When I graduated from a coding boot camp, I struggled for ~3 years trying to get my first real SWE role. At a few points, I was literally begging startups to le

When I graduated from a coding boot camp, I struggled for ~3 years trying to get my first real SWE role. At a few points, I was literally begging startups to let me work for them practically for free, and they were still saying no. A lot of companies have a genuine fear that just having inexperienced people around is more of a liability than an asset. I doubt I would’ve ever taken a deal like this, but I don’t think it’s that unreasonable to have to eat some shit for a year or two in order to break into what you want to do. If your choice is between earning $8/hr working retail, and earning $8/hr as an engineer, the latter is the way to go. Maybe also judge it against going to grad school where you’re not just not making money, but you’re actually going into tens of thousands of dollars of debt.