Coding Bootcamps
I'm a recent grad just out of school with a non-CS degree (HCI) and internship experiences in UX. I'd like to break into a career in software engineering and hoping to get some input here on how best to do so. I've been self-studying Swift for a little under a month now with an end goal of landing a iOS dev position, but I'm not sure how prudent this path is with not having any coding experience prior. At the moment, I'm just running through the Hacking with Swift material. I started looking into bootcamps and began narrowing down options accordingly to those with seemingly stronger student outcomes. I'm based in California and essentially I'm now looking at App Academy in San Francisco vs. Codesmith in Los Angeles. App Academy as a coding bootcamp seems to have the strongest FAANG student outcomes and alumni network up in the Bay Area. I'd opt for their ISA payment plan (upfront cost 3k deposit + 3 months of SF rent/living costs). App Academy does offer their entire in-person course online for free under https://open.appacademy.io/, but without the recruiter/alumni network and career support programs. As for Codesmith, they don't offer ISA so I would have to foot a 17k upfront cost, but I'd be able to live rent-free in the city with a close friend for those 3 months. Has anyone had experience either attending these bootcamps or have worked alongside their graduates?
Appacademy
If you’re serious about it, you should take the one in Bay Area over the one in LA. There’s probably 10x more opportunities for fresh grads in the bay vs LA, and local makes networking much much easier. DM if you’re interested in a referral
Definitely leaning towards the way of App Academy at the moment. Once I get to that good place of being ready, I'll reach out. Appreciate it
Sure, and you’re welcomed to reach out any time too. Happy to help with general career questions and also how to prep for coding/interviews!
In my experience, 99% of boot camp grads make trash engineers.
I understand your sentiment. Ideally if I could, I’d walk back and would’ve just stayed on the CS track in school. Do you have any thoughts on what the most prudent path forward into SWE career would be for someone in my situation, without a traditional CS education, and can’t afford another formal degree at the moment?
You’d need to knock your interviews out of the park. Think of an expert giving a talk and the confidence they exude. That’s how you need to *come off* in an interview for DS&A/system design/api design, and be able to back it up. Since you don’t have the luxury of going to school (not that school teaches you how to be a high quality engineer) the next best thing to gain this confidence is by drudge get through open source repos and contributing to them.
If you are interested in UI engineering roles, and i assume thats what you would be interested in since you have a background in UX. I would suggest learning JavaScript and one of the new frameworks like React, Angular or Vue to get started.
Me being relatively ignorant to the job market and level of skill expected for these type of positions, do you feel these are skills an average person (i.e. me) can expect to pick up self-learning on my own in 4-5 months time and be junior-level job ready? Or would you expect that learning programming fundamentals like OOP, a language like JavaScript, framework like React, and DS&A/Leetcode to a level of being ready to apply for junior-level positions to be a much longer process? My dilemma is being unsure about what I should and can expect trying to break into this career from self-teaching myself against the accelerated nature of a hot webdev bootcamp like App Academy in SF (3-months in-person and a job hunt that varies from 1 week for some students to 3 months for others, but generally positive outcomes.)
Realistically speaking, if you’re willing to actually commit for the mid-long term, it’s going to be fine The reason that seems to be the case is that realistically, you might not start off by getting a job at FAANG (it’s possible, but you need to be able to solve medium level questions on leetcode and explain your answer very thoroughly). The much easier route is to get a job at some startup that really needs people, and hone your skill there for a year or two; and then jump to FAANG. Without knowing your background/motivation, it’s hard to estimate. I have self-taught programmer friends (that learned within 3 months) who make more than FAANG ppl coming in on their first job. I also have friends that I don’t think will ever get into FAANG-level of companies. Generally speaking, devoting 4-5 months is sufficient for an entry level junior job, provided that you are good at building things