[busterarm]

> Apply to startups. I don't know what else to tell you. I'm seeing TONS of people (for better or worse) get placed in jobs after completing coding bootcamps. Some of them have >90% placement rates.

@wdewind: I'm over 30, went to a bootcamp and changed careers (from something else in tech). It's still hard to get a good position in this situation. Yes, tons of people who get out of bootcamps get jobs but 90%+ of bootcamp grads are essentially new grads with little work experience. I was one of two people over 30.

Ultimately, demonstrable programming skill seems to factor in very little for junior positions. Maybe in general. Growing startups actually had the lowest response rate for any of us with actual work experience. Most of my interviews ended up being either large companies or early-stage startups that wanted to pay _waaaaaaay_ under-market and worthless equity (NY).

[wdewind]

Yes, you're not going to get paid market rate as a junior developer coming from a bootcamp. Hell, most startups aren't paying senior level people market rate when compared to G/FB etc.

My first job was hugely under market rate. I was up to market rate in about 3 years. But I had to change jobs 3 times to do it. It's not easy, definitely not saying that. But it's doable.

> Ultimately, demonstrable programming skill seems to factor in very little for junior positions.

This has not been my experience.

[eric-hu]

I've been having many discussions about this with another engineer friend. Is it really fair to call Google, Apple, Facebook, Microsoft and Amazon salaries "market rate". My impression is that they're generally in the top 10% of pay, if not higher.

I think maximizing your compensation is great and everyone should spend some time on it. I just think having expectations of Google pay from a startup is a guaranteed recipe for disappointment. Read: I've heard of zero startups that offer that level of pay.

[busterarm]

I came out as a solid mid-level fullstack dev, but mainly due to my experience and side-projects.

Tons of folks in my bootcamp went to the right schools though and got 100k+ jobs even though they were mediocre to average (for a junior) devs.

[cscharenberg]

This reflects the people I know who have done bootcamps or just tried to build a portfolio and change careers. They struggled to get interviews, let alone jobs. A bootcamp instructor friend quit after losing faith in the program's efficacy after watching several graduating classes fail to get jobs.

My wife would take an unpaid internship for a few months if it led to a job, or work at very low pay, just to get into the industry.

Getting that first job changing careers is _hard_, but then you have experience to point at forevermore.

-- Anyway, I've gotten really intrigued by the hiring side of retraining people. I'm wondering if anyone has yet done research on the ability of retrainees to actually land jobs via social networking, which is how it's assumed they will get jobs.

I think this will be a real problem as more retraining programs start turning people out: that many companies' hiring processes aren't able to see, let alone hire them.

[busterarm]

Almost all of us got jobs, eventually (in 6 months), out of every cohort... ...but my bootcamp was one of the best ones.

Unlike most of my cohort, I mostly relied on networking/HN to find jobs - most folks just apply via normal channels. I had a high in-person interview percentage from that, but I ultimately ended up getting my fulltime gig off Stack Overflow Careers.

The contract I landed via NYC.rb before that was a shitshow.

[xivzgrev]

I was in a boot camp and have worked at two companies. The hiring managers at both looked for unteachable skills (e.g. analytic ability, proactiveness, hunger) and figured youd pick up the rest. The skills I learned in boot camp were mostly a talking point / nice to have / piqued their curiosity.

They're hiring managers who want to pay a little less and are looking at the long term potential not the next 3 to 6 months. Of course that's why first job didn't work out - we went thru an acquisition and CEO mind went from long term potential to I needed results yesterday damnit :D