I'm going to speak for my girlfriend who went to a bootcamp about two years ago. She says it didn't really prepare her (she did that on her own through self study) but it did open up doors. She's a data engineer at Airbnb.
which bootcamp was it?
Ask HN: People who completed a bootcamp 3+ years ago: what are you doing now?
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Re: Ask HN: People who completed a bootcamp 3+ years ago: what are you doing now?
#32I went to Hack Reactor in 2014 and have kept in touch with many members of my cohort. Just about everyone has been and continues to be employed as a developer. A few have started companies. Three members of our 30 person cohort joined Google, including me. I was a philosophy major who took some CS courses in college, programmed as a hobby and was working as a product manager. The bootcamp was a great way to build an…
the Google interview process is notoriously tough especially for bootcamp grads. how did you navigate the process (apart from the usual CTCI stuff)?
The Google interview process is tough, but it is predictable.
You know exactly what they are going to question you on(algorithms), so it is straightforward to prepare for (which is not the same as "easy")
Re: Ask HN: People who completed a bootcamp 3+ years ago: what are you doing now?
#33I attended App Academy nearly 3 years ago. I'm currently a software engineer at Airbnb. I haven't kept in touch with everyone from my cohort, but I know some of them are working at Lyft, Uber, Google, Slack, and 23andMe.
Re: Ask HN: People who completed a bootcamp 3+ years ago: what are you doing now?
#34[deleted]
Re: Ask HN: People who completed a bootcamp 3+ years ago: what are you doing now?
#35Note some selection bias may exist in the answers.
If you did a tech bootcamp three years ago and it went fantastically, you're probably reading HN today and will see and reply to this. The more success you had, the more likely you're a developer today!
If it went terribly, you might still be working at Starbucks and don't read HN very often.
Re: Ask HN: People who completed a bootcamp 3+ years ago: what are you doing now?
#36I went to General Assembly in 2013, quite possibly the worst bootcamp. Now I'm a lead engineer at a startup with top tier pay. The bootcamp helped a little but it was more about working my ass off and finding any way possible to get that first programming job.
Re: Ask HN: People who completed a bootcamp 3+ years ago: what are you doing now?
#37Finished bootcamp mid 2014, currently a Software Developer (full stack) making 105k base (110k total package) with some great benefits (and no state income tax). I had zero background before the bootcamp, and the bootcamp itself was pretty shocking. The biggest part of the bootcamp was having it on my resume - giving my limited knowledge "legitimacy". EDIT: My starting salary was mid 40s after I finished bootcamp. An…
Would you put freecodecamp on a resume or just the projects they work on?
I'd list the certificates and the projects. Obviously the projects are going to be more beneficial (job seeking and knowledge wise).
The bootcamp I went to did a group project at the end (that was a complete failure and waste of time) - however, I made it seem quite the opposite during interviews. I also built my own side project for a real business (very simple app, basic CRUD) that took 2-3 weeks to build (business owner is a family friend).
Talking about these 2 projects in interviews was invaluable, as was brushing up on common questions/terminology (SOLID, OOP, REST vs SOAP etc) and basic programming problems (FizzBuzz, fibonacci etc)
Re: Ask HN: People who completed a bootcamp 3+ years ago: what are you doing now?
#38In 2013 I attended Epicodus in Portland, OR. At the time, it was a 17-week Ruby on Rails bootcamp. I moved back to my home state of Florida following graduation. Within two months I landed a Junior Rails Developer position at Listen360 - a badass company in Georgia. I relocated and have been with the company for over three years now. In that time I've developed JrDevJobs.com, a job board for junior devs. Built severa…
this is a fantastic answer. Have you blogged about developing and launching JrDevJobs? (presumably this is a side project that brings in a small amount of income? how do you market something like this?)
Your presumption is correct :)
I've thought about blogging, but I just haven't made it a priority. I'm so thankful for the people out there that do. -
Especially when I find their post about an obscure problem that I'm needing help with!
Re: Ask HN: People who completed a bootcamp 3+ years ago: what are you doing now?
#39I went to Hack Reactor in 2014 and have kept in touch with many members of my cohort. Just about everyone has been and continues to be employed as a developer. A few have started companies. Three members of our 30 person cohort joined Google, including me. I was a philosophy major who took some CS courses in college, programmed as a hobby and was working as a product manager. The bootcamp was a great way to build an…
the Google interview process is notoriously tough especially for bootcamp grads. how did you navigate the process (apart from the usual CTCI stuff)?
After HR I stayed on for three months as part of their Hacker in Residence program. During that time I prepared and delivered lectures on various algorithms and data structures, which was great preparation for whiteboard interviews.
I also planned for the Google interview to be relatively late in my job hunt. I already had offers in hand and a lot of on-site practice going into it. I doubt I would have passed had it been my first on-site engineering interview.
Beyond that nothing special. A lot of CTCI stuff and daily practice.
Re: Ask HN: People who completed a bootcamp 3+ years ago: what are you doing now?
#40I went to a code bootcamp 3 years ago. Now I make over 6 figures doing java in a LCOL state. The code place I went to did a really good job preparing me for the actual work. I am a senior level contractor and actually get to work on interesting stuff. I know over 10 people off the top of my head who also went to code bootcamps and are all making over 70k in LCOL locations. They are thriving and not hack's in the leas…
> LCOL
= Low Cost of Living
(In case others don't know.)