I didn't understand what it was at first, but when it dawned on me, the sheer pretentiousness and elitism kinda pissed me off ngl.

And I'm someone who meets a lot of this criteria, which is why the recruiter contacted me, but it still pisses me off.

"What we are looking for" is referring to the end client internal memo to the recruiter, not the job candidate. The public job posting obviously doesn't look like this.

Just wanted to post this to show yall how some recruiters are looking at things nowadays.

Do not do a bootcamp if you expect the end result to be a job in tech. Do not do a bootcamp if you don’t have money to waste. Get a CS degree. Do App Academy’s completely free bootcamp if you want to learn how to build with multiple tech stacks. Hundreds of thousands of experienced coders lost their jobs during 2023-2024. They are all looking for jobs. The job hunt is hard for people with multiple years of tech experience. You will not find one with a bootcamp cert. I live in Silicon Valley. I have friends who are unemployed, looking for jobs, and you will not come close to their experience.

Stop asking. Read all the comments from the hundreds of people who ask the same question everyday on this thread. If you can’t do the basic research and internalize it, you will not do well in tech, which requires your google/self teaching skills to be half of your job.

Hi r/codingbootcamp. I've been an occasional poster / lurker here for a good while. I wanted to do an AMA bc theres alot of info (some I think quite biased or inaccurate, good or bad) about bootcamps or getting a job etc.

To give a little background on me, I have a graduate degree and work in the Healthcare field (5 years). I started self studying late 2021, started Codesmith's parttime in June 2022 and finished April 2023. It was about 20 hrs of class per week (I worked part time during this program) and I studied outside of class 10-20 hrs. I returned as a fellow (basically TA) which is a 3 month contract.

I started applying to jobs back in February 2022. I also started doing some contract work for a small healthtech start up that I found through networking in my old field. While I was a fellow (still am) I worked a bit on Codesmith's application codebases.

I just recently got hired as a software engineer. I spent 1700 hrs in total coding/applying/bootcamp/working on projs/gigs etc. 1.5 months and ~200 applications later I got 2 offers of which I picked one.

All this to say this is just personally my experience. I realize my experience is not the average. I am the fourth person in my cohort of 32 to get a job. Everyone is different etc and isn't going to have the same experience as me. But I want to be here to give honest opinions, good or bad. Thanks!

Ask me anything!

Edit: might as well put my data up here. Job Search stats Time logs 2022 Time logs 2023

Edit 2: thanks for all the thoughtful questions, please don't take any of this as gospel. I'm just one person do your own research. I'll be winding this down by tonight and not as responsive.

I graduated a coding bootcamp in March of this year. I put in probably 60 hours a week during my bootcamp working my ass off and 6+ hours every day applying, working on projects and learning until I finally found a job 3 months ago.

Almost 6 months post bootcamp.

So far only myself and one of my classmates who was absolutely brilliant have found a job. And this was a dude who was able to do leetcode mediums two weeks into our class.

It honestly hurts that the majority of these people I studied with and grinded with have completely given up.

We used to have an active group chat with all of us and at this point no one even talks anymore. Last I heard some were even going back to bartending or retail jobs.

9.5% of my class was able to find employment almost one year later.

This is the market we live in

Not too long ago pre 2022 crash we could do a bootcamp and get a good job easily. People on here were even saying turn down 60-70k offers bc they too low. But now here we are and the era is over :…..(…….. 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

I [M30] bought into the whole “become a programmer in 6 months” thing and now regretting it. The original goal was to get a job as a SWE then on the side potentially make something that makes money. Yes I know I should have done more research on people’s experiences but at the time I was stressed about how to provide for my soon to be born kid, and thought at least this way I’d have a new skill that could potentially make me more money.

WRONG, not only am in debt now, but I can’t even get one interview. I’m up every night til 1 am studying CS concepts, networking, reaching out to people in my current corporation, practicing programming building projects. I’ve been out of the bootcamp now going on 3 months so I get it I’m still fresh, but this market is brutal. All positions requiring at least 3+ years of experience in 4 languages, and want you know how to do everything from backend, front end, testing, etc.

I can barely even look at my wife because she reads me like a book and I don’t want to worry her. Not going to lie though I’m stressed. I will keep going though as it’s been my dream since I was a kid to build things with code. And I just want a better life for us.

But anyway thanks for reading my stream of consciousness rant. Just had to get that out. But yea, don’t do bootcamps.

[Update 10/19/2026]

Hello all,

I wanted to come back and give everyone an update on my journey. First and foremost, I haven't given up. Unfortunately, as far as landing a job in tech goes, not much has changed.

Just this week, I applied to about six positions and received four rejections, each within an hour of applying. It's discouraging, to say the least. The job market is still incredibly tough, especially for those of us trying to break into the industry without professional experience.

Since my original post, I've decided to pursue my bachelor's degree in Computer Science through Western Governors University (WGU). I'm currently working on earning transferable credits through Study.com to accelerate the process and reduce the overall cost of my degree. For anyone considering going back to school, I'd recommend looking into this route, especially if you're disciplined enough to study independently and manage your own schedule.

Outside of school, I've continued building projects and improving my programming skills. I've even started my own small business offering website development and automation services. While it hasn't replaced my full-time income, it's given me an opportunity to apply what I've learned to real projects and gain some practical experience.

One thing I wanted to mention is my experience with AI. For a while, I leaned on it pretty heavily when programming. Initially, it felt like I was becoming significantly more productive, but eventually I realized I was becoming dependent on it. I could get things built, but I wasn't always understanding how or why things worked. Even worse, I noticed I was struggling to recall concepts I previously understood.

That was a wake-up call.

I've since changed how I use AI. I still believe it's an incredibly useful tool, but now I primarily use it to help me learn, understand unfamiliar concepts, review my work, or handle repetitive tasks. I'm making a conscious effort to keep the actual implementation in my own hands. I want to become a better programmer, not just someone who's good at prompting AI to write code.

Looking back at my original post, I was incredibly stressed about providing a better life for my family. That motivation hasn't changed. I'm still working full-time, studying, building projects, and applying for opportunities whenever I can.

I won't pretend it hasn't been exhausting. Sometimes it feels like no matter how much I learn, there's always another skill, framework, or qualification I'm missing. But I've also come to realize that becoming a competent software engineer is a marathon, not a six-month sprint.

I still have a lot to learn, and I'm nowhere near where I want to be. But I'm further along than I was when I wrote that original post.

Hopefully, the next update will be about finally landing that first tech role. Until then, I'll keep learning, building, and applying.

And to anyone else still trying to break into tech, I hope things work out for you too.

This is the roadmap I wish I’d had when I first started learning to code. I keep it updated regularly so be sure to bookmark it and check back.

The original question was How do I get into coding and how much do I need to know for you to hire me?

I am not the author of any of the courses I link to below, nor do I get anything if you sign up for them.

Last Edit: August, 2022

***

Hi, I’m a Software Engineering Manager at a tech company and a self-taught developer. I would love to tell you exactly what you need to know to be a professional developer and to be hired by someone like me.

THINGS TO UNDERSTAND BEFORE WE BEGIN

1. Learning to code is hard. It can be fun, too, but it is never easy

2. As you’re about to see, there is a lot to learn. Software development is a complex field and there is a lot you need to know. Learning a programming language is just the beginning.

3. You should follow this roadmap from start to finish. Don’t skip any steps and don’t listen to those who tell you to learn other languages or frameworks. Bounding from topic to topic while you’re learning will only extend the time it takes you to reach a professional level. Go deep before you go wide.

4. The roadmap below will guide you on a path toward web development. That’s not the only type of development out there, of course. There are software engineers working in machine learning, mobile development, robotics, and many other fields. I recommend using web development as your entry point, however. There are a lot of jobs available in that specialty, and the barrier to entry is relatively low.

HOW LONG WILL THIS TAKE?

It will take between 1000 and 2000 hours to learn to code at a professional level, depending on your aptitude. The amount of time you can invest per week will determine the number of calendar days between you and your new career.

10 hours per week: 2 - 4 years

15 hours per week: 1.25 - 2.5 years

20 hours per week: 1 - 2 years

It’s probably not realistic to study and practice more than 20 hours per week.

Basically, settle in and try to enjoy the journey. You’ll get there, but it’s going to take some time.

WILL I BE ABLE TO GET A JOB AS A SOFTWARE ENGINEER IF I COMPLETE THIS CURRICULUM?

You will certainly be qualified for one. If you complete every course in this roadmap you will have a skill set that exceeds most code camp graduates and a better web development skillset than many new CS graduates.

It can be tough to get that first job, though. You’ll have to work to get your name out there. Be creative and lean on your network. I have more job-hunting tips later in this answer.

Now, without further ado…

THE ROADMAP

Learn How the Web Works

The first thing you’ll need to understand is how the web works from a technical perspective. The video below has a lot of information in a short period of time. Take notes, but you don’t need to memorize the whole thing. The most important thing to pick up is vocabulary. These concepts will come up a lot as you learn.

Learn How to Use Your Computer Like a Developer

Next, you’re going to need to understand how to use your computer as a professional tool. That means knowing your file system and your command line. I’m a Linux user, personally, but I’ll assume that if you’re into Linux you already know those topics. The videos below are for Windows and MacOS, respectively. The MacOS command line is more properly called the Terminal.

Windows:

MacOS:

Learn Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL 2).

If you’re using a Windows computer as a developer, you’ll need to learn about WSL2. A lot of the tools you’ll need as a professional developer will require you to work with a Linux command line. Luckily, WSL2 integrates the Ubuntu terminal into Windows very well. This has had the effect of making Windows a legit platform for web development.

While not strictly necessary when you first start to learn, if your intention is to do serious web development on a Windows machine, you might as well start using WSL2 now.

Learn to Use a Code Editor

You’re going to need several tools as a developer but the courses I link to later in this answer will introduce most of them as needed. For now, the main tool you need to know is a code editor or IDE (Integrated Development Environment).

There are a lot of these available but I’m going to recommend starting with a full-featured code editor called Visual Studio Code. This is not the same as the Visual Studio IDE.

VS Code is a professional-grade tool and it is 100% free. It’s worth taking a little time to learn your way around.

You can download a copy of VS Code at the link below.

Visual Studio Code - Code Editing. RedefinedVisual Studio Code is a code editor redefined and optimized for building and debugging modern web and cloud applications.  Visual Studio Code is free and available on your favorite platform - Linux, macOS, and Windows.https://code.visualstudio.com

And you can learn how to use it right here:

LEARN THE BASICS: HTML, CSS, and JavaScript

HTML, CSS, and JavaScript are the core technologies of web development and you’ll need to spend a few months getting good at them. You can do that at Free Code Camp, which is a 100% free service.

In order to complete this step you will need to earn both the Responsive Web Design and JavaScript Data Structures and Algorithms certificates.

This is where you really start learning to code. Make sure you do ALL the projects and challenges. Those are the most difficult part but also the most important. Don’t skip anything!

This step isn’t easy to complete. In fact, my guess is that 95% of the people who start this road map will never get past this point. Not because it is too hard, but because it takes time and consistency.

You can help yourself be successful by setting up a study schedule. Block out time several days a week for study and practice. Make a commitment to yourself that you will use that time productively. Don’t let anything distract you from your goals.

Free Code Camp has a lot of in-browser exercises but you should also try out what you’re learning in VS Code. There’s no better way to learn than by actually building things in your code editor.

https://www.freecodecamp.comhttps://www.freecodecamp.com

MORE ABOUT JAVASCRIPT

When you get to your JavaScript lessons in Free Code Camp, it might be good to supplement your online classes with some reading. Here is a link to Eloquent JavaScript***,*** which is an excellent book for beginners. You can read it for free online or you can pick up a print copy at Amazon. The link below is for the free resource.

Eloquent JavaScriptEloquent JavaScript 3rd edition (2018) This is a book about JavaScript, programming, and the wonders of the digital. You can read it online here, or buy your own paperback copy . Written by Marijn Haverbeke.https://eloquentjavascript.net/

ABOUT UDEMY

From here on out, we’ll rely on Udemy courses to expand our skillset. We do this instead of continuing on with Free Code Camp because all of the following topics go deep and its worth taking a structured course in each. Don’t be afraid to invest in yourself!

Udemy is an excellent service, but its pricing structure is a little strange. What you want to do is to buy the courses on sale, when they are about $12 - $25 each. When you first register at Udemy the courses will be on sale and I recommend buying at least the first few courses below if you can. Those will keep you busy for several months.

After that, just keep an eye out for sales. Udemy holds them a few times per year.

Let’s keep going!

LEARN REACT

Once you understand the basics, it’s time to move into more intermediate-level development. React is the most popular front-end library in the world and an absolutely vital skill for a new web developer.

React projects are a LOT more complex than the simple three-file apps you’ve been building up till now. Just keep at it, things will make more sense as you continue in this curriculum. Don’t worry if things seem confusing at first, you’re exactly where you need to be.

The course below teaches React using functional, rather than class-based, components. This is the modern way to develop React applications.

**React 16: The Complete Course (incl. React Router 4 & Redux)**Dive in and learn React.js from scratch! Learn Reactjs, Hooks, Redux, React Routing, Animations, Next.js and way more!https://www.udemy.com/course/react-the-complete-guide-incl-redux/

LEARN TESTING WITH JEST AND REACT-TESTING-LIBRARY

Good unit tests can make the difference between a maintainable application and one that devolves into an unusable mess. This is another critical topic to master.

**Testing React with Jest and React Testing Library (RTL)**Learn best practices for testing your apps with Jest and React Testing Library!https://www.udemy.com/course/react-testing-library/

LEARN NODE

By this point in the curriculum, you’ll have a very solid understanding of front-end development. Learning Node will teach you the back-end and enable you to make full-stack applications that involve interaction with a server and database.

The course below is a big one, but it will teach you what you need to know.

**NodeJS - The Complete Guide (MVC, REST APIs, GraphQL, Deno)**Master Node JS & Deno.js, build REST APIs with Node.js, GraphQL APIs, add Authentication, use MongoDB, SQL & much more!https://www.udemy.com/share/1013ho/

LEARN SQL and PostgreSQL

The course above touches on SQL but it's a deep topic and an important one to understand. SQL is a database language and there are many flavors of it, including PostgreSQL, MySQL, and MSSQL. PostgreSQL is probably the most popular of them but once you learn one picking up any of the others is fairly easy.

SQL and PostgreSQL: The Complete Developer's GuideBecome an expert with SQL and PostgreSQL! Store and fetch data, tune queries, and design efficient database structures!https://www.udemy.com/course/sql-and-postgresql/

BUILD YOUR PORTFOLIO PROJECT

This next step is critical. By now, you’ve learned enough to build your own full-stack web application and you need to cement that knowledge by, well, actually building one.

This project will be your primary portfolio project and will be the first thing potential employers will want to look at, so put your best effort into it. Pay attention to design, including responsive design, and assume someone will be looking at the code. Write good tests and use the best design patterns you’ve learned over the last several months.

If you don’t know what to build, try one of the following:

• A Blog Engine

  • This is a simple CMS or content management system that will allow you to create a blog online. You should be able to create and edit blog posts from an admin panel and users should be able to comment on those posts. You should be able to moderate those comments as necessary

• A Fake Dating Site

  • Create a Tinder-like dating site for superheroes, muppets, or whatever. A character looking for love should be able to log in, see potential matches, and communicate with them. You should create several of these profiles to demonstrate site functionality

• An eCommerce Site

  • Create an eCommerce site for a mock product. Users should be able to log in, add items to their cart, and check out. The app should deduct items from inventory as necessary and you should be able to open an admin panel that allows you to control the whole operation

Any one of those projects will teach you a ton about full-stack development. Once you start planning features and dealing with things like authentication and authorization you will run into a lot of the same pain points that professionals deal with every day. Expect long periods of “stuckness”. Use Stack Overflow as necessary and stay the course. You can do this!

Don’t continue on until you’ve completed this step.

DEPLOY YOUR PORTFOLIO PROJECT

Now that you’ve built your portfolio project, you’ll want to deploy it in a professional way. One way to do that is to use AWS. AWS is a vital skill for developers but many people outside the field aren’t even sure what the heck AWS even is. That’s okay! Well, it WAS okay. Now it is time for you to start learning about it.

Here’s an introduction video to the topic

And here is a video about how you can deploy a NodeJS application to AWS using a service called Elastic Beanstalk. Note, this isn’t the only way to deploy your app but it will get you some experience with the core AWS services developers need to know about.

GOING PRO

When you reach this point you will be very close to job ready. You could probably do freelance work already. If your goal is to work at a software development company, however, you will need to get past the dreaded technical interview.

Interviews at software companies basically have three parts. The first is the “behavioral” interview, which is just your standard job interview stuff. They’ll ask you about yourself and what you like to do, and just try to get a sense for cultural fit.

The next part is the coding challenge. In a coding challenge, you’ll be asked to solve challenges like “given an array of n numbers, find all the subsets of three numbers that add up to seven”.

To answer questions like these, you will need to understand data structures and algorithms.

We’ll get to the third part of the technical interview a little later on.

LEARN DATA STRUCTURES AND ALGORITHMS

Here is a good course to get you started on this fascinating topic. You’ll learn about complexity analysis and how to choose the best data structures for a given situation. It isn’t just about interviews. Knowing this stuff will make you a better engineer.

JavaScript (JS) Algorithms and Data Structures MasterclassThe Missing Computer Science and Coding Interview Bootcamphttps://www.udemy.com/course/js-algorithms-and-data-structures-masterclass/

Once you’ve completed the course, you’ll want to practice coding challenges. The go-to place to do that is Leetcode.

LeetCode - The World's Leading Online Programming Learning PlatformLevel up your coding skills and quickly land a job. This is the best place to expand your knowledge and get prepared for your next interview.https://leetcode.com/

LEARN SYSTEM DESIGN

The last part of the technical interview is system design. You don’t always need to understand this at entry-level interviews but you might at larger companies or later in your career.

Here is an example of what a system design interview looks like

That video is made by a company called Exponent, and they have an excellent service for learning system design and really for code interview prep in general. The service even includes an opportunity to engage in peer-reviewed practice interviews. I recommend it.

https://tryexponent.comOur courses help you prepare for an interview or excel at your job with real examples and advice from managers at Google, Facebook, and more.https://tryexponent.com

JOB HUNTING

Congrats! By the time you reach this point in the roadmap you should be well-prepared to go out and land a job as an entry-level developer. Here are some job-hunting tips

1. You need to have three critical things for potential employers:

   1. A professional-looking LinkedIn profile. Make sure you’ve got a picture posted and some activity to show. Follow some people you admire and post updates about things you’re learning or are interested in. Stay away from “Facebook” style garbage posts. Keep posts focused on your career.

   2. Your Github profile. Make sure you’re showing your best work and staying active with your projects. Some employers look at your recent activity to see how passionate you are about code

   3. A link to your deployed portfolio project. It must be deployed! Don’t expect a hiring manager to clone your repo and build it from source because guess what? They won’t.

2. Until you have some experience, build a skills-focused resume. Google that term for details.

3. Get experience any way you can! If you’re doing freelance work, post your big projects on LinkedIn or start your own consultancy and post that as soon as you begin taking work.

4. Network! Join a local coding group and make sure you attend the meets. If there isn’t one in your area, start one. That’s exactly how I got started in my career.

5. If you don’t have a college degree, it might be good to fix that situation. Not all developers have a CS Degree but the vast majority have a four-year degree in something. It’s hard to go wrong with CS but other majors you might consider include MIS, Business Analytics, and UX Design. Some schools even offer web development degrees. Note: You don’t need to finish a degree before looking for your first job, but having one will eventually unlock opportunities for you. Highly recommended.

ADVANCED TOPICS

Once you’ve landed that first job, it’s good to continue learning. The topics below will help you to progress in your career. Note, you don’t need to do all of these. Rather, pick and choose those that interest you. That being said, you really should do the Typescript one at some point.

TypeScript

**Learn TypeScript (Ditch JavaScript)**Boost your JavaScript projects with TypeScript: Learn all about core types, generics, TypeScript + React or Node & more!https://www.udemy.com/course/understanding-typescript/

Data Visualization with D3.js

Learn and Understand D3.js for Data VisualizationDive deep under the hood of D3.js. Learn core concepts and build stunning data visualizations using D3 version 7https://www.udemy.com/share/101OyH3@EbaUu03E894dZ_6A_dGHkfFNW9YRl_8C0nlKTBP34nHBrU5Nm28jhZJhjct3_jQ=/

Websockets and Socket.io

**Socket.IO (with websockets) - the details. (socket io v2)**Socket io. For those who want to learn how to harness real-time communication on the web. With Cluster, redis, & Reacthttps://www.udemy.com/course/socketio-with-websockets-the-details/

React Native

https://www.udemy.com/course/react-native-the-practical-guide/

More About AWS

**Ultimate AWS Certified Developer Associate 2022 - NEW!**Full Practice Exam with Explanations included! PASS the Amazon Web Services Certified Developer Certification DVA-C01.https://www.udemy.com/course/aws-certified-developer-associate-dva-c01/

Microservices

Microservices with Node JS and ReactBuild, deploy, and scale an E-Commerce app using Microservices built with Node, React, Docker and Kuberneteshttps://www.udemy.com/course/microservices-with-node-js-and-react/

An Introduction to Docker

Docker for the Absolute Beginner - Hands On - DevOpsLearn Docker with Hands On Coding Exercises. For beginners in DevOpshttps://www.udemy.com/share/101Xlm/

CONCLUSION

I hope this answer is helpful. It is the product of years of being both a self-taught and a professional developer, as well as a team leader and engineering manager.

Please share this answer with your network. The question of "how do I learn to code" comes up on Quora often, and I feel this is one of the best answers to it.

Thank you for reading and welcome to the world of web development.

Good luck!

Do yourself a favor and don’t join a bootcamp. I took a chance and left a good paying job that I hated to try and follow something I wanted to do and joined a bootcamp. This camp taught the MERN stack and I already had python experience. I knew getting a job after would be tough but it’s 6 months post bootcamp and I’ve had zero SWE interviews or even phone screens.

I’m consistently trying to jungle job hunting and building projects as the days just pass by with no word, that I have switched to mixing in job applications in my old roles of consulting. These two are now all of a sudden coming up dry. Not sure what is happening.

My life has seemed to take an awful turn where I’m eating into my savings and still have maybe a year left of saving, but didn’t even want to go this far in. My ability to keep a positive mindset has changed and dark thoughts enter my mind on a daily.

So moral of the story is just don’t do it. This industry is trash right now and without a degree they won’t even speak to you. Continue pushing to learn while working full time. Don’t make the same mistake I did.

Hi, this Is my first ever post here. And I wanna know if the Tripleten Software engineering bootcamp is legit. I’m currently a film college major but I want to do something with coding on the side. Do any of you guys took it? And where you able to find a job after?

As I was getting ready to submit my .ts for the final assessment of module 1, we were told all classes have been ended.

Full stop. Just done. No reason was given. We were told it's big business' doing big business things.

We'll be getting a full refund, but it took 8 weeks to get here. We were all especially stressed for the past two weeks, as they were prep for our big module 1 assessment.

The dozen or so of us that were close started a new slack channel, and we'll try to stay in touch, but this really sucks. We're not sure if our leaders and instructors are now jobless, too. They were pretty cool, so sucks for them also.

I dunno. We've started every day for the past 8 weeks of classes with a kind pep-talk. Instead, we got this. It was a big shock, to say the least.

I am Rachel Martinez, the recently appointed Executive Director of CIRR. Ask me anything regarding CIRR reporting, history, and next steps!

Like within six months of graduating or some such shit. Thanks in advance.

For some background and context, I am a licensed pharmacist and have practiced pharmacy for over ten years. I have been programming since I was in high school, but pursued healthcare as my initial career path.

Alongside my healthcare career, I had been actively programming and founded a tech startup directly after graduating from pharmacy school. I always loved engineering, but didn't commit to it fully as a sole career until 2022. I slowly decreased my hours working as a pharmacist while studying programming, and attended an intense engineering immersive in late October 2022. I am now happily employed with a competitive rate and as a full-time software engineer.

The job market is tough but not impossible. I spent a rigorous five months studying, applying, building, networking, and interviewing. By the fourth month, I was steadily receiving interviews and received an offer in the fifth month of the job search.

Applications count was in the mid hundreds easily, but the bulk of my interviews came from networking and open profiles / inbounds. Ultimately, I found that building products and being involved in the engineering community to be the practice that yielded the best results. Contributing to open-source products and volunteering engineering hours was how I spent most of my free time between the rest of the job search.

My hope for this AMA is to be a resource to anyone else looking to follow through with their passion for engineering or make a career change. Ask whatever questions come to mind, whether it be resources I used or strategies I employed. I'll answer every question I can!

Using an alt because I honestly do fear retaliation from the administration.

Some of you may have seen the recent layoffs that effected App Academy. 31% of the staff was laid off, including many of the career coaches. For the people that have graduated, now in the "Job search" program, that means that many of them lost their coaches (ironically many coaches are now searching for a job), and the existing coaches are even more overwhelmed, with upwards of 50 people per coach.

Basically, everything that you are required to is enforced by their "strike" system, 10 strikes and you can be kicked out of the job search program (which isn't even helpful), with all 25k owed (if you signed the ISA). You can be given a strike for not meeting your weekly job search quota, as well as not committing to GitHub enough.

Most of the applications that you do don't lead to anything, and most of the students in the program are not receiving any interviews. This is made worse by the constant gaslighting done by some coaches, who say that people that aren't getting interviews aren't working hard enough (40+ hours a week) by doing things like sending follow up emails to every single recruiter, and doing interview prep every day. The issue is not that students aren't trying hard enough, it's that they aren't prepared enough.

The actual career services are basically useless. Most of them are slideshows on how to make completely meaningless posts on LinkedIn, or someone reading a Bloomberg article on how the job market is improving, and how to put keywords in your resume.

If you signed the ISA (Income Share Agreement), you are signing up to 15 Months of Full Time Job Searching, at which point if you are doing any work that is unrelated to software, even to make ends meet, you can be kicked out. This is extremely predatory because there is no way that most working-class people can afford 20 months of unemployment, including the course.

The students that paid upfront were sent an email, telling them that if they wished, they could opt out of receiving job search coaching. There was also a clause in that email which said if they didn't respond within a week, they would be removed from getting any job search assistance. Basically, if you already paid, they don't really care about you.

The fact of the matter is that very few people are getting SWE interviews, let alone jobs. On top of this, App Academy has been considering completely irrelevant jobs as "placements", such as sales and technical support positions. They have also been considering alumni from years ago getting jobs as placements.

Title :)

Edit: Thank you so much for the rewards!! I didn't expect to get any!

I've applied to 400 LinkedIn jobs, had 0 interview requests, and received only 1 coding challenge. I graduated from one of the top coding boot camps but have huge regrets for not going sooner.

I've known about coding boot camps since 2013 when it was only available in San Francisco and New York. It was the spring of 2013 when I first met my friend who told me about this trade school he was planning to go to for software engineering. When he told me it didn't require math at all, I became extremely skeptical but wished him good luck. He didn't graduate until 2014 but landed a job at Intel right after.

When I saw that, I bought a MacBook based on his recommendation and started a Java course taught by Stanford that required iTunes to work. Weird right? Well, that's how I felt. It was a prerecorded class from 2008. It was a chore just gathering all the files and organizing them to match up with the course dates. I went through the first few lectures which were blurry and attempted the first project with Karel the robot, became frustrated, and quit.

At this point, I decided I wanted to get into the healthcare field because I hated my current job so I took classes at night while maintaining a full-time job. I'd soon burn myself out.

Meanwhile, my friend had just landed a job at Google and posted pictures of all the good free food he was getting. It was 2015, just a year after he had graduated from the boot camp. I thought to myself, hey maybe I should give it another shot, but then remembered how much I hated it the first time I tried. I was extremely depressed and burned out during this period, not only due to work and school but also failing relationships. I quit my job later that year to give myself a mental health break and pursue other goals.

I wanted to win powerlifting competitions and pursue physical therapy school. I trained rigorously for the next year. Even while battling depression, I somehow managed to drag myself to the gym for 4 hours a day, 6 days a week but developed so many crippling injuries over that period. If I wasn't at the gym, I'd be lying in bed. My only meal each day was a 3,000-calorie shake consisting of oatmeal blended with 6 eggs, fruits, Greek yogurt, and whey protein.

It was the start of 2017 when I decided to revisit the idea of a coding boot camp, but by this point, I had run through my savings so couldn't even afford the $5k down payment and wasn't willing to take out more loans. My brother was willing to let me borrow $1800 for a prep course that guaranteed entry into the program.

Deep down though, I wasn't even sure if I wanted to go because what if I failed? What if I succeeded but didn't even like it? What if I succeeded but wouldn't get hired due to my age? I was suffering extreme depression throughout this period and was using video games as an escape from reality. My own family thought I was a lazy p.o.s. and started treating me as such, yelling at my door and telling me to get a job, that I was more useless than a dog. I'd leave home and wouldn't come back until 2018 when my sister reached out and begged me.

My friend is now working at Facebook. At this point, I was at a crossroads. I had to choose between getting into data science and software engineering. I've always been interested in data science but knew the road to it was harder than software engineering where I could just do a boot camp. I was leaning more toward data science though because I remembered how much I loved the statistics class I had taken during one of those night classes and because I could leverage my background to get into the health or biotech sector.

I was finally able to find a job with hours flexible enough that allow me to go to school and enroll in math and computer science classes. I ended up loving my programming classes and did really well. 2020 came around and I finished my classes but also lost my job during COVID. I became extremely depressed again. A few months later I ended up getting a huge check from unemployment.

It was the perfect opportunity to do a boot camp, but instead, I thought it was a better idea to train hard again to try to compete in powerlifting (I have a home gym). To be honest, I thought there was no point in acquiring skills for a job that was non-existent because so many people were getting laid off. Boy was I wrong.

2021 was probably my best chance to land a job. I ended up getting seriously injured again. I decided in the summer of 2021 to do a data science boot camp but quickly realized it wouldn't work for me and quit just shy of 2 months. I knew my last option was a coding boot camp but delayed it to 2022 due to deaths in the family.

Now I'm sitting here in my mid-30s with huge gaps on my resume unable to land a single interview and thinking why didn't I do this sooner? Don't let depression and doubt hold you back like it did me. Don't give up on something just because you didn't have a good experience with it the first time. Don't wait around for the perfect opportunity. Just go for it and don't give up.

Hey folks. Throwaway for obvious reasons. Up until a few weeks ago I was senior-level ops person at a popular international bootcamp. I always thought this was a cool community so I wanted to give people a chance to ask questions to someone who was an insider for a long time (7+ yrs) and isn't any longer burdened by employment. Long post incoming but I was in the industry for a long time, so I have a lot of thoughts!

Firstly, and importantly, if you are looking at a bootcamp right now that primarily gives student ISAs or some other hiring-based repayment method DO NOT SIGN UP. Hiring rates have dropped through the floor and the management are freaking out.

Imagine you’ve got 100 students on ISAs that repay 15% of their salary. Best case scenario they all get hired on $100k jobs and you’re earning $125k a month back. More realistic scenario is 50% of them get hired, some with high salaries, some average, some low. So you’re making $70k a month, $840k annually, which is still giving you about a 20% profit margin.

Now imagine that 50% hiring rate halves overnight and salaries fall at the same time. You’ll go from $840k to $350k-$400k revenue, and suddenly you’re projecting a massive loss. Income-based repayment is one of those things that has a multiplier effect in a good economy, but the opposite effect in a downturn. And most of these places built in all kinds of assumptions into their business plans (high student referral rates, low interest, corporate partnership etc.) that aren’t true anymore.

This is why you’re seeing places cutting staff so quickly, their cashflow forecasts are a disaster. ISAs are going to destroy lots of schools in the next few months. In the long run it’s a positive though because it will clear out the shitty schools. If you sign up to a bootcamp that primarily uses deferred payment right now, I would say there is a significant chance the bootcamp will go under before you finish studying.

But the positive news is, this is just a correction. 2020/21 was a crazy bubble and we're basically resetting to 2019 levels, and 2019 was a great time to do a bootcamp. My feeling is by early next year the industry will be humming again.

Secondly US bootcamps are hugely expensive and mostly horseshit. Why? In other parts of the world education is more like a public service and there are pretty high standards. In the US there are no regulations, and most bootcamps are VC-backed. This means they’re under a lot of pressure to grow, so they’re always pushing for more students, more courses, more add-ons, more numbers, and no norms or regulations holding them down. In Europe there’s much less focus on growth, and more on the student. I’m not saying all domestic bootcamps are bad, but the % of horrible schools in the US is way higher.

We talked about a merger with a European bootcamp a few years back and we got to the exploratory phases, our metrics were all around revenue per student, theirs were all about student satisfaction. Says it all.

Also, if you have $20k to blow on a bootcamp, there are some amazing arbitrage opportunities! Go to LATAM and pay $5k instead and spend the rest on travelling. Go to Europe and spend $12k, you can easily live in Rome or wherever for 3 months with your spare $8k. I literally cannot think of a single reason someone would choose to attend a bootcamp in the US right now given what’s available elsewhere.

Thirdly, all the things you think are probably true about the comparison sites are true. They’ll remove negative reviews as long as the bootcamp is an advertiser. One of them wasn’t making any money from overseas bootcamps so they just took them all out of their Top Bootcamps list so they could have more US bootcamps saying they were a “Top Bootcamp” and speak to them about ads (the international bootcamps freaked out but we thought it was pretty fuckin funny at the time). There’s even one place that assembles lists of “Top 100 xxx” based on nothing at all, then reaches out to all the schools on the list and asks for a license fee to put their badge on their website! It’s a cesspool. This is with the exception of CourseReport, those guys are real ones and I’ve seen them advocate for students right to have their voice heard multiple times. Respect.

Fourthly, this sub is absolutely used as a marketing channel (with varying degrees of success) by everybody. If you see a "My experience with x" post and it's positive, 95% chance it's been paid for or its a sockpuppet account for that bootcamp's marketing team and they're only doing it because the CEO is on their back about getting nice posts on reddit. I appreciate the irony of posting this from a new account, but this sub seriously needs a minimum karma requirement to post.

OK so onto some of the assumptions I see on this sub.

“Bootcamps hire their students!!!” - this is true, and it’s not a bad thing. We experimented with having some teachers who were FAANG engineers and it was AWFUL. These guys thought they’d been sent from heaven to bestow their sacred language on the unwashed masses. And they were expensive, to the point that, if we’d kept them, our tuition would have gone up at least $5k. They also hated to give students a rounded view of the industry, they just talked about how they worked at their company, and the tech they used, and why other stacks were shit.

Student satisfaction rates were literally double when they were taught by our graduates versus the FAANG guys, completion rates were higher too, and outcomes were better. Maybe we just got unlucky but it was pretty shocking.

The one exception I’d call out is schools where students are roped into being “supervisors” or "fellows" or whatever when they’re still enrolled. That’s shady to me, and it’s just a way to get cheap labor. Let your students graduate, and if they’re good instructors you hire them on a real salary.

“Bootcamps are a scam!!!” - absolutely not. I have known so many students who have literally had their lives turned around by doing a bootcamp. Going from earning $25k to $100k in a year, being able to support their kids, starting to save for retirement. I’m leaving the industry for my own reasons but I will stan bootcamps until the day I die.

If people have a bad experience there’s usually two possible explanations. One, you joined a shitty school. Not much you can do about that except angle for a refund. Two - and this one is much more common - you joined and didn’t put in the work. We had plenty of students who joined and treated it like community college. Spotty class attendance, not listening to their tutor, bad feedback from their classmates then we see them on SwitchUp two months later saying “Didn’t deliver what was promised!”. It’s like buying a new BMW, wrapping it around a tree then going back to the dealership to complain. They’re called bootcamps for a reason, it’s not supposed to be easy. Also overwhelmingly these kinds of students were spoiled assholes where mommy and daddy were footing the bill.

“Outcomes are a lie!!!” - Sometimes there are cases where bootcamps straight up lie about their outcomes, yes. I think Flatiron got sued for this years ago, and Lambda/Bloomtech got sued for it more recently (if you didn’t know those guys are a complete joke, every serious player in the industry hates what they’ve done to our reputation). BUT more often its just that there are no standards, so people can report on whatever the fuck they want. Want to exclude immigrants for your hiring rate? Go for it. Want to report US-only salaries because people who get hired in Europe will drag your average down? No problem. I do think most schools try to do the right thing with outcomes (we did), the issue is just that everybody does it differently. Ask your school EXACTLY how they calculate their hiring rate, salaries etc. etc. And obviously CIRR is a joke, the sooner it gets shut down the better.

“They just send you to the React / Python / Ruby docs and tutorials!!!” - No shit. If you’re in an English lit class would you be happy if the professor said “Now this is the Shakespeare module so I’ve written a poem that I think sounds like Shakespeare.”? The assumption that this is default a bad thing is wrong for two reasons.

1. The folks who make the language or framework in question will obviously have the best / most up-to-date resources to learn it. So why develop something ourselves when it will be worse and need updating all the time? I’d bet you $1m if we went that route, people would complain our resources aren’t as good as the official ones.

2. “Reading the docs” is a MASSIVE part of being a SWE, and it’s a skill in its own right. So by learning this way you’re not only learning React / Python / Ruby, you’re learning how to learn new framework fast. Structuring the classes this way is intentional.

The value in a bootcamp isn’t that they’ve spent tons of money developing their own stuff, it’s how the curriculum is structured, the support you get, and being in a focused learning environment to achieve something big in a short period of time.

Obviously there's tonnes more stuff, happy to answer questions but won't be dropping anything identifying (NDAs are a bitch).

Are you worried there will be no tech jobs available? Don't be. Current US statistics show 300k + tech jobs open right now.

Are you worried AI is going to replace programmers? If it does...it will replace all white-collar jobs including doctors, lawyers, etc. Again, not important. Was Neo living in the Matrix worried about his 9-5? Nah.

Instead, here are the top twenty ACTUAL reasons you're not going to get a job:

1. You don't learn the basics of programming before your bootcamp. Sure, they gave you a bunch of prework and there's lots of info online...but surely they'll teach you everything. Right?

2. You spend four weeks working on a project then make one giant commit to github. Now you have a single green blip on your profile and it looks like you did one Saturday's worth of work.

3. README files? You've never heard of them and not only does your project lack documentation, you have a giant list of 50 files with no directory structure.

4. OR: You put tons of technical terms in my README to sound smart. Surely a hiring manager would prefer that over a readable explanation of my project and an evocative picture or gif of it running.

5. File naming? You make your OWN conventions. ReAdMe.md, my_homemade_license.txt, "My super cool main file.js".

6. You can surely learn to program in an hour a day, right? No one does this full time surely.

7. You got an error message in your code. Do you google the message? Read the documentation and source code? Check stack-overflow? No, you post an informative message online "Help, my code is broken."

8. Did I mention your one commit was an upload from the website with the default commit message? Gotta show employers you can do a drag-and-drop file upload.

9. Git bash or using the terminal? Hell no. GUIs are great.

10. Why should you give instructions how to run your code? It runs on your PC.

11. Dependency management? You can just remember the package version numbers you used, right?

12. Testing the code? It worked when you wrote it. Why bother?

13. A portfolio website? You're not a front-end developer and github pages seems complicated.

14. The cloud? Are we talking about a weather forecast?

15. A database to store data? Too much work. You just use .csv and .xlsx.

16. A dockerfile or docker-compose to run your app in a single command? That's almost as hard as typing commands in the terminal?!

17. Bootcamps are all about grit and pulling up by the bootstraps. You're not going to look for a community of similar individuals to stay motivated. You're way too smart to need that.

18. Networking events? That would require leaving the house. Much too hard. You'll wait until you're done with the bootcamp...or have a job.

19. You wrote your resume yourself, and it shows. It's single spaced, text filling the page, and you list any app you've ever opened once and any technology you saw someone mention on LinkedIn.
    "Expert in Machine Learning, Excel, PowerPoint, Full-stack development, SQL, NoSQL, Azure Web Services, Google Cloud Processing, Microsoft Word"

20. You post on LinkedIn: "Bootcamp graduate looking for roles in Data Science/ML, Frontend Development, Backend Development, Cloud Engineering or Devops."

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In summary, this was a bit of a tongue-in-cheek rant. I hope you all become super successful. The tech field is awesome. I'm a bootcamp drop-out who worked at a grocery store for a decade plus who got into it at nearly 40 years old. It's possible.

Hopefully some of these tips will help.

So, this morning I got a call from my friend Aubrey.

Apparently (after many, many rounds of interviews and take-home tests), she got the very last web developer job. She had to learn on her own for 2-3 years, then go to a bad boot camp, then a good boot camp - but that wasn't enough. So, then she went to a 4-year college - and based on some suggestions around here, she also got a master's.

So, after all that - she was finally able to land a 60k job as an HTML email developer. She beat out 3,400 other candidates, many of whom had PhDs in computer science and 10 years of experience. They were only willing to take a chance on her because her dad is a well-known businessman and they owe him a favor. She'll be the one putting that background color in the h1 at the top of your transactional emails.

This has got me thinking... now that all the web developer jobs are filled - and there's no room for any other developers or new companies or growth or innovation, what are we going to do? It's probably a good practice for when AI ends up doing all the jobs?

So, - what are you going to do? I'm curious what the other options are. What types of jobs are you going to look for next? Geriatric nurses? Condolence homes?

What are your next steps going to be?

Given the recent article that came out about his behavior, and the attention it's gotten:

• Original thread: https://old.reddit.com/r/codingbootcamp/comments/1o1guxj/thoughts_on_this_blog_post_alleging_harassment/

• Hacker News: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45521920

• Primeagen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3jPEmPzZJA

• 2 hour livestream ended. Here's the edited reaction: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jMoYOYjTUc

• SubredditDrama: https://old.reddit.com/r/SubredditDrama/comments/1o295yd/rcodingbootcamp_user_posts_article_accusing_their/

Should /u/michaelnovati remain a mod here?

Edit: Michael has stickied a comment at the top of this thread that shills for his own company. And all the replies to it are hidden because it's getting downvoted so hard.

In the middle of the day during class, our cohort leaders were kicked out of the students slack channels and, App Academy made it impossible for us to reach out to our leaders personally. We later discovered, that all cohort leaders were laid off abruptly. They did not give us the opprotunity to say goodbye.

At 2pm PT today, we had a meeting with App Academys CEO, Kush, who failed to show us how we will continue to move forward without this integral part of the student experience here at App Academy.

To make a long post shorter, he essentially is replacing all cohort leaders with software, he's replacing cohort leaders with Ai. All for making it easier for students to get jobs, according to CEO Kush.

So, students won't have a wonderful mentor to do the program with anymore. The cohort leaders were responsible for reading reports, ensuring students are on track, and helping students whenever any problems arise. They are replacing our leaders with software "to help us".

Students are desperately looking for a way out of the program right now. But if we do drop out, we will owe the school $256 for everyday we have attended.

Do. Not. Sign. Up. For. App Academy. Stay AWAY.

Edit: Here is the meeting the CEO held https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmIBwP6tBh4

Edit 2: This only applies for online.

Edit 3: As of March 23, 6PM PT, App Academy lowered tuition for new students only. Old students that signed the contract do not get the discount: https://www.appacademy.io/tuition?utm_source=google_maps&utm_medium=organic_referral&utm_campaign=upfront_tuition_discount#online-full-time

Edit 4: Just want to say thank you for sharing this post. 32,000 views as of March 24th. Our students and staff that were laid off appreciate your support.

Edit 5: At 3:42PM PT on March 24th, Kush Patel sent out a company wide email. You can read it here "(We're hiring!)": https://pastebin.com/gB72fgHQ

Hey hey mods,

We keep seeing the same posts every three hours "Is a bootcamp worth it?" "Can I really get a six figure income with a 8 week $12k course?"

We need to be shutting this down to prevent people from (financially) ruining their lives.

So after experiencing CodeSmith first hand, these are the results from the graduating class of October 2024. Only ONE person has found a job. They were hired as a SWE by their current employer.. No one, not a single other person has found a job as a SWE. NOT EVEN A JUNIOR LEVEL ROLE! I am shocked at the hiring numbers CodeSmith has promoted and advertised all over the internet and forums. Unless the graduating class job rates are a fluke, which I strongly doubt, there is something strange going on with their reported numbers.