I’m one of maybe the 10% of dev boot camp graduates that had a successful outcome. Most people think it’s as easy as just showing up, write mediocre code, get a certificate then you’re automatically an “engineer” with job offers being thrown at you. It’s not. I already had experience writing code throughout high school and took 2 years of cs classes at university before dropping out. TLDR; only worth it if you already have some technical knowledge or experience otherwise your just pissing away your money.

I don't think technical knowledge is required.

About half the 'good' folks in my bootcamp had a technical background, half did not.

The real catch was just mental capacity / tenacity / curiosity to keep trying, take a concept you don't understand and learn it independently.

@N00bPancakes Yeah Ill give you that. Technical knowledge to me could even just be natural intuition for using a computer

@wackOverflow

Yeah just being curious enough to ... fix your own problem on your computer is a pretty good technical start.

OMG Thank you @wackOverflow for being an actual bootcamp grad with realistic opinions about bootcamps. They promise your average joe will become a developer as long as he passes even if his code is shit but that’s NOT the case at all and if you have no aptitude, interest or experience you’re likely going nowhere with that cert. You have all three! I’ll admit, I almost want to join one but it seems a little expensive and the bootcamp projects I’ve seen in GitHubs seem a little too simplistic to impress managers but that’s just my very limited experience.

@d-fanelli It's very hard to break the barrier for entry level dev jobs. Maybe because of bootcamps, there's an over saturation of junior devs and it's made the field highly competitive. You got to really want it and do whatever it takes to get it. A lot of people say they'll do whatever it takes, but won't forgo hobbies/activities/family events to study or practice coding. You have to really put in 100% even if you feel like you're going no where, essentially get your mindset to a place where you're going to write code or develop projects even if no one gives a shit. It's a psychotic and grueling process but it can be done, and you'll reap all the rewards after and catch up on things you lost during the grind. I would recommend a bootcamp to anyone who is willing to go through all of that, and wants at least some structure to learning. If anything it will give you a solid foundation that you can build from. Just my two cents anyways, I'm interested to hear from other successful grads.