[bserge]

Some people on Reddit did say they completed 2-3 month bootcamps/courses with no prior experience and got junior dev jobs (in the UK), so I don't even know. Then again it's online and on Reddit, so they may be just lying.

I believe it is possible to learn enough to be decent in 3 months full time, and then learn everything else as you go. However, I don't see anyone hiring with that kind of experience.

But then why pay for a certificate? Four figures, no less. You could go through a bunch of free programming courses in 3 months and print your own certificate, same thing as long as you can actually do a job...

[cjameskeller]

Personally did a bootcamp about 4 years ago. Also taught myself a couple more tech skills in the 2 months post-certificate before I got hired, but nothing special. Applied to several dozen jobs a week (easy to do when most don't follow up in any way...)

Went from about spot-on median salary for the US prior to switching into tech, to 50% more in my first role. In my first 3 years I increased my income over 400%, though I also switched from salaried to contract, so it end up about 300% increase for net pay.

Wouldn't have been able to afford a CS degree, in terms of either money or time, so it was a huge opportunity for me to go the bootcamp route. Have moved up into a senior/lead position, as well, so all the late nights of working on my skills post-bootcamp (and still while working, even now!) seem to have paid off.

But I don't know what the market in Europe is like. MCOL area, US, here.

[gabereiser]

Here in the US we also take a good hard look at bootcamp graduates. Code school/bootcamp graduates I’ve found to be good enough to do most of the mundane web work broiler-plate we have to write. It gives them experience, it give us that broiler-plate code no one wants to write.

Bootcamp’s here like Turing or Galvanize cost $20k and take 4-6mos but you’ll get an entry level Dev job at $75k or more when you’re done. It’s been a really good experience. Some have been really good programmers, others not so much. Same could be said of any demographic. There’s performers and under performers.

[w0mbat]

It's "boilerplate".

It's because a reusable letterpress metal plate of text is called a "boilerplate" because it looks like the manufacturer's nameplate on a steam-train's boiler. That led to any reusable block of text being called "boilerplate". No BBQ equipment was involved.

[gabereiser]

Indeed, I wrote it on my phone, brisket wins on iOS apparently. I usually write it boiler-plate.

[w0mbat]

No worries.

[bserge]

This is really interesting! What about applicants who didn't go through a bootcamp, but have decent projects on their website/Github/whatever? Is it the fact that you can't verify if they actually built that themselves or just copied/stole it?

[gabereiser]

I’ll be more keen on a candidate that has interesting GH projects and is self-taught than someone without GH and came from bootcamp. But if both have interesting projects, they both are equal as far as candidacy goes. I can only speak for myself. YMMV.

[ChrisRR]

I always worry about the kind of companies that hire bootcamp devs like that.

Sure, I agree that quite a lot of university is not necessary for everyone, but not 2.5 years of unnecessary

If someone has just started from scratch 3 months ago and only knows how to program a bit in javascript, interface with a server and populate a database. I don't want them anywhere near a project.

I want them to at least know the basic data types and algorithms, security and integrity and design patterns. I don't want to have to deal with software crashes because they don't understand what O(N^2) is.

[908B64B197]

> I always worry about the kind of companies that hire bootcamp devs like that.

Typically it's a red flag for companies that are cheap and treat software as an expense and not a part of their core product.

[the_only_law]

> But then why pay for a certificate? Four figures, no less. You could go through a bunch of free programming courses in 3 months and print your own certificate, same thing as long as you can actually do a job...

My understanding is a lot of these boot camps have parterships with companies and help place the people who complete them.

[bencollier49]

That's definitely a thing. Very popular over here. The format is normally that you do a crash course over 2-3 months, and then do a year's on-the-job training as an apprentice.