments and/or projects. They help you progressively build towards a solid base of knowledge while you work on building out a portfolio. I would say the accelerated time span is due to curated resources and the immediate feedback loop. Concepts that normally take a week or longer to grok from searching on the web, can be reduced to a few hours at a bootcamp. You also seem to think attending a bootcamp automatically precludes a student from being able to provide themselves with continuing education. There are different motivations for people entering a bootcamp and some are looking for that paycheck. But again, that does not necessarily make them a bad SW engineer. And if those people would like to keep their salary, they will learn soon enough that they will not get very far with stale knowledge.
alexbanks 10y ago
Bootcamp != self taught.

mathgenius 10y ago

> you don't get a job after the bootcamp. I'd expect 30-60 days of applying and interviewing before you get the job, just FYI. It completely boggles my mind that someone can just go and do a "bootcamp" and then land a job two or three months later. Is there really that much demand for coders out there? Such a person could easily do more harm than good.

ryuker16 10y ago
I suspect alot end up in intern or QA roles or and some less than reputable company looking good for warm bodies.
GFischer 10y ago
A company I know of (in a not-so-hot city in the U.S.) was so desperate for coders that they hired a Physics student with basically no coding experience. He was a disaster, they'd have been much better off with a bootcamp graduate.