Ask HN: Would doing a coding bootcamp be a horrible idea?

26 points by Throwawayh89 2 years ago | 48 comments

Hi folks,

About 8 years ago I got into tech sales. I was always a bit “nerdy” and interested in leveraging data/automation so a career in sales quickly transitioned into sales operations, but outside of some python and tad bit of SQL all my work has been on no code platforms (mostly Salesforce). The stuff that “real” engineers did seemed totally inaccessible to me, although that inaccessibility has diminished a little after observing the engineers at the startup I was working at.

That startup recently let me go in a round of layoffs. I saw it coming and dad been saving, so I’m entering unemployed with about 6-12 months of living expenses in the bank depending how deep into savings I dug. (Also have nobody depending on my salary as my wife just got a big promotion/raise).

Would it be a horrible idea to finally jump over the imaginary chasm I’ve built in my mind into the world of engineering and enroll in a coding bootcamp? I know in the best of times these programs were tenuous and full of questionable promises despite costing $10k+, what are they like now given the job market and impact of generative AI?

Thanks for the insight!

(For context, I’m 34 and based out of NYC. No kids.)

sk11001 2 years ago |

> I’m entering unemployed with about 6-12 months of living expenses in the bank depending how deep into savings I dug.

If the goal is to finish a bootcamp and land your first developer job in that timeframe, yes, it's a horrible idea with a very high probability of failure.

If you don't have expectations of landing a job and you can afford the time and money and you've picked a reputable bootcamp, then it's probably fine.

sebastianconcpt 2 years ago | |

Yes, this ^

ochronus 2 years ago | |

Plus one.

nickjj 2 years ago |

I know a few people who have been unemployed since July and October due to being laid off. Some of them found jobs but not others. That's 6+ months of searching.

Given you're not in financial distress I would suggest spending a few weeks or a month learning without a bootcamp to see how you like it. For example https://cs50.harvard.edu/x/2024/ is often referenced as a good intro to programming and web development course and it's free.

If you still like it after that then either continue self learning or try to find a bootcamp that has a good deal around employment like you only have to pay them after you land a job or they have a really strong system around helping you find employment.

I'm pretty sure the market for hiring junior / beginner developers right now is going to be brutal, bootcamp or not. Jobs are weird though, there's so much luck involved around being in the right place at the right time. If programming is something you really want to do, being prepared for that type of scenario is of course worth it.

azangru 2 years ago |

> I know in the best of times these programs were tenuous and full of questionable promises

Screw promises.

A coding bootcamp is the best guided way, other than college, of acquiring basic knowledge and skills of a software developer. It will not guarantee that after graduating from it you will find a job; although some bootcamps may have certain arrangements. What a good bootcamp does guarantee though is that after completing it, you will have sufficient knowledge to build, say, a mildly complex website, or do some data analysis tasks. In good market conditions, this makes the graduate somewhat employable as entry-level software engineer.

There are plenty of free online resources that you can use instead. But that requires a lot of discipline; and a curriculum to know what you need to be studying.

globalise83 2 years ago |

If I were you I would look for product owner roles in a tech company building a product for sales operations. That way you can a) get paid again soon b) really use and build on your sales operations background c) work closely with a development team and see their code and how they work, d) do some non-production prototyping of new features etc. which can help you learn a bit of coding without actually destroying your company and e) learn how to explore and analyse business problems and requirements (which can get quite technical!). Based on that, you'd have a great basis on which to decide whether you want to actually become a developer, or whether you are happy helping a development team decide what to work on in an area of interest to you personally, which in my view is just as rewarding.

jbot27 2 years ago |

Former Bootcamp runner/teacher:

I think a bootcamp can be good (depends on the camp) to help you kick start the learning process. A few months in a place doing things daily can be helpful.

This is great if you really want to spend a long time doing this. It takes years to get decent at programming.

The promise that you will find a job right after I don't think is realistic. I am not saying it can't happen but it is very difficult. Companies have a lot of options now and typically won't even look at boot camp grads.

If this is a near life long investment, it could be useful to kick start that. Just with the caveat it will probably take time.

janosdebugs 2 years ago |

I taught a coding bootcamp (one of the early ones in 2010-11) and I've met several people out of bootcamps. You are probably looking at several years of seriously hard learning and putting up with a significant setback in your career with very little in the way of using your existing skills. I would rather try to learn coding myself and move over gradually if I were you. You are not going to be anywhere near an expert in coding after one year if you start from scratch.

stormfather 2 years ago |

Do it if you like programming. Right now it's hard to get a job and you'll be at the bottom of the heap, so don't do it for that. If you want to discover if you like programming, try and build something cool you think should exist. It's free and you can pair with an LLM all day.

trashtestcrash 2 years ago |

Have a look at bigger more established institutions. There are still some out there who have programs to re-skill people (especially from STEM degrees) into engineering. Mostly financial institutions.

What they usually do is hire you at a grad level, and put you in a bootcamp for couple of months.

thiago_fm 2 years ago |

I'd love to say, yes, but the market is really tough right now.

In your scenario, doing a BootCamp right now would be a gamble given that you might finish it and not find a job straight after, leaving you with either jumping back into sales (therefore, making it hard to find another dev job).

You could look into bootcamps that are cheaper/free, visit meetups, and try to network while looking for a new tech sales job.

Also, talk to your wife. If becoming a developer is a major goal for you in life, I'd take the gamble but consider doing something that might take a bit longer (+2/3 years) in a university, so you'd get back in tech as soon as the market hopefully would recover.

You could also try to aim for AI-related topics.

jokethrowaway 2 years ago |

I think you'll do equally well if you try to build some product on your own using free tutorials on the internet.

Bootcamps may partner with some companies looking to hire juniors so you may have a higher chance to land a job after that, but experience wise, as an unaffiliated company, I'd look at you the same as someone doing comparable projects on his own on github.

Get a backend in node.js running with postgres and redis, get some react frontend. You can build pretty much anything.

Bonus point, you could use sales skills to actually sell the product you are building and make some spare cash.

If it fails, hey at least you didn't spend 10k$ on a bootcamp and still learnt how to build stuff.

infecto 2 years ago |

Unless you have work lined up, no. Assuming you kind of like sales and are good in Salesforce, you should try to leverage that skill set and get a new job pronto. Bootcamps were a difficult proposition before covid, harder during covid and I would say near impossible to land a job now. Anything is possible but I am not sure I would give up on your current trajectory. Have you looked outside of the tech sales world? I don't think the struggle in tech is going away anytime soon.

dirtybirdnj 2 years ago |

Yes it is not a great idea.

AI isn't the problem, it's the saturation of folks like myself with 10+yrs of development who are clawing and fighting to the death for what jobs are out there. Market SUCKS right now.

I am THANKFUL for my current gig, but I wanted to add something my current employer (co-workers) mentioned to me. They were surprised at the high regard that people had only completed bootcamps held themselves.

Those running these organizations are selling a lie. You cannot make a baby with four women in three months. There is no replacement for years of experience in industry. Period.

I think they are an incredibly useful resource, I myself was a TA for one that started locally during their first cohort.

If you want to learn stuff, start building things right away. Don't build too big, find challenges that are appropriate to your skill level (BCs are good at this). Find others who will look at / inspect / find ways to break your work and use these opportunities to learn / grow / figure out what to do differently.

Repeat until job. Either the work you will do can attract some attention, or you will inadvertantly prepare yourself for the opportunity you didn't see coming. Stay busy. Keep working. Share what you are doing.

You don't need to pay 10k for the education you seek. It's just going to take every bit of effort, mental acuity and sanity you have left. You CAN do it but there is risk of burnout. Read my comment history if you wanna know what that looks like.

iLoveOncall 2 years ago |

Please take a look at the detailed reports that the bootcamps share about the outcome for their students, you will see that the numbers on the homepage and the actual numbers are so far that it's basically fraud.

For a bootcamp that announces 95% of students finding a job in the field you will see that in reality they remove from their numbers the students that:

- Did not finish the bootcamp,

- "Chose" to get a job out of the field of the bootcamp after the end (as if it was a choice and not because nobody wants to hire them in the field),

- Missed a single of their monthly status check meetups (regardless of the reason),

- Missed the target (even just once) that their "career advisors" give them like applying to a minimum of 10 jobs in the field every single day,

- Refused a job offer they received (a lot are offered a very low-pay job to become an instructor at the same bootcamp).

If you do the total, they basically eliminate 80% of their students from the final calculation to reach those 95%.

I did a dive-deep during the height of the hiring frenzy and if you only looked at "got a job in the field / were students at the bootcamp", the success rate was at best 20% (for "top tier" bootcamps).

And of those that do find a job, it is almost always insanely low pay (I don't think a single one was above $100K in NYC for the bootcamps I looked at).

Needless to say that nowadays you simply have not chance to get a job after a bootcamp. The whole industry is a scam.

tsingy 2 years ago |

Was in the same boat, but without money, so I made this [open source bootcamp](https://github.com/Lesabotsy/bootcamp). It has everything to get you from 0 to a competent junior and you would be able to pass interviews. All free resources, in English, from some of the best universities in the world. Now I work as a back-end java developer, fully remote btw.

jasode 2 years ago |

>some python and tad bit of SQL [...] so I’m entering unemployed with about 6-12 months of living expenses in the bank [...] enroll in a coding bootcamp? [...] despite costing $10k+

With limited funds as a constraint, it isn't a good idea to pay thousands for a bootcamp that doesn't have a high probability of placing you in a job.

Instead, you can save your money and learn mainstream Python/SQL/Javascript/etc for free with resources like Youtube, blogs, StackOverflow, etc. Some more tutorials that are not free but still low cost include subscriptions to Pluralsight, Lynda/LinkedinLearning, etc.

If I was hiring, I'd prefer Candidate A that used the unemployed time to self-teach from 2 months of Youtube videos and developed a few projects on Github that he/she can explain -- over Candidate B that just graduated from a 2 month bootcamp.

In addition to all the tutorials on "Youtube University" being free ... it lets you gauge your true motivation and determination on the programming topics. This self-assessment could give you more evidence to reject (or enthusiastically enroll in) a coding bootcamp.

jamesliudotcc 2 years ago | |

You have to know yourself a little to decide between free Youtube university and bootcamp. I think of myself as a self-starter, but at some point, I had plateaued in my learning and needed some fresh momentum.

Could I have kept learning on my own? Sure. But the butt-in-seat for 9 hours a day at a bootcamp accelerated my learning quite a bit. Was it worth the $14,000? For me, yes. I got to being a hireable junior developer many months faster, so just in terms of runway, it was worth it. You'll have to make your own assessment about how much shorter of a runway you'll have, and how much quicker you'll get to takeoff with a bootcamp for yourself.

Still, it's tough to recommend a bootcamp in 2024. I did some writing about it. https://james07.bearblog.dev/how-to-keep-coding-bootcamps-re.... It isn't so much, will gen-AI take all the junior jobs (though, to some extent, yes, it has)? It is more, only gen-AI-wielding juniors will be worth hiring. At the very least, the bootcamp you're considering should have their story straight about how they will help you learn with gen-AI. They've had a year to figure this out, or not. If they seem lost about it, stay far away.

doix 2 years ago |

So I've never been to a coding bootcamp, I have no idea what it's like. I strongly suspect the quality of teaching will vary greatly between poor/average/great/excellent ones. Determining if one is good would be a challenge.

One piece of advice I would give, the certificate from a bootcamp is pretty worthless. You want to really prioritize learning as much as possible and engaging as much as possible. Don't feel bad about asking questions, "annoy" the lecturers or whatever. Make sure you understand what they are teaching and try to understand the deeper concepts and not just the surface level "this is how you make a button red".

When I went to university, my attitude was the complete opposite. I did the absolute minimum to get A's and slacked off a lot. I was there for the piece of paper (degree) and learning was secondary. Attitudes have shifted a lot and degrees aren't as highly regarded nowadays(which is good), bootcamp certificates aren't really taken into consideration at all.

moribvndvs 2 years ago |

I instructed for a bootcamp. Most of these places lie through their teeth about the quality, its meaningfulness in the job market, about job placement, about what their certificate is worth to employers, and charge way too much. There’s nothing I taught you couldn’t teach yourself with a Udemy course or just going your own way and it’ll cost you little to nothing. There were only two benefits, as I see it, as long as money isn’t tight:

- you learn better in a focused, scheduled program

- you want access to an instructor that can answer your questions 1:1

IMHO, that isn’t worth the $8k or whatever these places charge. Work on it yourself, get active in online communities, go to dev meetups, make friends with more experienced devs that are willing to help you with questions.

I enjoyed instructing and my students, but I quit because I felt like I was complicit in a scam and I didn’t agree with how they approached the curriculum.

michael_chip 2 years ago |

I'll throw in a vote for teaching yourself or using free resources and communities. Even if you go down the bootcamp route it is going to take a lot of self motivation and work outside of the bootcamp / afterwards in order to become job ready. Or at least do this to start with to make sure you like it.

I did this myself a few years years ago over lockdown. I had a lot of down time and worked on teaching myself web development full time 5 days a week for about a year. I was then able to land a job at a FAANG company through an apprenticeship scheme that they offer in the UK (I'm not sure if these kinds of schemes are available in the US) where I stayed for a year and a half and I am now working for a startup in a position I found through connections I made at my previous job. At the time I did have other offers for non-apprenticeship roles at other companies so don't let the absence of apprenticeships put you off if they aren't on offer in the US. The job market was definitely better when I was applying for my first job so the process might be more drawn out now. The main resource I used for self teaching was The Odin Project (https://www.theodinproject.com/). I also did a batch at The Recurse Center (https://www.recurse.com/) which was a great experience in general, especially for getting some hands on time working on projects with other people. I would say be curious, reach out to people who are working on things you find interesting to ask them for a chat and just persevere with the applications as you will definitely get a lot of rejections.

One more thing (might be UK specific as well) but I would check to see if there are any government funded bootcamps you might be able to get a place on. I know multiple people in the UK who got the job center to pay for them to do a bootcamp while they were on universal credit and now work in the industry.

cyberpanther 2 years ago |

I used to teach at a boot camp and it can be really good if you choose the right one. In person full time showed the best results vs online and part time. You can do all the same learning on your own but the bootcamp accelerates the learning and a good one will also help you with a job with networking and interview prep.

stephenitis 2 years ago | |

How long ago did you teach and what school?

bananapub 2 years ago |

Do you want to learn to program?

You need to know your own learning style, and then compare it to what a bootcamp would offer - would that work for you? Or would you need one on one coaching? Or could you just read tutorials and ask on StackOverflow? Or should you do a course somewhere? It's really a matter of what you know would drive you, personally, and then - if appropriate - finding a reasonable bootcamp and sticking with it.

Also, definitely don't assume that programming is some magic profession with Google-2020 salaries for all and very little output required - even Google isn't like that anymore. It's just a job, so you need to reflect a lot on if it's actually a job you would want to do all day for years.

On the other hand, don't over-analyse - if you decide "yes, I could do that for years" and then change your mind, that's fine too.

baerrie 2 years ago |

If you are the type of person who needs an accountability structure to stay focused on learning then a bootcamp could be great to help keep your learning progressing consistently. It will not get you a job and you will need to put in more months of learning, doing projects for people, and applying to every job you can (hopefully some places where you know people), to have a chance in this market. Even then, chances may be low. On a side note “crossing that gap” is all mental, engineers aren’t rocket scientists and most of the job is learning the tools and getting experience so don’t feel you are at any intellectual disadvantage

nusl 2 years ago |

I feel that the main value of bootcamps is the networking aspect, meeting folk that could help you get into the industry. So in that respect it’s hard to replicate from a fresh state. I would recommend that you try to learn a language on your own anyway, though, if you’re interested. Python is a good choice.

I’ll also say that programming is more a mindset than anything. Willingness to learn, try things, fail, and grow. Languages themselves are also tools more than things to dedicate your life to, so pick the one that works best for your problem if it makes sense. So in that respect the wall you mention is perhaps more one the media has built up.

Clubber 2 years ago |

I've never done a bootcamp, but you would probably be better served taking a few intro to programming classes at your local community college, better yet, take a whole semester of classes since you have a lot of free time. Look into CIS/MIS/Applied CS, those are geared towards more practical programming than theory. Not only would it be cheaper, but the learning experience would probably be better too. I would certainly include a SQL/database class as well. Most of what programmers know, they learn by doing, "on the street," so think of a few projects you wanna do and build them too.

pydry 2 years ago |

I know a bunch of people who successfully completed bootcamps several months ago who have been looking for jobs for a while and are now thinking of returning to their previous careers to make some money. Just a data point.

codegeek 2 years ago |

Don't do bootcamp. Start with something like https://freecodecamp.org and take a few lessons. Try to build something from that and see how motivated you are. If you see some progress and this thing still excites you, then may be find an engineer (a friend/co worker etc) who can guide you a bit as you continue to build something. Start small and stay away from bootcamps (my 2 cents).

Happy to help more with advice/ideas if you want to reach out.

burningion 2 years ago |

I know everyone is mentioning whether or not you should do a bootcamp, but I’d suggest a different approach?

Get a freelance job. Do something on fiverr. Get yourself solving real problems for people. Figure it out, by doing the job itself.

If you’re not confident you can do it, try searching and doing a freelance request on your own.

If you can stick with it to the end, you can build confidence for the next thing.

Best case you end up with more cash and connections for work. Worst case you realize you’re not into the work.

red-iron-pine 2 years ago |

thoughts:

* layoffs.fyi -- the market is pretty rough, and that will show you just how bad

* you're already in tech (sorta) / tech adjacent, and you already have been around the engineers. you're not a waiter or truck driver starting from scratch, and have some context. a boot camp might work, but you could just as easily pick up some of this on your own.

* consider free online programs like free code camp or the odin project. shoot for just 2 hours a day, and then spend the rest of your time looking for another job.

* tech sales, esp. sales guys who are sorta technical (or very technical, e.g. sales engineers), and who can close deals, are still in demand.

* a bootcamp will eat a lot of that 6-12 months living expenses

* also, do you want to be coding, or in some sort of tech? there may be paths into DevOps or IT that might flow faster. starting from scratch it's best to go closer to the machine -- at uni the joke was "IT is for I Tried (but washed out of CS / engineering)" -- but pure coding may not be something you're into. There are happy mediums and certain IT roles might be a great fit.

Kayodedcreative 2 years ago |

Hey guys I built a directory website with No-code, where I'm curating over 5000 No-code tools and resources - kindly check it out and add yours https://Nevacode.framer.website

hersko 2 years ago |

If you have that itch to build cool stuff, then go for it.

I was in a similar position where i could not stand my accounting job, but loved programming which i had been learning on the side. I quit my job, went to a bootcamp, and it was the best decision i ever made. It's not going to be easy, but if you stick with it it can be extremely rewarding, and not just financially speaking.

rglover 2 years ago |

Yes. If you truly have a desire to learn programming, you'd be far better off rationing your cash to extend your runway and doing self-guided instruction. Perhaps consider building a product that leverages your existing sales knowledge and use that as the project to teach you how to code.

cmbothwell 2 years ago | |

I tend to agree.

OP, if your motivations are largely economical, you're probably best off leveraging your existing skillset and experience. Sales is a very valuable skill, and engineering/tech, while valuable in isolation, truly shines when applied to a domain. Building your own product while learning how to code could propel you forward in your current field.

On the other hand, if this is something with a more intrinsic motivation behind it (which it sounds like it could be the case given your post) then it might be worth considering doing the "slow" path. Have you looked into community college courses that you might take nearby? This might allow you to work your learning into the other obligations in your life. I chose a similar path (my original background was in consulting/sales) after I realized I loved the subject of computer science. I really benefited and appreciated a more formal academic setting. Funnily enough, I discovered this love after building my own product. (Which was terribly constructed, but a great experience!)

In the end to truly achieve a high level of proficiency takes time. I'm coming up on six years and only recently feeling exceedingly competent.

Remember that no bootcamp or university "owns" the knowledge and satisfaction of programming, it's out there accessible for anyone willing to put in the time. =) You'll have to have a deep look at your motivations and decide what is best for you. For me, learning programming and computer science was one of the best things I ever did.

This article is a classic and might be a nice read for you: https://norvig.com/21-days.html

Edit: Another great resource to self-study: https://web.mit.edu/6.001/6.037/sicp.pdf

moi2388 2 years ago |

Id suggest going to something like udemy and buying a Python or JavaScript course for 20 bucks to see if you even like it.

I don’t know if they look for bootcamp on your resume in the US, but here it would be nothing but a giant waste of money unless you cannot do self study

baq 2 years ago |

Learning to program is 95% being frustrated and 5% feeling amazing when you've done what you set out to do.

Try online courses first and see if the 5% is there. It's going to be an uphill battle otherwise.

anaisbetts 2 years ago |

Right now it would be a pretty bad idea, the job market is quite Bad right now and if you're going to spend your one "New Bootcamp Grad" opportunity, wait until the market improves.

atlasunshrugged 2 years ago |

This is also something I've considered -- for folks who think the best path is self-directed learning, any recommended resources/platforms to begin on?

Unfrozen0688 2 years ago | |

https://old.reddit.com/r/learnprogramming/wiki/faq#wiki_gett...

atlasunshrugged 2 years ago | | |

awesome, I'll dig into this, thanks!

lsferreira42 2 years ago |

Not exactly related:

Does anyone know of a coding bootcamp that guides you through more advanced projects, like how to build a NES emulator, a database, and things like that?

notahacker 2 years ago |

Do you actually want to jump the chasm or is it something you're considering purely because the sales job market isn't looking great?

Loughla 2 years ago | |

Does that matter?

notahacker 2 years ago | | |

Well it'd be a bit of a waste of bootcamp fee to jump into another job market that isn't great with a skillset he isn't confident in to look for work that's never particularly appealed...

Unfrozen0688 2 years ago |

Why not go into a Sales Engineer role? I hear those make bank and some devs even move into it.

rvnx 2 years ago |

Learn things that computers cannot do.

p17b 2 years ago |

join launchschool.com and lets study together. I am in the same boat