| I went through DevBootcamp in SF after doing business development for a YC company for a year. My day to day job was interacting with engineering teams, and I found it really frustrating not understanding what people were talking about once the conversation left the business realm. When my boss asked me to checkout one of the developer bootcamps as a potential partner I decided to apply. I had always been interested in computers and the web, but never made the leap to building something with substance. It's really hard to figure out how all the moving parts of web development work together if you're on the outside looking in. I would read books, follow tutorials, ask friends to teach me, but I would always get stuck on something stupid like installing Postgres. The most important thing I learned at DevBootcamp was how to figure that shit out by myself without wasting time spinning my wheels in frustration. The numbers that the schools boast about post bootcamp success are really inflated. Very few people who I graduated with found 100k jobs right out the gate. Most settled for 60-80k range, and it took a few months of looking (not bad though!). I'm currently in my second engineering job working on a Java stack. A job in a language and framework that DevBootcamp did not teach. I think a lot of people don't understand that most of these programs are highly selective and fucking BRUTAL... I was at school grinding away most nights till 1 in the morning. Not only are they challenging in technical sense, but emotionally intense. Being stuck in a room with 30 really smart people who are sleep deprived and being forced to do yoga after a marathon coding session is not easy. I saw people cry on numerous occasions. Getting a job is hard because of the assumptions people have about these programs. Everyone I went though the program with (and finished) might not have had a CS degree, but they ENJOYED PROGRAMING . Something I can't say about everyone I work with. I went though many interviews where I could tell the person I was white-boarding with wasn't going to give me a shot. I remember being in a final round technical interview and was asked a standard algo question. After answering the problem the person interviewing me asked me how I got to the solution... I had been asked it a million times before and googled the answer after the first time it stumped me in an interview. He did not like my answer. Good programers are confident and enthusiastic. Having a CS degree and a math background does not make you good at your job or a great engineer. It's probably a requirement to work on some of the really hard stuff. Google X/Palantir stuff... I think most of the people coming out of these camps are dangerous enough to make an impact anywhere they go. Given a shot and a little finishing polish they will become great engineers. |