Anecdotally, I agree with this. All of the successful dev bootcamp alumni that I know had been writing code for one reason another for at least a year before th

Anecdotally, I agree with this. All of the successful dev bootcamp alumni that I know had been writing code for one reason another for at least a year before they joined one of the bootcamps. They probably didn't need a dev bootcamp to get them off the ground, but it probably helped with giving them structure and routine to fully follow through with retraining and transitioning careers. Generally there seem to be three schools of hiring: (1) people who have been classically trained, (2) people who seem generally smart and willing to grind, (3) people who have done the work before. #1 you mostly only get from a 4-year degree program, and colleges generally filter for #2. The other way I see people in category #2 hired is when they transition into a dev job through ad hoc circumstances (e.g. data analyst who needed to do more and more coding on the job). #3 is just having been a programmer before. If you go to a dev bootcamp, you won't have #1 or #3. You're depending purely on #2, and that's the one category where it's mostly about you, not the dev bootcamp. The dev bootcamp is just there to give you structure and to signal something to employers.