Since attending Brainstation back in 2016, I've had bright-eyed bootcamp developers and professionals transitioning in their careers ask me to coffee to get my insights into bootcamp. Those coffees can range anywhere between 30-minutes to 3-hours. (No really, 3 hours at bubble tea!) I sincerely enjoy those coffees but I unfortunately can't clone myself (darn, I don't live in a sci-fi fantasy movie?) to go to coffee with everyone! ☕
Hence, this AMA. I hope to provide an accessible document of frequently asked questions re: bootcamp 💻
If what you're looking for isn't here, please submit a GitHub issue and I will get back to you (within reason)! 😬
And if this AMA was helpful for you, consider sending a virtual coffee as a token of appreciation ☕❤️
If you still want to chat more after reading this, I do offer 30-minute 1-on-1s to dive deeper 🗓️
I went to Brainstation in Toronto 🇨🇦
It depends on what you're looking for 🧠
There's a number of them in Toronto itself: Brainstation, Juno College, General Assembly, Lighthouse Labs, and even the University of Toronto. In the US and UK, I've heard about Flatiron School and Le Wagon etc.
Some factors to consider are the curriculum offered compared to your desired job market, tuition cost and availbility of payment plans, job support, networking opportunities, and other skills developed outside of coding 🌱
Download the curricula for each bootcamp and compare them ⚖️
It depends on your timeline, budget, and learning style 📖
For me, I had gotten permanently laid off from my social media manager position at an advertising compmany. I wanted to return to the job market competitively and figured I would need to gain a new skill to do so. Around this time I found out about Brainstation via an Instagram ad, IIRC.
I knew I didn't want to go back to a traditional school. No 2-4 years just to get a diploma or a degree for me. I wanted to be job-market ready ASAP. Even 1 year wasn't going to cut it for me. Because a bootcamp is a condensed, accelerated curriculum designed to get you ready as soon as possible, that was a fit for me. And also, I'm a decent self-learner but like the option of having dedicated resources around to ask questions 👨🏽🏫
However, having the budget, understanding that you aren't guaranteed a job after your bootcamp, understanding you may not even be good or even like coding, and asking these bootcamps upfront how much job support they offer is essential in making this decision 💯
I did the Fall 2016 cohort for Brainstation's full-time web development bootcamp (September to December) and I got my first permanent, full-time job offer on May 31st, 2017. I started that job in mid-June of 2017 💻
Based on what I heard from recruiters shortly after I joined my first company, they said that my LinkedIn profile stood out for them and the fact that I did have some development experience via a 1-month contract 💻
Experience is not necessary for junior developers - especially straight out of school or bootcamp - but it is advantageous to have when you are being compared to other new-grads 👯
Potential and continuous learning is of utmost importance to show.
Examples of continuous learning:
- Books you're reading 📚
- Courses you're taking 🖥️
- Apps you're building 🖱️
- Open source contributions 🔤
- Content that teaches others: blog posts, Twitter threads, videos, podcasts, talks, Twitch streams 📸
Three things:
1) If you don't want to be unemployed while job hunting for that perfect first role, consider asking your bootcamp if they will have TA positions open at the end of the cohort. I became a TA after my cohort and was one until I started my role at my first company. Being a TA is a great opportunity to reinforce what you have learned while a) making money and b) being financially secure enough that you aren't desperate during the job search. You can also reinforce your learning during the bootcamp itself by helping peers with their assignments 🧑🤝🧑
2) Consider working on a flexible, short-term development contract with a small startup by creating a profile and looking for one on angel.co. I found a 1-month contract during my second cohort as TA. While they didn't hire me after due to resource constraints, this experience did prove favourable when my current company recruited me. Again, if you have experience, even if it's very little, it's advantageous when being compared to other new grads with only side projects. To be clear, side projects are not bad. They make sense for someone with very little to no job experience. But if you can get some, even better 🥇
3) I've seen great success from even current students learning in public on Twitter. They will write a blog post about what they learned that day or even tweets. You can build rapport with the community who will be happy to lift you up along the way, and especially when you announce you are looking for your first role 🌈
For me, I wanted a company that wasn't strapped for cash, where I wasn't the only developer on the team, that had growth opportunties through other developers being able to mentor me, where the engineering team wasn't just one team, and a company that had a process or structure in place to grow juniors to intermediates.
If that's you, I'd recommend the following:
1) Probably a company over 50 people 🧑🏿🤝🧑🏿🧑🏻🤝🧑🏽🧑🏾🤝🧑🏾
2) If you're concerned about funding, you can attempt to google them along with the word, "crunchbase." If available it will display the amount of money raised and which fundraising round the company is at i.e. seed, series a, b, c, d, e, f etc. This site also shows rough company size. You can get an idea from LinkedIn too by looking at the rough amount of employees that state they work there. However, take this with a grain of salt.
LinkedIn shows former employees too 💰
3) Determine how the company grows juniors. Do they have an accelerator program? A ramp-up squad? 📈
4) Determine the number of people in their engineering department and on the team for the open role. However, regarding mentoring, if they are explicitly hiring for juniors they likely have bandwidth to mentor.
But you should ask so as to not be led astray 😰
5) Ask the company if they have a career development plan for employees. That is to say, a clear road map for growth in a role i.e. developer 🗺️. Ask, "What's the average time it takes for a junior to make intermediate?"
The most straightforward way to get these answers is to ask the company during the interview process 😬
It may not be a company you want to work with in the end but the job hunt is a numbers game.
Interview practice is good 🙃
First and foremost, remember that while you're in bootcamp, the #1 priority is bootcamp ✨
Find low-commitment ways to create content during bootcamp like tweeting what you learned that day or making a short blog post of what problems you encountered and how you fixed them. If it's a dev.to blog, you could use hashtags like beginners, bootcamp, javascript etc. It can be difficult to create content on things you have to deeply research. You're already learning while in bootcamp so tweeting or writing about it is low-effort 😊
Outside of higher priorities, two things: finding the right medium for you and finding the right cadence.
Medium
- Which type of content do you enjoy making best? 💭
- If you don't know, experiment 🕹️
- Which type of content do you think you can make long-term? 🤔
Cadence
- If your goal is not to burn out, how often can you sustain making that content? 🔥
For me, when I think of "coding more", I tried doing #100DaysOfCode but it didn't work. I have a full-time developer job and, more often than not, when I come home I don't want to code more. Instead, coding for a couple hours on the weekend was more sustainable for me. Find your rhythm 💃🏻
Last thing! These insights are based on my experience plus what I've observed.
Please remember, your mileage may vary. 🥰