[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.