For my friends in the corporate world thinking about doing a coding bootcamp, here’s why the answer is no.

Almost every time I’ve had this conversation with a friend, it’s not about learning to code. It’s about career aspirations, ambition, and being unhappy in your role.

Litmus Test

I can tell your motivation for considering a bootcamp by asking you one simple question: How much time have you already spent learning to code?

10 hours? 1 hour? Zero?

I’m saying this as your friend. Anything less than 10 hours learning to code and you are already searching for advice then you should reassess.

I say this because after 10 hours you will either have a file of your first HTML webpage with basic styling or you’ll know that coding is not for you (caveat: considering you’re learning web development).

Maybe you’re bored at your job or you want to enter a tech-adjacent field like tech sales or product management? That’s great, but don’t do a bootcamp. You’d be better off spending 6 months networking your ass off, learning the industry jargon, and researching the companies you’re targeting.

Bootcamps are in the business of selling the American dream cheaper and faster than a 4 year college. So if your're in high school, undergrad isn't going well, or you have a shitty job and are pretty smart then go for it. 10/10. Yes. get after it. You have nothing to lose.

However, don’t pick a bootcamp because you’re looking for the silver bullet to reaching new heights in your career. In fact, once you graduate and land a job, you’re hitting reset on your career progress.

My Experience and What to Expect

I did one called General Assembly and it took 12 weeks. We spent 8 hrs a day on lecture and labs (in-class projects) and 4 hrs a day doing homework. Monday - Friday. It cost $15k in 2020. I did the software development track, which taught full-stack web development.

I came out of it with a portfolio of 3-ish apprentice-level projects and a polished resume filled with industry buzzwords I half-understood. Fun fact: I once got roasted in an interview for not knowing something the GA “Career Coach” told me to put on my resume.

The class portion is just the beginning, the true journey began during Outcomes. Outcomes is what they call the job search after the semester is over.

During Outcomes you’ll pound the pavement by cold-applying, cold-emailing, searching LinkedIn, attending networking events, and tailoring your resume and cover letter for each job application.

All this while practicing your Data Structures and Algorithms and building on your 3-ish portfolio projects. It’s another full-time job.

Btw, wtf are Data Structures and Algorithms? Yeah, tell me about it. The vast majority of dev jobs have a coding test portion of the interview to make sure you’re not a fraud. Spoiler alert. If you’re trying to pass yourself off as a competent dev after 3 months of bootcamp, you’re a fraud.

There are free online resources like leetcode and hackerrank to practice. DS&A problem solving is tough but doable. So grind it out because you’ll get rejected from a job if you don’t perform well on this part of the interview.

It took me 6 months of job searching before I landed two offers in the same week. And your experience will (probably) be the same.

The Hiring Climate

But wait Danny! I’m reading everywhere that software engineers are in HIGH demand! Totally. But the nuance is that senior talent is in high demand. Plus industry hype and popularity of bootcamps has made junior devs in ultra high supply. So not only are junior devs not highly sought after, there are loads of them trying to land the same few jobs.

I think my final numbers were ~500 applications submitted, 5 interviews, and 2 offers. The job I got was because I knew a friend of a friend who agreed to pass my resume along. Networking is key.

If we could build you a time machine and send you back, I would tell you to get the 4 year CS degree because tech companies are still bureaucracies used to hiring the tried-and-true college grad. It’s not impossible to land a big tech role out of bootcamp but you’re a genius or you know somebody.

If you’re just bored of your job or your industry, there are better ways to make a change than pressing reset.

Resources

Before deciding on bootcamp. Here are some things you should dig into:

• Dedicate 2-3 weekends to see if you like coding/webdev. I suggest picking one of these and sticking with it. The Odin Project, freeCodeCamp, and Codecademy

• What do you actually want to do from a technical standpoint? UI/UX design? Data science? Web dev? software engineering? You should probably be able to explain the difference to your future ex-boss.

• How are you planning to pay? If you’re able, pay cash upfront. It will give a little discount and you’ll sleep better at night having no debt. Income Share Agreements are a popular form of payment and typically don’t make you pay until you make over $50k a year. But as always, do your own research!