comment: >
  
  My partner did a coding boot camp about 6 years ago when he decided to pivot from a public school teacher to a developer. His first job out of the boot camp paid $80k and he now makes >$200k. 
  I decided to do a data science boot camp about 4 years ago and started off at $100k and now make more than 2x that. I don't work for a FAANG company but do work for an unicorn. 
  It does help with getting your foot in the door and building the basics and while the ROI may vary based on people it has paid off for us both
context: /u/clicksangiggles (OP) has awarded 1 delta(s) in this post.
  All comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.
  Please note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.
  ^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards >
  
  I work in the tech industry. I've worked at FAANG companies and startups alike. I know many of my coworkers who broke in through bootcamps, even if it's anecdotal. As someone in the tech industry I can tell you people do not scoff at these bootcamps.
  You may not get a job at a Google or Facebook right off the bat but you will land a decent and well-paying job if you are good. Most get their start at decent startups and then work their way up. A bootcamp can't make you a good programmer but it can give you the curriculum and resources you need to get there. >
  
  "If you are good". That's the thing, it takes more than 6 months. Do you know how many of your coworkers had some dev chops before going into those programs? Bootcamps can be valuable, all education is valuable, but for the cost, I have a hard time believing it's worth it for 99% of new devs. At the end of the day, people just need experience which they can get from tutorials and freelance work for a fraction of the cost. >
  
  I was a line cook at the beginning of the pandemic 2.5 years ago. I took one of the boot camps and now make $160k total compensation. My first job was like $55k, but I changed jobs twice which is the easiest way to boost your salary.
  What you fail to realize is most people at the bottom of the hill don’t even know enough to understand the path to get started. So, even though it’s true you need to get experience outside of a boot camp these boot camps are extremely valuable for job placement and mentoring.
  And, no I didn’t have any experience “coding” beforehand, just a natural interest in technology and quick learner >
  
  That's awesome, glad that path worked out for you. >
  
  You have dozens of replies talking about how bootcamps turned out well for them or their coworkers. 
  What's going to convince you to award a delta? >
  
  a little more time and probably figuring out how to award a delta >
  
  Type !delta anywhere in a reply to whoever you want to give a delta to >
  
  sweet, thanks for the tip >
  
  I’ve seen many people succeed out of a six month coding bootcamp.  
  What do you need exactly to change your view? >
  
  Success stories, mostly. Seen a few, becoming a little more open to the idea. Just based on my own experience learning this stuff and the predatory nature of for profit education, I'm a little cynical. I know some people can land jobs out of those camps but a lot of those people could have been self-taught and succeeded just the same. I've tried to find stats from some of these places but didn't see much. If 90% of people pay and fail, while 10% land jobs, I would still argue it's a scam. If the rate of success is higher, it would change my mind. >
  
  
  I know some people can land jobs out of those camps but a lot of those people could have been self-taught and succeeded just the same.
  
  You seem to think that since you  managed to succeed being self taught, anyone can.
  Learning programming by being guided in the right direction can be a far more efficient learning path than learning by making all pitfalls by yourself. And once you're self taught, a second step is to convince employers that you know your stuff, and you taught yourself well.
  For you,  specifically, that worked out. But doing a coding bootcamp makes it both easier to learn, and afterwards easier to get employed.
  Sure, some places are scams/too expensive, but it is a very viable route to take for many. >
  
  I’m self taught and I really wish I had been taught by others. I also freelanced most of my career and wish I had just worked FT for at least four years before going out on my own. >
  
  My friend just finished one and landed a gig making $90k right out of a boot camp. Granted, he had a rec from an employee inside the company, but still had to get consideration based on his profile from the boot camp. >
  
  How long has he been at his job? I've seen a lot of new devs get hired and fired within months because they couldn't keep up. That's where most of my skepticism comes from. If that's not the experience for most of these graduates, that's great. If those camps are actually putting people on the right path, the cost is justified, I suppose. >
  
  He's been there prob 5 or 6 months at this point. And he's the kind of smart and personable guy that wouldn't have issues retaining a job once he gets one.
  I am curious at what point these stories will change your view. I haven't known tons of people who've done this, and an n of one doesn't get you very far in establishing a pattern. But this thread is full of success stories that you seem to be acknowledging are counter to your expectation without awarding deltas. I'm not married to deltas, but a lot of people here are. >
  
  My view is starting shift. It's good to see more positive stories than negative ones.  I've seen a lot of good developers get fired due to performance, etc. My assumption is the higher the salary, the higher the expectation so people fresh out of bootcamps making 100k would be in a rough spot. May not be the case. Hope it isn't. Doesn't seem to be the experience of many in this thread. >
  
  The expectation increase with senior and pay, but 100k is just junior dev in big-ish firms so not many expectation and responsibility they will have to take. Bootcamp bring the road from unemployment to that first 100k significantly shorter if you went to the non-scam one. But yea there are scammy bootcamp out there for sure >
  
  My boyfriend finished a bootcamp last March (intensive 16 week program that costs around $18k tuition) and makes $150k base salary a year. I, on the other hand, graduated with a BS in Computer Science and make the same amount. However, my university tuition was over $100k. If anything, university is the scam.. if you have the motivation and willingness to push yourself / work hard and actually apply the skills you’re learning in bootcamp, these bootcamps are honestly really successful for a lot of people. Looking back, I wish I had done a bootcamp instead of my degree! A lot of my coworkers also came from bootcamps (and they are not looked down upon in the industry at all). For context, I work at Meta as a full stack engineer in California. Hope this helps! >
  
  For more context, he has a degree in Biology and the med school route didn’t work out for him so he took this 4 month bootcamp and completely changed careers in just a matter of ~6 months and found a job as a SWE. >
  
  Any chance you could give a bit more details on what specific course(s) he took, and more detail on the specific type of role/industry he is in? >
  
  Almost all of these bootcamps teach popular javascript frameworks and aim for full stack or front end SWE jobs, because that's the fastest way to be employable. Most of them will make you do projects like building a clone of Slack or some other app. >
  
  I retired from a career as a freelance webdev after 7 or 8 years because I was finally making enough money at my true passion (music), but when my gigs tanked during Covid, I took a bootcamp to update my skills, thinking I'd probably need to go back to programming.
  I do agree that tutorials and freelancing are valuable for beginners, but as someone who had nothing but experience in those things, I could not BELIEVE how lopsided my skillset was from working as a freelancer. My git skills were weak, I knew very little about modern backend and database technologies, almost nothing about the power of libraries and frameworks like React and Vue despite having already built some apps with them, and, most of all, I learned that I was lacking in the soft skills involved in working with a dev team.
  I was also surprised by how hard the class was. I had been making a respectable living for years as a developer. I also spent months boning up on my Javascript skills before the class started, so I was very comfortable with the main language we dealt with. I knew Facebook and Google wouldn't be banging down my door to offer a $250k/yr salary anytime soon, but I honestly went into the class thinking it'd be easy for someone with my experience.
  I graduated with an A average, but I worked my ass off and got really stressed out at certain parts, especially the final project. And there were a LOT of people in that class who had never programmed before! One of them is now a web developer at Amazon, FYI.
  Bootcamps aren't there to make you a great programmer. They're there to provide a focused environment for students to get the basics down pat, exactly like a military bootcamp, which make it significantly easier to build on your skills afterward and become a capable professional. The teachers and TAs make it very clear that it's actually extremely rare to get hired right out of a bootcamp, and that you should expect to build on your skills for a while before companies start paying attention, especially by working on algorithms and building your own full-stack apps solo.
  I agree that $10k is pricey, but I got more marketable skills in 3 months than I got from my entire 4-year $30k BA program. Skills that I wouldn't have even known that I didn't know had I not taken the class, and which could've taken me years to build on my own without the direction and focus that class gave me. Some of the stuff I learned about working on a dev team were things I may not have ever come across as a freelancer, too. 
  It's also amazing to cram that much learning into such a small space. Why not spend 3 months holed up and focusing heavily, then get on with your life, instead of splitting your time for years getting a degree? The remote nature of the program made it a LOT easier for me to cut all the bullshit out of my life and just do the work, too.
  I think even more important than the direct skills, though, was that the class made it 100% clear exactly what I would need to do to become a great developer. That path had always been murky to me, even after years of building sites on my own and with brief partnerships. After 3 months I had a rock-solid foundation in all the technologies I'd need to be familiar with in order to actually land a good job. >
  
  Nice. I'm seeing far more positive stories in here than negative ones. Always wrote off bootcamps as the next generation of bunk online schooling, pleasantly surprised to see that may not be the case. >
  
  You should award deltas to the people who changed your mind. >
  
  I had a coworker in a non-coding field decide one day that she needed a change. With 0 coding experience she quit her job and did a full time bootcamp. Within two weeks after graduating she had a job making $80k. A year later she moves and is making over 100k. Bootcamps 100% work.
  I on the other hand spent $0. It took me nearly 2 years (with prior coding experience) to get my first Software Engineer position making much less than her. 
  At the end of the day, are there other cheaper or free methods? Of course. But if I had the money at the time I would have 100% done a coding bootcamp instead of spending all my free time learning on my own with limited guidance.
  Furthermore, being in the industry now I have seen 0 negative reactions to bootcamps. All that really matters is that you know how to learn to solve problems, how you learned that skill is irrelevant. >
  
  A good boot camp will get you to network with a bunch of recruiters. If they are guaranteeing $75,000 a year then they are full of shit. But that doesn't mean boot camps are a waste of $. Some of them certainly are. The one's that work with employers are often well worth the investment if you are interested in that field. >
  
  Yeah, maybe. I think freelancing and joining LinkedIn would be a cheaper alternative, though. There's some value in those camps but I've seen many that promise a 75k salary. Just feels predatory. Honestly, a good developer could probably sell seats to a weekly zoom call for $100 per person and provide the same value as most camps. >
  
  You “think”. Do you have any evidence for this? All I see is you brushing off real anecdotes from people, while treating your own anecdotal experience as a hard and fast rule. Doesn’t really seem like you’re open to changing your view here >
  
  Just my own career path. It's not a hard and fast rule just how things worked for me. Tech recruiters practically live on LinkedIn and get paid commission to find devs. The demand is high and there are endless resources available to learn for free. >
  
  Many things to address in this one. 
  Bootcamps are intensives with focus on specific coding practices. I found mine worth the money because I would’ve spent many many hours trying to assemble all the necessary material myself. I had people and resources to help me get unstuck quickly. This alone is worth the price of tuition. 
  You have an absurd price disparity with thinking the going rate should be $200-500, who will teach for that little amount of money? I agree 10-20k is likely too much money, I did mine for about 5k all in and no salary sharing. I would never agree to salary sharing, that’s the real scam. 
  You’re biased because you’ve been self taught for over a decade. How do you expect people to break into this industry without some sort of guidance? People without experience cannot even fathom what they need to learn. 
  The designers in my program had a hard time landing jobs but the programmers did not especially if they were smart and dedicated. Many people tried to do this part time and didn’t realize the dedication/hours required so naturally those people flunked out. If you can make it through the program you will likely get a job. If you’re career switching from a 40k job to a 75k job you make your tuition back in less than a year. >
  
  I'm definitely biased, no push back there. To succeed in this industry, you just need a genuine interest and experience. I'd highly recommend pro-bono work and cheap freelance gigs to get experience solving problems and working with product owners. Glad you found value in your program, though. Good to know this route has helped people. Regarding cost, if I had time, I'd teach a course for $200-$500 a person. I've thought about it a few times. People just need direction and a person to ask questions. They don't need to drop thousands and cram for months. They really just need a tutor which is relatively inexpensive compared to bootcamps or degrees. >
  
  To succeed in any industry you need interest and experience. 
  Who is going to hire you for coding projects if you have never programmed or lack experience? People don’t have time to do pro-bono work when they can barely make ends meet at their underpaid job. 
  You just said you wouldn’t teach the course because you don’t have time. But if you were paid a few thousand per person instead you’d probably be more inclined to consider it. You can make over 100k programming for a company, why would you teach for a few hundred bucks? The math does not work out unless you’re a super passionate teacher. 
  Tutoring and a boot camp are vastly different. Someone who’s never programmed will not succeed with a tutor because that’s not intensive enough. Tutors are typically added on top of coursework to make you better at the coursework. A good programmers hourly is likely over $100/hr so if you go the tutor route you’ve exceed your $500 price point after 5 hours. 
  I agree some of the programs are super predatory and not worth their money. But that’s the same with any form of education, there’s always good value with some and scams with others. Community colleges can be exceptional value but not all are created equal. >
  
  I don't have an interest in teaching, a few thousand a person wouldn't change that. It seems like easy money which is appealing, just wouldn't enjoy it...   
  Who is going to hire you for coding projects if you have never programmed or lack experience?
  To your point, why would most employers want to hire someone fresh out of a bootcamp? It's the same problem. A lot of these bootcamps (to my knowledge) teach javascript based frameworks which while useful, doesn't make sense for many employers. If I ran a dev agency or software company, I'd be equally skeptical of a dev fresh out of a bootcamp. "Oh, cool, you learned react in 6 months. We're going to have to pass, we're a Magento shop"
  Not really trying to shit on bootcamps or routes that get people to where they want to go, it just seems so hit or miss. I know some can succeed but it seems likely the majority of people will take out a loan and just go into debt while the few that do succeed are a good fit for the job and would have succeeded regardless. >
  
  That's the thing, though. You had some technical chops before enrolling. For people with some experience, bootcamps could be a good way to level up in a short period of time. Honestly, wouldn't have any issue with bootcamps if they were more honest in their ads. Less of a "make 75k/yr after our 6 month course" pitch and more like "do you have what it takes to succeed in our 6 month course and make 75k/yr".  This camp worked for you which is great but I'll bet a good portion of your classmates are now in debt and looking at other industries. >
  
  The outcomes I saw as well as the outcomes of my classmates seemed to align pretty closely. with what was advertised.
  It seems like your opposition has reduced to splitting hairs regarding a tag line. They are very open about the fact that what they are doing is providing an initial base of knowledge. >
  
  I'm not going to claim all boot camps are the same, obviously research before spending money.
  That being. I didn't say  where you opposition comes from, I said what your opposition is.
  
  I think using the tech salary as a sales pitch is a red flag. They should sell the stack and experience, not promises of big pay checks.
  
  I mean of course the 2 second tag line is going to point out that you can make good money. Which is true.  That's what I mean, your opposition seems like it started off being agaisnt camps, now it just like commercials are to optomistic, which is a far cry from the orginal claim that cade camps are a waste of money.
  The one I attended had customer service. They emailed me an entire outline of the curriculum and stack details. It didn't mean much to me at the time but was enough to allow me to research would have been more then enough for any dev I asked to give an opinion.
  The offered refunds throughout the first half, take 1/10 the course you pay 1/10 the price.  They actievly tracked outcome stats. Many people had jobs lined up before the course even ended. Seemed like everyone had outcomes that reflected what was promised.
  So what is your actual position here beyond, 15 second youtube ads are reductionist, which is true for every industry in the world.  Your initial claim was that they were a waste of money and that article is just vague speculation with no substantive claims.
  ​
  I can pretty much guarantee you I am equally or more anti-establishment education then you are and I'm telling you these camps are a solution the the problem not a contributor.
  The teach actual career prep at a blazingly fast pace, at  price affordable to the middle class.  In the future maybe it will be even cheaper as the world just gets better.
  The difference between these camps and college is the university system has decided that it can just abstract the idea of learning into some vague concept of general educational achievement where practical use comes second to creating a system of metrics to compare and evaluate people.  Its actually insane how inefficient that is compared to just people what they need to know. >
  
  The camps near me guarantee you a 60k job within a year or you don’t pay their 15k tuition. A few of my high school buddies did their camps and all of them had to pay the tuition bc they got jobs making >$60k. So it’s kinda like a win-win bc you get free training or you get a job. >
  
  Mind telling the names of those boot camps? >
  
  Many bootcamps have agreements with certain employers and "career fairs" specifically for their graduates and those employers. I graduated with a CS degree from a traditional university, but there was a team in my office that had hired almost exclusively from a bootcamp associated with my university--The position paid the normal 75k/yr and there were 20 software engineers from that bootcamp on the team.  
  I'd say one thing you're overlooking is the networking resources that a bootcamp offers. >
  
  Networking can be really beneficial, that's why LinkedIn is so popular... Are those devs coming out of bootcamps any good? >
  
  Honestly, I didn't work with them directly so I don't really know--that said I know their previous occupations (web designer, bike shop technician, food service, etc.) and I just checked linkedin for some of their current jobs (Software Engineer, Front End Developer, Typescript + GraphQL Consultant) so I'd say it was a success for them.  
  Another thing to consider is "what did you actually learn while doing your 4 year CS degree".
  Personally, I needed to take about 2 years of general ed, followed by a series of math classes (discrete, linear algebra) and various CS classes (Databases, OS, compilers, game design, ai, algorithms)  
  Going back to your post you mentioned some of the most important skills for software dev are as follows :
  
  Managing client expectations, being efficient in your workflow, being an effective problem solver, writing clean and maintainable code
  
  If you're looking for someone with the skills you mentioned above, I don't think the CS courses I took really prepared me that better than a bootcamp would have for a job--especially not if the bootcamp has an agreement with the employers in the area and is teaching the students a relevant tech stack. >
  
  Really depends on the boot camp. There are many that take advantage of people who want to change careers and think it’s possible to learn everything in 8 months. Most well known boot camps that actually get their alumni hired will also have them work on portfolio projects that they will present to the boot camps hiring partners(some of which are well known companies). The price could be worth it if you get a job, some boot camps have free tuition till you land a job(paying at least like 75k) and then they’ll take a percentage up to a certain amount. Which will encourage them to get you hired at a decent salary the higher the better. You will be given the opportunity to learn A LOT in the right boot camp you; the boot camp that’s near me that’s well respected from what I heard was 40 hours in class a week. That’s not including the other 10+ hours a week you would have to spend on your own so you don’t fall behind. Which if you do you’re screwed. Also it’s worth mentioning most of the legit boot camps might say ‘zero to professional’ but they’ll have you take an entrance exam to see if you’ll be able to handle the workload. If you get in they’ll also tell you to spend like 3 months before the boot camp even begins to familiarize yourself so you don’t actually start from ‘zero’. My cousin went to a scam boot camp and saw a lot of the alumni weren’t getting jobs, so he created a company that helps boot camp alumni get jobs after the boot camp. When I spoke to him he did say a few boot camps have a really good record in getting their alumni into jobs. He also mentioned that employers really don’t care if you went to a boot camp, self taught, or college if you have a really good portfolio. Boot camps teach, keep you disciplined, and most important connect you with people who are more than likely in a similar position as you are and all have one goal in common. To get a job. You can spend even more in college have a degree and if you don’t have a good portfolio you more than likely won’t get hired unless you just send out a bunch of applications(like 200+). I know a lot of people who went to college for CS and got jobs right after or before graduating and they all spent a lot of their time learning on their own and working on portfolios. Idk if this really fits the style of this sub this is my first reply here lol. >
  
  It's a good reply, gave some good insight. Bootcamps that take a percentage of your pay after you get hired seem more legit, I can get behind that. The networking aspect of bootcamps could be beneficial as well, just can't get passed the cost. I'm self taught, freelanced for a while ($50 per site) and eventually worked my way up to a nice 6 figured salary while making money along the way. There are cheaper routes that lead to the same place. A lot of these camps just feel like scammy online colleges that sell hope but just put people in debt. >
  
  I’m actually glad you posted what you did was exactly my plan. Self taught I got to a decent part in android dev but I really lacked motivation and most importantly discipline. I’m glad it worked out for you. If someone succeeds as a self taught developer they’d succeed if they went to college or a boot camp I think it’s more of a personality thing. I 100% agree that some maybe most boot camps now try to sell a dream to people who actually have no experience and they just have no chance of learning enough in the given time especially with the fast paced environment most will get burned out and quit before the finish or just fall so behind that they quit. Right now I’m planning on going back to college I work for Amazon so they pay everything even boot camps lol. But I’m going the IT route and might stick with android dev as a hobby since I did enjoy it but it was stressful thinking my way to turn around my life was to learn to code, but even that didn’t motivate me enough lol >
  
  Nice, best of luck, seriously. There's so much work and opportunity out there for anyone that just knows PHP and JavaScript that my instinct is to push people away from those camps. I could definitely be wrong but hate to see people get ripped off. You ever think about learning Wordpress or Laravel? If you master those (low barrier to entry) you'll have stable work. >
  
  I work in the tech industry and have helped hire and mentor a number of bootcamp graduates. The results have generally been very positive. Some have become really great high-level contributors, others only grow into being pretty average developers. I haven't seen any crash and burn, but they're all making quite good salaries.
  The relative success of the bootcamps really calls into question the university system. Why do you need a 4-year degree for hundreds of thousands when a 6 month bootcamp for $10-20k puts you in just as good of a starting position? People fresh out of 4-year universities with CS degrees don't have any of those other skills you listed either, they also mostly learn them through experience in the industry.
  You do need to do your homework before signing on to make sure the particular bootcamp has good-quality education and good job placement, and you do still need to put in the work, but there is plenty of room for great results when everything is right. >
  
  
  The relative success of the bootcamps really calls into question the university system. 
  
  University system of USA or any country where you have to pay for education. University is supposed to be place of knowledge where you are learning to THINK, not just place where you are trained to do something. It´s complex formative experience. 
  Alas, system of USA is based just mainly on money, at least what I know. In this case, yes, because you actually can be trained really fast. >
  
  I did a bootcamp in 2020 l and it gave me a path to a much better job and work-life balance.  I think (like any educational endeavor) it varies greatly on the individual.   Would this have been a good or effective option for me at 20? Most likely not.  At 35, desperately wanting a career change, it was perfect.  I think the key to these bootcamps is the life experience to know to speak up and show up.  I went to all possible office hours, asked lots of questions during class, and made very useful connections.  I got a job offer before the course ended because of my participation. >
  
  I went to a javascript boot camp in the LA area about 5 years ago, got a job at a startup maybe a month after graduating. It paid poorly by market standards at the time (50k) but the upside was that I learned mobile engineering (java and swift) on the job. I think essentially my whole cohort of 15ish folks got jobs, some within the month, some within a few. I did go to a boot camp that spent a literal week on pure job-hunting and interviewing skills though, which established a great mindset. 
  But yeah, could someone learn to code on their own? 1000%, if you’re motivated. But the camp I went to had a very specific culture of being hungry, for lack of a better word—hungry to learn, to improve, and being in that environment made me speed through a workload that would’ve taken considerably longer if I were only powered by my own self-motivation. >
  
  In my 3rd year after a boot camp and already making more (107k) than I was after 10+ yrs in HR (maxed at 80k).
  A lot of what you described (managing expectations, workflow etc) are business skills. Not specific to coding. 
  The boot camps provide structure. Teachers and fellow students. An alumni network. People with whom you can talk to about not understanding for loops and CSS. 
  You probably can learn the same coding skills thru Udemy. But those have much higher dropout rates and do not have the support system.
  And sure, it is more expensive than online courses. But it's much less expensive than a BS degree. And you learn enough to be able to contribute to teams. Most web dev jobs are just working on CRUD apps, and once you learn how to problem solve and how to Google effectively, you can contribute to a team >
  
  I studied mechanical engineering and then went and did a bootcamp. Now I'm working as a back end engineer at unity technologies. If you already have some knowledge and if you're good, bootcamps are not bad. If you have no idea about coding, bootcamps are a waste of money. 
  I've seen some software eng or comp sci people go to bootcamps as well, just to build a network because these bootcamps are heavily connected to the industry. I would even go as far as saying the network that they provide is the price you pay for. All the technical knowledge is pretty basic. You can learn it on your own very easily. 
  Bootcamps are good for a very specific type of person, they're not for everyone. People who are thinking of doing one should be extra cautious these days because of the current situation of the tech industry.
  Finally, I think it's unfair to dismiss bootcamps or bootcamp graduates. I've worked with quite a lot of people who are brilliant that come from bootcamps. >
  
  I studied math but dropped out of my phd program when I had my first kid. That was ten years ago; never got back into the field and spent the last five years at home. I never took these coding boot camps seriously, but reading the replies here is making me reconsider. Do you think this could be a viable path for me back into the workforce? (39F in case it matters… ugh I feel old) >
  
  I wouldn't care about age. It really comes down to what you know and what you can do in the industry. I mean age is indirectly related to it. You do have to spend quite a bit of time studying on your own after work. I did it, and a lot of my friends who did bootcamps had to do it too. One of them is a staff data engineer at Shopify right now. My point is, the result really depends on how much you will put in and it is a lot of work. I'm not going to underplay the amount of work. It is very doable though, especially if the motivators in your life are strong. I've had colleagues who went through bootcamps in their 50s. They are doing well right now. They're not making huge amounts, or they're not in higher up positions, but, they also did not come from technical backgrounds. Your math background would help you quite a bit. It'll be a small plus factor in getting a job. It'll help you get through HR screening maybe. That being said, it'll be a huge advantage for you in understanfing the concepts, and getting better in coding. 
  When applying for a bootcamp you really have to consider the price of the bootcamp, your financial situation, and how much time you can put aside for this big career change. Bootcamps are usually 12 hours a day, starts at 9am, until late at night, for 3 months. There are other programs that are more long lasting and more chill on a day to day basis. There are bootcamps for different things a a well. Fortend, backend, data science, data engineering, full stack. I went to lighthouse labs in Canada. It was a full stack bootcamp. My first job was a full stack job at a no name company. I figured out I like backend engineering, so I focused on backend and worked as a backend engineer ever since. 
  Long story short, you have to talk to these bootcamps, consider the things I mentioned, and if/when you start one, you have to give it all you got. Im not exaggerating when I say all you got. It's a big commitment, and you have to make it count, or else it's a waste of money.
  I would say go to freecodecamp web site, and go through the courses there. It's pretty well structured. I would start with JavaScript algorithms section and go through the other ones in any order. See how well you learn, how much you like learning on your own. It's a good place to start. Once you start, the rest will come. Once you get an understanding of web, web technologies, how the internet works. I would look into bootcamps. >
  
  I have a friend who landed a 6 figure job after taking a bootcamp. Part of the process is they have networking resources.
  It's a scam, but so is university. The only way to get considered for high paying jobs is to have someone vouch for you, and it's gonna cost money >
  
  Yeah this is true. On top of that: 
  in the Netherlands there is a minor Geographical Information Systems (GIS). I did this minor because it offered a two month internship. During this internship, I was only processing and visualizing data. Before I went there, I could only push the buttons to get a result. Now I can easily find new functions and flexibily solve problems. I now can actually start learning more complex functions and tools.
  So University and these bootcamps might be about laying a foundations that enables you to learn. And then of course there are the networks you build, the CV building and the paper which tells employers you are not a risk to hire because you know what you’re doing. I can imagine a bootcamp doing the same. >
  
  It used to be people went to college to get jobs and universities to build theoretical foundations
  Now that college has a negative stigma, and virtual learning has developed, we use bootcamps to get jobs >
  
  I needed 2 years of experience with data to even get into the bootcamp. Two months after graduating I got a 75k job at a major hospital. 
  This experience consisted of a data entry job and unpaid data internship at another hospital. 
  I think it’s worth it to find a not scammy bootcamp and have some relevant experience. Worked for me >
  
  I got my start in a coding camp that *required* that I have a college degree to enter the program, and they also covered living/etc. with a small wage while you learned. They also basically had contracts with employers to train batches of new employers from them. The company also went out of its way, at least your first two years after finishing the program, to help keep you employed until you could get bought off from them. They helped you interview, helped you study for coding tests, all the nine. Everyone that graduated with me has found a career in code, too, and some are already tech leads. The only downside was that under their contract you started at a slightly decreased salary (45k or 55k depending on where you were living) unless your contract was bought out from them - which sometimes happened on day one. 
  Once I got bought out of the contract and bought on full-time (after 1 year) I jumped to 90k immediately. I've been in the business just under four years and consistently get emails from Amazon (and other companies) regularly asking me to apply. I've also gone from 90 to 140k/yr and up to senior dev roles, and I'm currently working my way into my first tech lead position.
  I would say if you're going to do it, look for programs that don't have you pay until you get a job - they're the ones more likely to actually help you get your foot in the door and get some good experience under your belt. >
  
  I think a lot of the underlying vitriol against boot camps originate from devs who put in the work for a 4 year CompSci degree. It feels like: "I wasted so much time when I could've just done a bootcamp and made the same salary!!"
  That's completely false. In my experience, coworkers with a CompSci degree are a lot more proficient at programming than those without. You can generally expect very clean code from them. >
  
  I doubt anyone is that petty. My thinking is that the expectations for developers is high. Most devs are expected to be full stack. There's a lot to know if you're working on large production systems. I don't see people cramming for a semester and being competent enough to be effective. It's like learning react then getting hired to maintain a Magento based ecom site. Bootcamps seem too niche to be useful for most of the work out there. Most devs don't even go to college these days. No need. >
  
  I work professionally as a software developer, making 100k/year. Have been at the company 4 years, and have plenty of potential to move up or move on. 
  Landed the job a few months out of a 6 month immersive bootcamp. Most of the people from my class have similar jobs. 
  Sure, there are bootcamps and people out there that won’t have the same experience, and won’t succeed. But I don’t think that what I learned there is a waste of money. I would’ve never had the job or career without the bootcamp. And I know plenty of people with the same story. I agree that plenty of bootcamps will waste your money, but all? No. >
  
  I know software engineers making good money who started in boot camps. There are good and bad ones, and you have to pay attention to the job market. >
  
  I see this sort of attitude about code camps and I can tell you from first hand experience you are dead wrong.
  I took a 3 month course, not even 6. I got a job  within a month, once I was  in the industry I got a second job that pad a little over 75k with minimal effort.  Basically everyone in the course completed it and got good paying job in field. only a few of the students (like 2 of the 18) had experience, those who dropped out early got full refunds. 
  I had basically no knowledge of code experience before hand.  Will it prepare you for any job? no but it will prepare you for many in demand software dev jobs.
  People online seem quick to bash code camps because bashing things is fun. it's easy to stype "jUsT lEaRn to CoDe" in response to someone giving you the advice because it feels like a sick dunk on someone being dismiss, but the fact it i;s actualy great advice. LEARN TO CODE.
  What people don't realize is that if you take educational opportunities that actually focus on teaching a skill, instead of abstracting the idea of "educational achievement" into some vague metric removed from practical application, you can actually learn a  lot fast.  Additionally software is great because you learn as you go, if you ahve a small set up skills you can get s job and build from there, obviously you can't do that with like, being a doctor for example.
  as far as teaching yourself, sure that's an option but having a instructor, a class you attend all day everyday that forces you to actually do it, a set cirriculem that puts you on the right path, and actually organizes the information into an order that make sense to learn it in, a job placement program, and simply a name to write on your resume, results in going from 0 to entry level faster then the vast majority of people can do on their own.  Your correct that you can teach yourself for cheap but the time, efforct, and diffiutly of doing so means they are coming out way behind when they could just get it down quick and start making better money right away. >
  
  My partner took out a loan to attend a bootcamp several years ago. The program was fucking insane and I have a lot of respect for them for making it through it in one piece, let alone with a cert. A year after graduating from the program they landed a job, currently making over 100k annual salary. I'd never be able to do it myself (my eyes start to glaze over whenever they discuss the minutae of coding, let alone eating/breathing/shitting it for 6 straight months) but I think for somebody so inclined that it's definitely worth it. >
  
  
  Part of being a developer is learning on the job and teaching yourself to learn
  
  Yeah, the hard part is actually landing the fucking job in the first place. 
  I personally did a 10-month part-time data science bootcamp after getting kicked out of my PhD program (I was doing computational physics). I didn't need the instruction, I already knew 60-70% of what they were teaching (the only thing I really learned there was SQL and how to pre-process data). 
  I was actually there to network. That's what I really paid for. I ended up getting a job through other means, but some of the people in my cohort ended up getting jobs that way. >
  
  I'm not in the tech industry myself, but I have a lot of friends who are. I only personally know two people who've gone through coding bootcamps rather than the more traditional route, but for both of them it's absolutely been a success. 
  In one case, it was someone who pursued theater and set design for their bachelor's and master's degree at a fairly prestigious school for both. They spent time in the field, but eventually weren't satisfied with the living they were making, and went through a bootcamp to move into coding. They had an extra advantage from having a sibling in a closely related industry who could advise them, but ultimately worked hard at it on their own and now make a six-figure salary less than 5 years post-bootcamp. They also got their initial and later positions from their bootcamp connections rather than their family connections. 
  In the other situation, it was my friend's company that paid to send them through the bootcamp. My friend had done their degrees in business and marketing and started at the company in a role based on those skills. After a few years an opportunity came up apply to go through a coding bootcamp and transition into a technical role within the company. It was a fairly large company, and I think over the past few years they've put dozens of employees through that same process. Obviously there is some selection bias in having the company choose candidates they know and expect to do well, and it's very different than someone starting out with zero connections on top of zero experience. Still, it was a great career move for my friend, and it seems to be benefitting the company if they continue to spend the money sending a dozen people through the coding bootcamps each year. >
  
  good to hear it, glad people are getting value out of those programs >
  
  
  Managing client expectations, being efficient in your workflow, being an effective problem solver, writing clean and maintainable code, etc are what keeps people employed and those skills take experience to develop.
  
  These things are things that I would expect for a developer with a couple of years of experience. Bootcamps set you up well to be an intern or a new grad at a company, where you have decent fundamentals in coding so that you could take on a few tasks on your own, but you're not talking to stakeholders directly, making business decisions, improving team processes, etc. >
  
  I completely disagree I went fully self taught myself for a year and couldn’t get a job applied to hundreds maybe 2 interviews but no job. I also was looking for a remote job as I live in the mountains with no luck. I wish I had some sort of certification to my name maybe I would have gotten a job. >
  
  I was working at a startup a while back in California. We were looking to hire new people. I conducted a few interviews and found a guy I liked. We offered him 80k and he didn't take the job, because another company got him for 125k. His education and experience: 12 weeks of boot camp. But the guy could visualize complex systems and break large problems down into manageable components, which many experienced candidates failed to do. Tech is weird. If you love programming and have a knack for it, you will not need extensive schooling and experience (i dropped out of college and have a successful career at this point). If you don't actually like programming, no amount of education will make you into a good programmer. >
  
  Bootcampers are definitely lacking in comparison to someone with a degree in computer science. With that said, the bootcampers that I have met have infinitely more potential then a 3rd world educated individual. The reality of the situation is that you're either a diversity hire or at a company that skimps on quality. >
  
  I have a friend who was a teacher for years and over time her salary could not keep up with the cost of living. She went through boot camp and is now making a decent salary (she finally hit six figures).
  She found out about it from other former teachers who left their profession due to salary stagnation.
  TBF, I think boot camps and universities both have their roles and one doesn’t necessarily replace the other. >
  
  I took a data structure and algorithms boot camp by a ex Google tech lead. It was basically 6 months of interview prep with a heavy emphasis on coding questions. Did it take me from zero to hero? No. But what I can say is I'm no longer afraid of any coding challenges from companies. >
  
  A short and rigorous educational stint can provide someone with a wide range of useful skills. "Coding bootcamps" do this, even if they oversell and overprice their product.
  "A waste of money" depends on who's buying. I see bootcamps around $10K for 24-weeks. That costs less than college tuition, and keep in mind that these costs are often paid by employers.
  I had 4 years of CS education and it can't be replaced with a bootcamp.  But I've looked around at bootcamps myself, because (1) I know they work and (2) they would greatly broaden my technological skills.
  TLDR: Bootcamp rates are comparable to tuition, and teach different skills.