I went to a bootcamp in SF during spring 2015. I have now been working for a year at a YC startup doing front-end dev. I'm about to begin a new job (at a larger, more established company) focusing on full-stack dev in RoR.
Pros:
* Amazing community of driven, engaged people
* Week long interview/algorithms prep at the end of the program
* Strong curriculum, learning a ton of material into 3-4 months
* Learned about most key topics for web development (see cons for negative of this)
* Much easier to get job #2 (was juggling multiple offers) with experience on my resume
* No one said having bootcamp on my resume was a negative (possibly that's because the ones who did think that didn't even give me a first round interview...); more often seen as positive since I have more diverse background (used to be in sales).
Cons:
* Limited help getting a job after graduation
* Strong disadvantage to individuals who are new to the area when getting a job; most people got jobs through personal connections/networking
* Since time is so limited, even though we "learn" a lot of topics, the practice for each topic is extremely limited. This leads many people to feel unprepared come time to interview.
* Seeing a larger majority of bootcamp grads going into sales engineering jobs (maybe could be a positive too? depending on the type of job you're trying to get after graduation)
Overall, I think it really depends what you want to with your bootcamp education. With so many options out there with online learning, there are a variety of different paths to software engineering.
I wanted to move into an engineering position quickly, and learn in a more social/collaborative environment, so I really enjoyed my bootcamp experience. I would highly recommend it to individuals with similar objectives as mine.
> Strong disadvantage to individuals who are new to the area when getting a job; most people got jobs through personal connections/networking
This is key. The people I know who found good jobs after attending a boot camp had worked at startups in non-technical roles, and they were able to rely on connections with their friends in the engineering department. They got hired back at the same startup as junior developers. They are good at their jobs, but there are other boot camp grads who are just as good who never would have been considered if they had applied for a job without a personal connection at the company.
The tech industry is really not that different than other industries: personal connections are at least as important as skills, experience, and credentials.
Pros:
* Amazing community of driven, engaged people
* Week long interview/algorithms prep at the end of the program
* Strong curriculum, learning a ton of material into 3-4 months
* Learned about most key topics for web development (see cons for negative of this)
* Much easier to get job #2 (was juggling multiple offers) with experience on my resume
* No one said having bootcamp on my resume was a negative (possibly that's because the ones who did think that didn't even give me a first round interview...); more often seen as positive since I have more diverse background (used to be in sales).
Cons:
* Limited help getting a job after graduation
* Strong disadvantage to individuals who are new to the area when getting a job; most people got jobs through personal connections/networking
* Since time is so limited, even though we "learn" a lot of topics, the practice for each topic is extremely limited. This leads many people to feel unprepared come time to interview.
* Seeing a larger majority of bootcamp grads going into sales engineering jobs (maybe could be a positive too? depending on the type of job you're trying to get after graduation)
Overall, I think it really depends what you want to with your bootcamp education. With so many options out there with online learning, there are a variety of different paths to software engineering.
I wanted to move into an engineering position quickly, and learn in a more social/collaborative environment, so I really enjoyed my bootcamp experience. I would highly recommend it to individuals with similar objectives as mine.