coding bootcamps are a scam imo

[-]

Angelsonyrbody@reddit

I went through a boot camp in 2022, and got a good remote job immediately afterward that I'm still really happy with. Though I did have a fair bit of logic/math/coding in my background.

I do, however, think that might have been the last year that was actually possible.

[-]

winnsanity@reddit

I went in 2023 and got a job 2 weeks after my bootcamp ended. Only about 3 or 4 from my class landed jobs within a year. It is a difficult job market, but not impossible.

[-]

ParkAffectionate3537@reddit

So maybe there is still a good market if you were able to get a new job?!

[-]

I wouldn't say that. Coming from being a biologist, I was familiar with a tight job market. The environmental sciences job market has been trash for years, and you really have to do grind to get a good job. I already had a process in place for that, and was able to leverage what I knew from those experiences. There is still a software dev market, it is just at mid-sized companies, not start-ups pr any of the big faang or similarly sized companies.

[-]

ParkAffectionate3537@reddit

Thanks for clarifying your experience and process!

[-]

dats_cool@reddit

Wow in 2023 to boot! You must have been an excellent candidate.

[-]

winnsanity@reddit

I may not be the best candidate, but I can interview well. If I can get in the 'room' with a hiring manager, I can probably get the job. I am 35, and have only ever been turned away from about 2 jobs I interviewed for, a lot of work and research goes into each interview I do though.

[-]

Nearby-Examination85@reddit

I did one that finished 2024 and got a job a month later, that said only about 5% of people who graduated landed a role.

[-]

dats_cool@reddit

Wow! Congrats! Very hard to pull off.

[-]

Nearby-Examination85@reddit

Thank you! Has definitely been life changing.

To put it into perspective for some people, I didn't do a bootcamp from scratch to get that job a month later. This won't be possible nowadays. I self-taught for half a year before the bootcamp. During the bootcamp, I went far beyond the curriculum.They were teaching JavaScript, I was doing TypeScript and C#, and at the end of it all, I had 5 full-stack apps deployed on AWS and Azure, full CI/CD pipelines, and over 90% test coverage on all of them. I had a period of 165 days where I didn't have a single day off, every day was 10+ hours of focused learning and building. It still took me around 400 applications to land a single interview, lucky for me I was very prepared and killed it from the first try, took them 2 days to send me an offer and a contract a day after the offer.

It won't be easy, you will experience burnout like you've never experienced before. Nowadays if you're not truly passionate about engineering and just doing it for money, there are a lot of different ways to make money, if money is your focus the grind will break you before the market does. The really well paid developers you hear about are engineers, not coders. In the current market the pool of unemployed people is larger than the pool of jobs, you need to be close to perfect every step of the way, if you're not someone else will be.

[-]

dats_cool@reddit

2022 was the best year in history of tech. So yes, it was definitely luck and timing. No shade.

[-]

Chockabrock@reddit

This is nearly my exact story. And yes, I agree that the door may be shut.

[-]

SuperStone22@reddit

How did you get the good remote job?

[-]

Angelsonyrbody@reddit

I think it was a listing on Indeed? I genuinely just applied, got an interview, and interviewed well.

[-]

Internal-Mushroom-76@reddit

what was the interview questions?

[-]

Angelsonyrbody@reddit

Oh, god - it's been like 4 years, so I don't entirely remember. I remember some general stuff about OOP and REST principles. This project uses kind of a weird stack (Java / Hibernate / Dropwizard /mysql / a very early version of AngularJS), so they weren't too concerned about my lack of experience with the more obscure parts of it (hibernate and Dropwizard especially).

A lot of the interview was personality / soft skills - this stuff is a LOT more important than a lot of people think. It's so much more important to demonstrate that you're generally knowledgeable, have a decent work ethic, ask good questions when you run into an issue, would be willing and able to learn new skills, and (most importantly) that you'd be a pleasant person to work with than it is to demonstrate some kind of elite technical knowledge - especially for an entry level position.

Too many people getting into this industry think that it's okay to be generally antisocial and even kind of a dick as long as you have "skills". The people interviewing you are, probably, people that you're going to be interacting with and collaborating with every single day if you're hired. The most important takeaway you want to leave them with is that working with you is something they'd actually want to do, and would ideally be ENJOYABLE instead making their life more difficult or frustrating.

[-]

SuperStone22@reddit

What is Hibernate and Dropwizard?

[-]

Angelsonyrbody@reddit

Hibernate is an ORM tool for Java, and Dropwizard is a REST framework.

[-]

lord_gaben3000@reddit

I work with a guy who got hired 2 months ago and graduated a bootcamp in the fall I think. We make 160k + stock. However, he did have an Ivy League STEM education and worked as a dev for 3 years before.

[-]

cjcs@reddit

Yeah the important thing to note here is that for him the bootcamp was a refresher/upskilling opportunity. Not something he’s relying on as a credential.

[-]

Angelsonyrbody@reddit

Honestly, it kind of WAS just for the credentials at time. By which I mean that I don't have a CS degree, and I'm not sure that, at the time, describing myself as self-taught and listing some projects or whatever on my resume would have gotten me an interview without having SOME kind of coding education on there too.

It's also worth noting that the bootcamp I attended put a fair amount of emphasis on resume writing and interview skills, with coaching on both. I'm not sure if that's standard bootcamp practice, but it was something that, at least for me, would have been more difficult to self=teach than the actual coding.

[-]

kruegerc184@reddit

Out of the 3 or 4 different bootcamps ive done through work(no cost to me, HUGE caveat) the couple that focused on, “life after bootcamp” were definitely the best ones. Just my 2 cents

[-]

Astrozy_@reddit

Bruh

[-]

Ok-Neighborhood4327@reddit (OP)

yeah i can see how 2022 might've been the last good year for bootcamps, bro. the job market's gotten so saturated with devs now, it's hard to stand out even with a bootcamp education. you're lowkey lucky you got in when you did

[-]

209_J-S@reddit

You can't stand out at all. It's only possible to somewhat do it now if you already have a degree in math or physics.

I was self taught as well. But times have changed. Your not even gonna make it through to a phone screen

[-]

varitech1@reddit

I tried self learning in 2022 then completed a bootcamp in 2023. No technical background. Took me nearly 2 years to land my first role. But it has been life changing. Not saying it's impossible but you need to find out how to get your foot in the door in a non traditional way. Applying online and expecting to get a job is not going to happen. Even with a 4 year degree.

What helped me get interviews and eventually land my job was working on a side project geared toward my industry of interest and sharing it publicly

[-]

JoshisJoshingyou@reddit

2022 bootcamp grad, was 46 at the time. I was one of the lucky few to get a job only about 25% of my class did in the first year. I now make the most money I've ever made and have 4 weeks vacation a year. Just paid off my 15k debt last fall, it came to 30k with interest. For me it was worth it but I had a lot of soft skills and prior stats (six sigma) that made data analytics and DBA skills a good fit for me. I'm a jack of all trades data engineer/analyst/DBA/automation engineer for K12 education now.

[-]

diamond_hands_suck@reddit

Curious which bootcamp did you go to?!

[-]

JoshisJoshingyou@reddit

Tech Elevator, c# full stack program

[-]

dats_cool@reddit

Cool! I'm also a .net engineer. Curious, what's your comp like?

[-]

JoshisJoshingyou@reddit

4 weeks vacation is why I'm here, 90k , 10% pension as 10 years that grows 3% per year after , guaranteed raise till I max out in 10 years

[-]

Swarmwise@reddit

What was your background before the bootcamp if I may ask. You said familiar with stats. In theory or did you use it in academic/business environment?

[-]

JoshisJoshingyou@reddit

Qc and r&d lab tech in liquid packaging and coatings industries. Both companies six sigma based , also mild plc programming

[-]

bluefyr2287@reddit

2025 did a full stack web dev bootcamp for 3 months in person. I landed a job coding but not web dev 3 months after graduation making 15k more than my IT job (t2 service desk)

It was worth it to me as I had a structured path daily to learn the skills being taught and access to an instructor 8 hours a day while we were in class to ask all my dumb questions. I took out a personal loan to cover living expenses as well as the cost of the camp.

I wouldnt do an online one though imo they seem like cash grabs and arent held accountable. In person is where its at.

[-]

dats_cool@reddit

Wow serious? In 2025?

[-]

marinated_pork@reddit

I went to a bootcamp in 2014 and now I make like $350k and I'm not in FAANGA. Best, moody life changing decision I've ever made.

[-]

dats_cool@reddit

Nice, what's your career progression like

[-]

543254447@reddit

Did mine in early 2022 and it paid off for me. Mine was a different case though. I went to a data engineering bootcamp but i was doing etl type work for 2 years before with kosrly sql focused.

When i started the program, I was working in consulting doing drag and drop data engineering. Left the job after the bootcamp and started in a proper more software like data engineering job after.

4 years from that, I am at a FANNG adjacent tech company doing data engineering work. Definitely couldn't done it without the bootcamp giving me the right push.

[-]

Ok-Neighborhood4327@reddit (OP)

lowkey same, i've heard bootcamps can be hit or miss but it's dope that it worked out for you, having that prior experience in etl and sql probably made a huge difference, right?

[-]

dats_cool@reddit

You did not do a bootcamp. Why are you larping as if you're a professional?

[-]

543254447@reddit

I assume so. But I would never know since I have no experience doing it without it.

[-]

Humble_Warthog9711@reddit

They were semi scams even during the peak years, it's just out outcomes were pretty solid so no one really questioned it until 2022+

I bet if someone did a controlled experiment for resumes/callbacks in different eras fairly they would find that the bootcamp had a small effect on the average persons ability to get a job during the peak years and no effect in the last few years.

[-]

dats_cool@reddit

2022** q1-q3 of 22 was the best job market in tech history. My God it was so easy to get high paying, remote work.

[-]

emt139@reddit

are there any bootcamp grads out there who actually feel like it was worth it?

People who graduated before 2021.

[-]

Ok-Neighborhood4327@reddit (OP)

lowkey think you're onto something with that 2021 cutoff, bro. a lot of the bootcamp success stories i've seen are from people who graduated before then. idk if it's the market changing or what, but it seems like the value of bootcamps has def gone down in recent years.

[-]

dats_cool@reddit

Why do you talk like a broccoli head gen z. Are you trying to break into tech? You really have to work on your communication skills before you attempt anything.

Bro.

[-]

rizzo891@reddit

Idk about other states but in my states over covid tons of people went into bootcamp to jump into what many consider an “easy job” that pays good money. The coding job market in my state is pretty inundated with bootcamp grads so it gets you less of an eye when applying unless you have the skill to show you’re better than most other bootcamp grads

[-]

MaverickBG@reddit

This pretty much is the thread.

I graduated in 2018ish. And it completely changed my life/career. There were a couple other people in the cohort who also managed to switch careers but it still took a lot of work

[-]

dats_cool@reddit

/r/cscareerquestions was wild pre-2020. I remember the salary sharing threads and so many bootcamp grads were posting their very good job offers. I remember lots of hostility and saltiness for CS grads essentially getting the same exact jobs, sometimes even weaker jobs, than bootcamp grads.

Funny how the tables have turned.

2012-2022 was the golden era for CS. So optimistic.

[-]

Complete_Winner4353@reddit

Nuance: Paid coding bootcamps are, not always, but in many cases, not worth it, and sometimes an outright scam situation. Agreed.

[-]

Responsible_Camel355@reddit

Did a local bootcamp 2015 where they trained you but you had to work for them for 2 years afterwards, flunked out. Kept coding by myself while working, got a certificate from Woz U 2019 and was immediately hired from networking before I got my full stack cert. went straight into salesforce development, it’s been pretty awesome.

[-]

Anaestheticz@reddit

I did a code school for 2 years (it was 4 hours a night every night for 2 years). It was the only school I could do at night while working full time during the day. This was back in 2018. It was worth as I'm still in the industry and I work for a very good company and the pay is very good.

[-]

dromance@reddit

of course it's a scam. people like to think there is some solution out there that will shortcut you to some desired result, as long as you are willing to pay. the only payment required for success is blood sweat and tears.

[-]

art3misXL@reddit

Some are scams. Some aren’t. Bootcamps are a business after all. Like any school, they need to keep the lights on, make enough to pay their employees and venture overlords.

Pre bootcamp acquisition era (beginning with GA being acquired), bootcamps were great for the following reasons: 1. They were in person 2. There were entrance standards 2. Instructors were actually industry professionals 3. Instructors were involved with curriculum.

2020 did a number on coding bootcamps. When things went remote, bootcamps realized they could enroll students nationwide so they wanted to get as many students as quickly as possible. This led to lowering entrance standards. The lie that bootcamps now sell people is that anyone can be a tech professional when that’s simply not true.

With the various bootcamp acquisitions, new teams were brought in under the premise that they would bring experienced education leaders to help scale the business while cutting costs. However, a lot of these leaders didn’t come from the tech space and so this led to instructors leaving. Quality instructors are also expensive because remember, these bootcamps were in person (typically in HCOL areas). So even more instructors were let go.

Most bootcamps structured cohorts so that instructors could work on updating curriculum after each cohort. Without actual industry experts, curriculum took a hit. So now we’re left with mediocre curriculum being taught to students with varying baseline skills and understanding.

So are bootcamps a scam? Some are and some aren’t. How can you tell whether a bootcamp is a scam? Well, you can’t until you’ve enrolled. But almost every bootcamp has a cancellation period so make sure you read your enrollment agreement. If there’s no enrollment agreement, then it’s definitely scam.

[-]

Shikitsumi-chan@reddit

They're totally scammed af

[-]

Ok-Neighborhood4327@reddit (OP)

yeah they got scammed af is right lol, i know people who spent 15k on bootcamps and still can't code their way out of a paper bag

[-]

mikeslominsky@reddit

Up until around 2021, code bootcamps were good. Now, you really need to be able to understand architectures and domains and how to adapt organizational processes to use the most recent tooling. I’m definitely not saying that learning to code and learning how web servers work is not a good idea. I am saying that any type of certification is no longer as much of a differentiation signal in the market. Hell, entry level positions are so closed right now that I’m hearing that four year university programs are having trouble getting co-ops that are required for graduation. That ain’t great.

[-]

HirsuteHacker@reddit

Now, you really need to be able to understand architectures and domains and how to adapt organizational processes to use the most recent tooling.

Nowhere is expecting juniors to know any of this.

[-]

antiDavid-J@reddit

You're absolutely right! They're expecting interns to know this.

[-]

HappyIrishman633210@reddit

As someone who was in tech and tech adjacent roles AI not only changed the entry level but also the knowledge requirements for people already in the field. Getting a masters in CS now but mainly looking to go more technical in the erp space. I was a technical workday consultant in data conversions and reporting. Not a lot of people likely want new Workday systems, reporting moving to AI with partnerships already established, in house support mainly want fin and benefits people.

[-]

Ok-Neighborhood4327@reddit (OP)

lowkey glad someone's saying it, bootcamps were prolly okay like 5 yrs ago but now they're just a money grab, you need way more than a cert to stand out in the job market

[-]

bruceGenerator@reddit

i did one in 2019-2020 and finished just before covid shut everything down. the curriculum wasnt really very good but i learned a lot, made some friends and connections and learned the importance of working collaboratively.

still didnt break into the industry until 2022 and it was only because someone i went to bootcamp with pointed me in the right direction. ive been pretty happy ever since.

was it worth it for me? yes, but i can't recommend it. my circumstances are unlikely to be replicated.

[-]

JoshisJoshingyou@reddit

Tech Elevator, c# full stack program

[-]

HashDefTrueFalse@reddit

Many are scams in the sense that they're slapped together (largely plagiarised) rubbish. But some are actually decent and do have industry connections. Our firm is unofficially partnered with a pretty reputable bootcamp. They're a completely separate business and there is no financial relationship whatsoever. If we're considering bootcamp grads for a role we will pretty much only take them from that bootcamp as we have seen their curriculum and have had good results taking on their grads. We are one of their industry connections that you could end up at (when we are hiring, which isn't often) and they regularly check in to see if we want people. We'd rather people working on firmware and some of our distributed services etc. have degrees, so if we hire bootcamp grads it tends to be for front end work and/or light back end stuff.

If you can find a good, reputable camp that feeds into local firms and you want to do the less challenging stuff, at least initially, then they can be a great alternative pathway for career-changers who don't have the time/money for a (second) degree etc.

[-]

xandriska@reddit

I did a bootcamp and for me it was funded by the government so it was win/win even if I didn’t get a job. It took me a while, but I’m about to start on a paid apprenticeship program by the UK civil service which is a HUGE step up for me in terms of earning, job security and growth. I got into tech late and with no experience but I’ve loved my self-study journey and I’m stoked to have got this job off the back of it. Did the bootcamp early 2025. Many of my cohort did get tech jobs too. It can absolutely still be done and be worth it, if you’re dedicated and willing to commit.

[-]

AtraxaInfect@reddit

Was your bootcamp through Makers then with Tech Track?

[-]

xandriska@reddit

No, it was Northcoders, but actually the apprenticeship will start with a Makers bootcamp. Northcoders have some Department of Education- funded places on their courses for people on low incomes. If you’re looking for free tech courses I can also really recommend Sparta Education, I’ve done a few of their free trainer-led courses too and they’re great.

[-]

AtraxaInfect@reddit

I don't need a course as I'm already an SRE. I was just being nosey.

[-]

glowandgo_@reddit

it depends a lot on what you’re optimizing for.......content wise, yeah, you can learn the same material for free or cheap. the trade off people don’t mention is structure, deadlines, and peer pressure. some people need that to actually ship projects and get interview ready.......i’ve seen grads who used the bootcamp as a forcing function and did well. i’ve also seen people treat it like a magic ticket and struggle. 15k only makes sense if you’re buying acceleration and network, not just syntax lessons.

[-]

Jim-Jones@reddit

$15,000? Really?

https://www.scitraining.ca/computer-programming

Price : WAS ~~$949.00~~
NOW: $699.00

And that's Canadian - about $500 USD.

There's also

https://www.pennfoster.edu/programs/computers/computer-information-systems-associate-degree

[-]

ministryofcake@reddit

Boot camp graduate from around 2021, had a job lined up from my previous job with the option to WFH most of the time and an occasional company trip to overseas.

I guess I was from the last batch, because the graduates from later batches weren’t so lucky and the Boot camp had to be close down.

[-]

Rare-Significance808@reddit

E um golpe sim, eu fiz, eu guardei os vídeos das promessas deles, depois não achei nenhum emprego, eles falaram pra mim que eles nunca fizerom mención das essas promessas, nem me ajudarom com entrevistas, foi a maior idiotez que eu fiz na minha vida, mas eu estava em uma situação difícil também, depois eu continuei practicando, me voltei melhor do que muitos que saem da faculdade. Então, não adianta nada pagar pelo uma coisa que vc mesmo consegue fazer, hj em dia e muito mais fácil aprender. Obviamente os bootcamps de It são um golpe, eles usam a necessidade das pessoas pra jogar em eles uma dívida ridícula. A prioridade do software e fazer um produto comercial, ao final tudos querem dinheiro e evitar gastos, so. O vc persigue um emprego em uma empresa gliche ou vc creia software que cubre uma necessidade muito grande que muitas empresas não conseguem fazer nem com um equipe de 100 inúteis. Outra coisa, pra quem faz o bootcamps e não tem faculdade, tá fodido, pegar um emprego em uma empresa séria quase impossível. Eu concordo completamente com vc cara.

[-]

Thirsty_crow@reddit

I went through a bootcamp in 2019.

You didn't have to pay anything upfront. They'd get you placed and ask 2 months salary equivalent from the company you got placed in.

Timing was extremely punctual and entry test had a decently high bar.

I learned a lot from there.

You'd have demoes every Friday, code reviews in front of everyone. You had to defend every library/dependency you used in the project. When I got placed, I was well suited to fast paced mid sized companies who need speed with safety.

[-]

hsgsksv@reddit

Are these guys still around that sounds crazy

[-]

Thirsty_crow@reddit

Naah the founder passed away last year.

[-]

Ok_Response_5787@reddit

I 100% agree. Maybe 12 years ago they had value. But nowadays, NOOOOOOO!

[-]

v0w@reddit

In Tokyo, the prices for the main bootcamp providers have skyrocketed in the last 2 years and they're not value for money imo (especially as the average salaries here are not remotely competitive).

I think they will continue to get more expensive because of a drop in students in favour of vibing. The last conference I went to a couple of weeks ago was a wake up call.

[-]

Ok-Neighborhood4327@reddit (OP)

lowkey same, i've seen bootcamps in other cities get super pricey too and it's hard to see the value when you can learn just as much on your own, bro what's with the sudden price hike tho

[-]

v0w@reddit

Part of a broader economic thing: prices going up everywhere, and with job markets being tight, people want to reskill. I mean, we're both in this sub, right?

I *do* value time in a classroom though, and I find it more efficient to learn than solo. It has to offer you something very special now though if they want me to open my wallet, and the last boot I saw for 3 months wanted the same fee as an MA.

[-]

k_pizzle@reddit

I did one now 8 years later I’m a senior dev and tech lead on our main project at work. BUT 90% of my classmates did not continue coding

[-]

chaoticbean14@reddit

We hired someone from a bootcamp. He knew enough to 'jump in' with us, which was great. He hit the ground running and did what was asked with relatively little explanations. But wait, there's more.

While he did fine and we were content with his work, then covid hit (about 3 months after he started); it's as if he has stagnated on learning. He's still at the same spot he was when we hired him. He does 'the job', his work is fine, but he's just not a motivated individual to grow on his own. He doesn't know what a lot of the 'bigger picture' things are: DNS? No clue. Servers, HTTP Servers, Firewalls, Load Balancing? Nope. Best practices? If you tell him anything is a best practice, he would blindly believe you and accept it - but he doesn't try to research and/or do any of this on his own. At this point, no one is asking anything of him beyond "just develop this thing" or "update that thing"; he does not have the knowledge or chops to be a more senior role. Some of the more senior things, he still (6 years in) needs his hands held and walked through in a big, big way. Big enough it's just not worth having him do those things. Even 'deeper understanding' on the programming side, he knows surface level stuff but has no desire to go 'deeper' or learn 'concepts'; just enough to stay employed and do the thing.

TL;DR: Bootcamps are fine for crash course learning a specific thing, IMO. But they don't do enough to give people the encompassing context on how it all fits together and those individuals are sometimes woefully under prepared for understanding how it all works together in the real world. If someone isn't motivated to learn more themselves and is doing it for a paycheck? It will get you a paycheck. It won't get you growth.

[-]

cjeeeeezy@reddit

I don't think this is the problem of bootcamps in general, but the person themselves. You're correct on the part where it gives you the skills to hit the ground running, but mileage may vary. The small group that graduated bootcamp with me are now senior+ engineers in their respective jobs (including myself) and this is accross FAANG and FAANG adjecent companies. It's up to the person to seek out that information for themselves. Maybe toss him some backend work from time to time then he'll probably research out of necessity just to keep his job lol

[-]

chaoticbean14@reddit

Yeah, he can do backend stuff (he's developed Django apps, which is primarily what we do the most of); so he can do backend & frontend, but just enough to stay hired. He just has no real drive to learn more, checkout how to make life easier (automation), he never brings anything new to the table for the team; he just kind of 'exists and does enough', which isn't bad - but it makes it difficult because he will never know how to troubleshoot certain things because he has no desire to learn anything else. Someone who won't move up, I guess.

[-]

deba5@reddit

I have been doing boot.dev since Oct 2024 & got a remote job in a startup by the end of 2025.

[-]

AceLamina@reddit

always has been

[-]

cjeeeeezy@reddit

It was worth it for me. I graduated from Lambda School and despite what you hear about regarding its CEO or its tuition practices, they actually had a great curriculum and instructors. I also never would have been able to afford the bootcamp if I had to pay upfront since I was completely dead broke at the time.

I was able to start my job as an intern the same week I graduated. I was a college dropout due to finances and only have a GED. I did have to put in a lot of work in and outside of class but it paid off.

I find that bootcamps generally give you two things: community and direction. You don't need to pay to get that anymore. You have LLMs that show you the way and find a path through this industry while you can find communities everywhere these days. I don't think they're worth it nowadays. in 2018, however? hell yea I don't regret it.

[-]

Rhide@reddit

I did a bootcamp 9 years ago. I already had a masters in accounting and it helped me change careers quickly without going back to school. I got a low paying job where I learned a lot more. I am now established in my career.

I am one of the lucky ones. Most of my bootcamp friends didn't end up getting jobs. I usually advise against going to a bootcamp unless you have a plan.

I don't think the bootcamp was a scam, but definitely a risky shortcut.

Most bootcamps I knew about closed down, including mine years after me. They weren't a good business model. And AI makes them moot at this point.

[-]

LaySakeBow@reddit

Why’d did you leave accounting?

[-]

Rhide@reddit

Work/life balance was nonexistent. 80+ hour weeks for months.

[-]

Ok-Neighborhood4327@reddit (OP)

lowkey glad to hear you had a decent experience with bootcamps, bro, but like you said, most of your friends didn't get jobs and that's kinda my point - it's a huge risk and the odds are against you, ngl

[-]

GlobalWatts@reddit

ngl lowkey skibidi bootcamps be aura farming bro fleek fam 6-7 chicken jockey with the rizzler

[-]

Shadow_Mite@reddit

Fr fr no cap

[-]

CantaloupeCamper@reddit

I did a camp, got job, new career 👍🏻

It’s certainly not for everyone though.

[-]

cjcs@reddit

What year?

[-]

CantaloupeCamper@reddit

When I was in a camp?

I gotta guess it was like 2018 I think.

[-]

cjcs@reddit

Yeah I think OP should have really asked for any stories from the last 2ish years. It really seems like the bootcamp pipeline dried up recently.

[-]

Ok-Neighborhood4327@reddit (OP)

yeah same, bootcamps can def be a good springboard for some people, esp if you're lookin to switch careers or get a job ASAP, but like you said, it's not for everyone, and the price tag is wild

[-]

Any-Main-3866@reddit

I don’t think they’re a "scam", but they’re def oversold. The problem is people assume 15k buys competence. You still have to grind outside class and build etc.

[-]

OneNeptune@reddit

I did a bootcamp in 2017. I learned a ton and I got a job 4 days after I finished. I think it was maybe $12,000?

Could you have taught yourself in 2017? yeah. but the value was having a proven and focused curriculum. There's soooo many things you can learn in CS / programming. The bootcamp kept you locked in on a track to employability. Plus having accountability, someone to push you.

My peers / classmates were amazing. New grads, career changers, never-grads. Ivy leaguers, liberal arts majors, adult career changers all mixed together. Morning lecture, pair program all day, homework at night. I still talk to a bunch of those people and my first job was a referral from a classmate to the same role they applied for.

I would not recommend anyone in 2026 to pay for a bootcamp unfortunately, although I found the method very effective.

The hiring landscape has changed and it takes much longer to find a job.

[-]

deep_soul@reddit

what bootcamp was that if I may ask?

[-]

OneNeptune@reddit

app academy (RIP!)

[-]

Notoday44@reddit

App Academy’s in-person bootcamp also changed my life! I switched from working in a climbing gym to working as a full-time software engineer, but it was definitely grueling and took me over half a year to find that first job.

I recommended their remote course to my friend during Covid, and it feels like he was one of the last cohorts before the tech industry started waves and waves of mass layoffs 😵‍💫

[-]

Ok-Neighborhood4327@reddit (OP)

bro that's a fair point, the bootcamp scene was def more viable back in 2017, but nowadays it's all about having a solid portfolio and being able to learn on your own, the job market is way more saturated now

[-]

mediocre-yan-26@reddit

honestly the $15k question is real but it depends on your situation. i did a bootcamp after working in retail management for 6 years and the structure was the only thing keeping me accountable. tried self-teaching twice before that — bought udemy courses, started freecodecamp, the whole thing. both times i flamed out after about 3 weeks because nobody was checking if i actually showed up.

the bootcamp itself wasn't magic. like half the curriculum was stuff i could've found on youtube. but the daily standups, pair programming with other people who were also terrified, and having an instructor who'd been through the hiring process recently — that was the actual product. not the content.

where i think the scam part comes in: the job placement stats are wildly inflated. mine claimed 90% employment within 6 months. what they didn't mention was that included people who went back to their old jobs or took QA roles paying $40k. i got lucky and landed a junior dev role after about 4 months of applying, but a lot of my cohort didn't.

would i do it again? probably not at $15k. but at the time i genuinely didn't believe i could learn this stuff alone, and the bootcamp proved me wrong about myself more than it taught me javascript.

[-]

winnsanity@reddit

I went to a bootcamp in 2023 for three months. Got a job two weeks after I graduated my bootcamp. It was an immediate 50& raise from my previous career. I do have a bachelor's degree with a science background, I was a biologist for 10 years. I started a new dev job at the beginning of this year with a 30% pay bump from my old job.

My time as a biologist helped me immensely with software development, primarily because I already knew how to take a technical issue and simplify it to the point almost anyone could understand it. Also the job market as a biologist was always as tight as the software dev field is now, so I was not stranger to competition.

I don't think bootcamps are a scam, they are just not for everyone. You have to be a self-starter, motivated, and apply to the right jobs. You can't expect to step into a new field and go work for one of the big FAANG companies. Find a smaller company where you can get some experience and work from there.

[-]

winowmak3r@reddit

I think the boot camp window closed after Covid.

[-]

xandel434@reddit

I've worked with both cs grands and bootcampers. Either of them could be shit or good.

[-]

JestersDead77@reddit

It worked out pretty well for me, but I acknowledge that I would be unlikely to have the same experience if I started today.

I worked in aviation for half my life, and got furloughed due to covid. I used the time off to make an attempt to switch careers. Luckily there's a bootcamp near me that caters to military veterans (which I am), and with all of the grants, it only cost me a few grand out of pocket.

I started coding as a hobby a few years before this, but I found myself in sort of tutorial hell, and struggled to learn anything beyond the basics. Every project seemed too advanced for my skill level, so I was sort of stuck. The biggest thing the bootcamp taught me was that I knew more than I thought I did. Or, at least, that I just needed to TRY the thing I thought was above my skill level. I mistakenly looked at coding like it was some skill you learned, and then you'd understand it all. The reality is that you'll never understand it all, and you'll spend your entire career learning new tech / tools / frameworks, etc. So, I think the structure of the curriculum did help me learn more than I might have on my own. If nothing else, it taught me that the best way to learn is to take on projects you don't think you can do. When you get stuck is when you start learning.

[-]

StoneCypher@reddit

i know about a hundred people who used those. none of them are happy and probably two dozen are suing the fake schools for fraud

[-]

JenovaJireh@reddit

I went to a bootcamp last year through a non-profit called Resilient Coders so I didn’t pay anything for it. I landed 2 offers 4 months after graduating. I started self-teaching around 2023 and built fullstack projects on my own and worked two IT jobs (help desk and app support where I did some scripting) so a had an idea of things already coming into it.

Key takeaway: the bootcamp is what you make of it. Some people graduated and haven’t landed a role in 2+ years while others graduated and landed SWE jobs within 6 months. I think networking and projects are way more important than whether you graduated or not since no one in my cohort had a CS degree.

In 2026, I don’t think paying anything is worth it unless it’s a degree which is why I joined a free program. There are so many resources online to teach you everything.

[-]

RainbowGoddamnDash@reddit

Went to one around circa 2013-2014.

Worse decision I ever made.

We learned very basic stuff but in no way had me job ready. I was in a very min wage job and had to repay around $5K. Needless to say it was a struggle for a couple of years.

I finally landed a job almost 4 years after that but after I re-taught myself everything and made a portfolio website for all my side projects.

[-]

dialsoapbox@reddit

It depend on the camp's business model.

and for most of the people I met that attended the one near here say it was worth it because it got their food in the door. It's up to them to learn what they don't know (cs concepts, testing, ect).

The one i attended's model was to only cater to local companies and do the constant feedback loop thing so every cohort is changed to cater to the current market.

Then they did show/tell/interview days where they then invited those companies in to listen to student's pitches/projects which is the first part of the interview process.

It was like a pipeline process.

Then covid/ai happened.

I only did it for the guarantee interview process, but because it was after covid/ai, there have been fwer and fewer companies coming to the show/tells. So got fucked.

[-]

redditkingu@reddit

As someone who both went to and taught bootcamps they always were a complete scam.

There's no way someone attending these for 10-12 weeks would be competent enough to be a contributing member to a team and would be at best an intern level candidate. Most of the teachers were former students who just learned the stack and could barely cobble together a crud app let alone understand it enough to teach it to complete beginners.

They sold a dream to a lot of people during a time when the market was red hot and people bought in thinking it was their golden ticket.

[-]

ClayDenton@reddit

I did it in 2019, got a remote coding job that saw me through the pandemic and still employs me. Pays well and the job suits me much better than my previous career (finance). It cost me around £10,000 GBP all in. I'd say for me it represented value but the job market isn't what it once was. It's also worth saying I'm a social person and got a lot from the social element of the bootcamp - collaboration and when surrounded by others, the driving force to keep going when I was stuck.

[-]

OneMustAdjust@reddit

Bootcamps that are run by the company you work for, that they pay you your salary to attend are worth it, if you can be disciplined enough to only use AI as a tutor and not to write your code for you. Really any copy/paste of code from any source prevents you from learning the (brain) muscle memory from repetition that allows for the best quality of learning

[-]

ponkispoles@reddit

I did a bootcamp as part of a retraining program sponsored by the government after becoming unemployed during Covid. Took some time to study more and prepare for harder interviews and eventually found a 50% remote 100k+ per year job. I could’ve studied by myself but the pressure and environment from the bootcamp made me go through with it (plus it was free). Do i recommend it now? Only if you have engineering/maths and want to transition to code heavy positions - like my wife is a BIM expert but wants to move into BIM dev tools. Issue is boot camps are focused on easy stuff like frontend and become kind of worthless in that aspect.

[-]

gazpitchy@reddit

I've worked at a few companies, where we have hired directly from bootcamp graduates. It's honestly gone better than most university graduates, mainly because they have the specific tech stack knowledge we required.

[-]

CornPop747@reddit

I did it in 2019 and thought I was too late. Took me 7 months to get an offer. The one I went to gave you a year to find a job or you don't pay a thing.

[-]

Bitter-Scarcity-1260@reddit

They contain nothing you couldn't learn yourself. But I got a £10k pay rise after getting my first dev job, and 18 months later another £11k pay rise when I got my second job. It worked for me. It was also a great and fun experience (I attended in-person).

[-]

Impossible_Box3898@reddit

Neither bootcamp nor universities teach you how to program.

Universities at least teach you algorithm analysis, operating systems and how they work internally, high order concepts, etc.

Bootcamps claim to teach you how to program, but it’s impossible. They give a bit of lip service to a few topics and then go and make you do some projects.

Projects are nice and dandy but they’re not going to teach you how to program right away. That takes lots and lots and lots of time developing to learn.

The best people are the ones going into university who have already been programming for fun for 4+ years.

I work at a faang and give a lot of interviews. There is a distinct difference between people who knew how to program before doing college/bootcamp and those that didn’t.

The fundamental problem is how do you tell potential employees that you have been exposed to the necessary topics. Universities have a degree that has been vetted to teach a certain level of knowledge. Bootcamps are a piece of paper from some random company with no over-site. They’re usually not worth the paper they’re written on. But having anything makes it very very hard. You would need to find a small mom and pop job flip to gain resume experience. Still, it would be very difficult without a university degree to even get past the automated resume scanners. As I said I do a lot of interviews. I’ve never seen someone without a degree come through. Some might but that’s usually a recommendation hire.

[-]

Any_Sense_2263@reddit

They are a scam. That's why at some point I was mentoring a lot of people who believed in it and were left without money, job and real skills.

[-]

PathBudget8180@reddit

I think it really depends on the person and the bootcamp. Calling all of them a scam is a stretch, but I get where you're coming from.

The thing is, bootcamps sell structure and accountability — not knowledge. All the actual content is freely available online. CS50, freeCodeCamp, The Odin Project, etc. If you're disciplined enough to sit down and grind through those on your own, you genuinely don't need a bootcamp.

But some people need that external pressure — deadlines, cohort mates, someone checking your code. And for those people, 15k might be worth it if they actually land a job. The problem is when bootcamps promise job placement and then leave you hanging with a portfolio full of todo apps.

I went the self-taught route and it worked out, but I also know people who did bootcamps and are doing fine. The real scam is the ones that charge 20k+ and teach you outdated tech with no career support afterward. Do your research before signing up for anything.

[-]

windikite@reddit

I did two within the last 3 years, they are scams lol. Either the level of a community college course with no one doing work, them promising you’ll get hired and leaving the entire job search up to you with ai “assists”, bad ai integration such as shitty lesson voiceovers and resume tweaks, no one caring to check in on you months after you “graduated”. You will save yourself a lot of money and stress being self taught, because at the end of the day you will be left to your own devices anyway.

[-]

tacticalpotatopeeler@reddit

Used to be worth it. Not sure about that today.

The one I graduated from is definitely a scam now, it was good when I was there but they were purchased a couple times and the quality went down the toilet.

That said, I did change careers and got a 60% pay bump over my previous role. I was also laid off 18 months ago and it took me 9 months to find a new job. Market is rough.

Also haven’t written much of my own code the past couple months, I’m just babysitting AI anymore. Yuck.

[-]

pVom@reddit

Yeah bro, my bootcamp experience was like, fully sick fr fr. Bitches be tripping on my dank career and I have infinite rizz no cap...

In all honesty, it was the best decision I ever made. Completely turned my life around. It paid for itself easily in the first year and beyond just learning to code, I have a network of people I can lean on for opportunities and friends for life.

Yeah you can self teach but it ends up being way harder, you don't have teachers to learn from, you don't have your peers to learn from, you miss out on the networking opportunities, you get no qualifications and you must be entirely intrinsically motivated to do it.

The successful people I've met that are self taught would be doing it anyway, whether they were paid or not. They worked the shittiest jobs for the dodgiest companies and got paid fuck all for it. They worked way harder than everyone else and got less reward. While we were having sleepovers and hanging out with our friends at the mall, they were like, hacking Minecraft servers and shit. They did it purely for fun. I just don't think most people have it in them to be successful self-taught.

That said it's not for everyone. You need the cash and you need to support yourself without a full time job. I also think you need to have a bit of life experience under your belt, if you're fresh out of school just go to university, you'll have more fun and a more respected qualification.

Also not all bootcamps are created equal, there's definitely some scams out there, do your research and find a reputable one.Then there's the fact the market is pretty tough right now, it's hard to find a job for anyone new to the field so YMMV

[-]

ReapTheNorwood@reddit

The ITT of the 2010’s

[-]

deleted_by_reddit@reddit

[removed]

[-]

AutoModerator@reddit

Please, ask for programming partners/buddies in /r/programmingbuddies which is the appropriate subreddit

Your post has been removed

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

[-]

tafff@reddit

I did a bootcamp in 2023, graduated in early 2024, and landed a job about three months later. I knew someone in the industry who helped me get an interview. Without that connection, I didn’t get any responses from my other applications.

There were 12 people in my cohort, and I’m the only one who ended up landing a job. So for me, it was absolutely worth it, but the others probably wouldn’t feel the same way.

As far as learning goes, I learned a ton from the bootcamp. It gave me structure and accountability that would have taken me much longer to replicate through self-teaching. I had a great instructor who genuinely cared and went above and beyond to make sure we understood the material. I learned way faster than I would have otherwise, but if you don’t need that structure I could see why self taught may seem like a better path

[-]

Soft_Pay9233@reddit

Depends. People only pay what they think its worth. Since you think its expensive, meaning its not for you. Some people have too much money to care

[-]

Ok-Neighborhood4327@reddit (OP)

bro that's a weak take, just cuz some people are willing to throw money at bootcamps don't mean it's worth it, ngl

[-]

Soft_Pay9233@reddit

That's what we call 'perspective' and your perspective is not wrong either. You'd be surprised if you meet those people yourself. Sadly, people really like to waste their money on the things they don't need.

[-]

Whatever801@reddit

I had a great experience. Learned a ton, made a lot of great friends, got a job. I learned way more way faster than I could on my own. The experience of being able to bounce ideas off other people and just general intensity and pressure from exams. But this was like 10 years ago. The market has changed.

[-]

Ok-Neighborhood4327@reddit (OP)

idk if it's still the same now but i've heard some bootcamps have gotten way better at preparing you for the actual job market, not just teaching you basics, so maybe it's not all bad, but 15k is still a lot of money, bro

[-]

Whatever801@reddit

Well the one I went to took the 15k out of your 1st year's salary, I didn't have to pay anything upfront. They also definitely did a lot to prep you for interviews. Dozen of mock interviews, dissecting every part of your resume, salary negotiation, minimum applications/week quota, etc. For me it was well worth it. There's no way I would have gotten a job that fast if I tried to just teach myself. Even if it took me 6 months instead of 3, that 15k is more than made up for.

[-]

Ionlife1@reddit

I did a bootcamp sometime 2018-2019, I acknowledged I could self study but I didn’t trust myself to be consistent lol. But the bootcamp kept me motivated to study 50-60 hours/week. So the $15k for the bootcamp to land a SWE job after 4 months was definitely worth it for me.

[-]

allthenames00@reddit

Yea when I started looking into where to learn I was blown away with the cost of some bootcamps out there. I like scrimba’s model so far though. Low monthly cost with easily digestible lessons. I’m brand new as of a few months ago and just found it a few weeks ago after mostly working off of YouTube tutorials and other free sites.

[-]

Ok-Neighborhood4327@reddit (OP)

lowkey glad you brought up scrimba, i've been considering it too and it's def one of the more affordable options out there, no cap their lessons seem pretty comprehensive and the community is pretty active

[-]

allthenames00@reddit

I was pretty skeptical going in but I am impressed so far. Cheap so worth giving it a month if you’re curious.

[-]

Aglet_Green@reddit

I wouldn’t call them a scam so much as an expensive shortcut that people sometimes expect to be a teleport. If you treat it like “structure + acceleration,” it can be worth it. If you treat it like “pay $15k → job,” you’re going to feel cheated even if the bootcamp technically delivered the classes.

[-]

Ok-Neighborhood4327@reddit (OP)

i see what you're sayin, it's not a scam if you go in with the right expectations, but like, 15k is still a lot of money for a shortcut, you feel? i'm just worried ppl are gettin in over their heads thinkin it's a guaranteed job or somethin

[-]

Any-Range9932@reddit

I appreciate it as it allowed me to quickly change from a aerospace eng to a swe very quickly. This was also in 2017 so the job market wasn't as bad as it is now.

The main perks of a bootcamp is quickly teaching you technologies to quickly get up to speed as a junior. But everythinf is VERY surface level and I still needed to do weeks of algo/dsa practice and developing apps before I landed my first job.

I think in this day, im not really sure if it worth it. One, the job market is amazingly harsh for a junior so it is VERY competitive and two, even though AI is one of the things driving us to this state, AI is also an amazing teacher. And I have learn so much going back and worth with an llm

[-]

Ok-Neighborhood4327@reddit (OP)

lowkey same, i've heard from a few ppl who did bootcamps and they all said the same thing - it's good for getting a basic understanding of tech, but you're still gonna have to put in the work to actually be proficient, and 15k is a crazy amount of money for that, bro

[-]

ehr1c@reddit

alwayshasbeen.jpg

[-]

Ok-Neighborhood4327@reddit (OP)

ong that's a pretty weak response, fr. if you're gonna disagree with me, at least put in the effort to type out a sentence or two, bro

[-]

ehr1c@reddit

I'm agreeing with you, not disagreeing lol

[-]

Ok-Neighborhood4327@reddit (OP)

lol no cap, i was expecting you to go off on me but you're actually agreeing, my bad for the misunderstanding

[-]

Different_Cup9886@reddit

I been telling this from a year now. There is no scope now in doing courses. This is AI era, you need to pace up

[-]

Different_Cup9886@reddit

What i mean is, Learn basics -> Understand flow -> Start build a idea -> ship to real users

[-]

Ok-Neighborhood4327@reddit (OP)

bro what does ai era even mean in this context? like we're not gonna need coders no more or something? doesnt make sense to me