[learc83]

Not a lot of people going to dev bootcamps with CS degrees.

Also look at these company names. It would take competent, trained developer 12 weeks just to study for the google interview.

There is no way someone goes from, not a programmer, to passing Google interviews in 12 weeks. Either this boot camp is very selective in who they admit, or they are very selective in which salaries they show.

[poikniok]

I am confident that one could learn enough algorithms in 12 weeks to pass the Google interview with no prior programming experience. One just needs to focus on competitive programming problems, start from the bottom, and work 50hrs a week.

[learc83]

I will donate $100 to a charity of your choice if you can find me one person who went from zero coding experience to passing a Google interview in 12 weeks.

12 weeks is barley enough time to get the jargon down.

[somethingsometh]

I'll add $100 to the pot

[ThrustVectoring]

"Not a programmer" covers a very wide range of folks, some of which are the ideal candidate for bootcamps - people with a vague technical background who aren't employed at a comparable salary.

Like, it covers former lawyers, electrical engineering dropouts, non-STEM research-based Masters degree, and current CS majors who want to cut to the chase.

So basically, yeah, bootcamps are selective. People who are 90% of the way to being a programmer can get the last 10% in twelve weeks. The average individual won't get accepted and won't make it through.

[bcassedy]

a/A, the bootcamp primarily represented on this sheet, is indeed very selective. The spreadsheet is not filtered though not all alums participated. a/A tends to accept people with STEM degrees from good schools or people with career experience that translates fairly well to software development. I went to a/A 3 years ago as a college dropout who played poker professionally for a number of years. I remember being intimidated going in when the intro emails started flying and everyone seemed to be an engineering graduate from an Ivy League school or similar.

As part of the pre-course prep and application process, candidates are going to cover a good bit of ground. They won't have studied algorithms proper, but they'll have mastery of loops, control flow, and many toy problems.

Once the program starts, they'll get exposed to some basic algorithms and design principles by building games like chess or computer controlled hangman guesser. From there they will be introduced to web programming, javascript, and the relevant frameworks the program focuses on.

Then it's pulling it all together to build a site, create a portfolio, and begin studying data structures and algorithms. The last 2-3 weeks of the course are dedicated to data structures, practice whiteboarding, and job applications. Not many people are passing the Google interviews at the end of the 12 weeks, but some do. What usually happens is that people that are set on working at the Googles or Facebooks spend another month or so studying their butts off with things like Cracking the Coding Interview until they're ready.

[vhgs]

It's not like they finish the program and walk into a Google interview the next day, you know. App Academy students won't normally even be working on that kind of stuff until after the course proper has ended.

[morgtheborg]

Or they did their 12 weeks and then studied on their own time.