Coding bootcamps promising $70k and 97% job placement upon graduation?

Blah Blah. wrote:

Most coding jobs are low skilled and can be done by persons with little or no education. The reason why these boot camps work is that companies do not want older workers and most jobs are low skilled. If you are over 40 and spent your entire professional life coding no company will hire you. There are persons with Phds in engineering from Stanford who can not get a job in Silicon Valley.

That maybe true for tech companies but it's not true for all companies that hire coders. Go to your nearest university or hospital or utility company or any large organization and look at their IT department. You will find plenty of old geezers working in there.

jamin wrote:

Invest wrote:

That's great. What is his earning potential as a truck driver 10-years after starting versus the earning potential of someone who can code 10-years after starting?

The differences are heavily in favor of those who can code. The investment is worth it.

That's not what this thread is about.

But, since you asked, few software engineers are ever going to make more than $150k/yr. The amount of combined talent, work ethic and luck it takes to get there is probably more than blue collar jobs that pay around the same amount (crane operator, longshoreman, etc.). And those blue collar jobs are often unionized, 9:00-5:00 and don't require living in high-COL areas.

I'll probably make a little over $100k this year, working to a large extent when I feel like it.

lime in my drink wrote:

I'm skeptical wrote:

Came across this article a few min. ago:

http://money.cnn.com/2016/09/27/technology/learn-to-code-coding-dojo/

Long story short, they mention a couple coding academies that typically last a few months in duration, and cost upwards of $15k. Seems a little too good to be true, yes?

I can't imagine any respectable employer would be jumping at the opportunity to hire one of these bootcamp grads over a CS degree from even a halfway competent university. Am I wrong in that assumption?

Why on God's green earth would you want to sit in a chair and stare at a screen for the rest of your life??? Not to mention techies have fewer social skills than any other segment of the American population.

Haha! Lots of good insight here, but I feel sort of the same way you do. While I certainly can admire the craft in a competent developer/engineer, I would be absolutely suicidal if I spent my whole day sitting at a desk staring at code.

I'm more of a hands on guy, and I find that I mesh considerably better with blue collar types instead of the lifelong cubicle workers. Coding seems to be a pretty lucrative career, but it's definitely not the path for me.

I'm Skeptical wrote:

lime in my drink wrote:

Why on God's green earth would you want to sit in a chair and stare at a screen for the rest of your life??? Not to mention techies have fewer social skills than any other segment of the American population.

Haha! Lots of good insight here, but I feel sort of the same way you do. While I certainly can admire the craft in a competent developer/engineer, I would be absolutely suicidal if I spent my whole day sitting at a desk staring at code.

I'm more of a hands on guy, and I find that I mesh considerably better with blue collar types instead of the lifelong cubicle workers. Coding seems to be a pretty lucrative career, but it's definitely not the path for me.

Somebody has to get man to MARS ;-)

$70K is alot of money in 90% of the USA. Even in California, $70K goes along way in Redding, Fresno, Bakersfield, and Sacramento.

But trade schools will get you a regular business programming job and not an engineering job or computer science job or Bio job or Medical job or Genetics job or STEM job in general (many of which require an immense knowledge of programing a decades of UNIX skills) where you can make alot more.

$M in San Carlos CA wrote:

$70K is alot of money in 90% of the USA. Even in California, $70K goes along way in Redding, Fresno, Bakersfield, and Sacramento.

But trade schools will get you a regular business programming job and not an engineering job or computer science job or Bio job or Medical job or Genetics job or STEM job in general (many of which require an immense knowledge of programing a decades of UNIX skills) where you can make alot more.

70k doesn't go that far in Sacramento. It's not as expensive as SF/LA/SD, but it's not cheap either. It's worth the extra cost though relative to Redding/Fresno/Bako (all cesspools).

Modesto, Stockton, Sac, SLO, Santa Maria, BFL, Fresno, Redding, are about the same cost of living. 70K is a very good start. No woman would see you as a bad prospect. SD, LA, SF, SJ, SB, SC, OC are out of the range of most of the US population. You need 200K to be real.

a software engineer wrote:

jamin wrote:

That's not what this thread is about.

But, since you asked, few software engineers are ever going to make more than $150k/yr. The amount of combined talent, work ethic and luck it takes to get there is probably more than blue collar jobs that pay around the same amount (crane operator, longshoreman, etc.). And those blue collar jobs are often unionized, 9:00-5:00 and don't require living in high-COL areas.

I'll probably make a little over $100k this year, working to a large extent when I feel like it.

Yea, but you're unlikely to ever make $150k/yr as a software engineer, extremely unlikely to ever make $200k/yr, no matter how skilled you are. $150-$200k/yr is around the ceiling of what software engineering skills are worth to companies. And very few companies have any software engineering positions that pay that much.

On the other hand, if you're a motivated lawyer, you can easily be making $500k/yr after a decade or two of experience. Or if you have that much motivation, you could get into medical school and come out making a similar amount.

Coding 4 lyfe wrote:

luv2run wrote:

My understanding is that if you can code no one cares where you learned.

So what happens if you do not get such a job? Will the camp refund your money?

If you can work well and sell yourself, you will get a job.

This is the key (selling yourself). Most people pursue years of extra education, and pour dollars down the drain, because they are afraid to sell.

We don't have a jobs crisis in this country. We have an entitlement crisis. Thinking that you are "owed" a job is really just a psychological defense to the fear of pounding the pavement and getting rejected.

jamin wrote:

On the other hand, if you're a motivated lawyer, you can easily be making $500k/yr after a decade or two of experience. Or if you have that much motivation, you could get into medical school and come out making a similar amount.

This is ridiculously optimistic and ignores the debt and time taken to get that level. Neither of those jobs are anything like 40 hours a week, either.

jamin wrote:

Yea, but you're unlikely to ever make $150k/yr as a software engineer, extremely unlikely to ever make $200k/yr, no matter how skilled you are. $150-$200k/yr is around the ceiling of what software engineering skills are worth to companies. And very few companies have any software engineering positions that pay that much.

This is very incorrect. I don't personally don't know a single full-time software engineer who makes less than 190k. ~250-300k is more normal. My company pays its software engineering interns 90k/yr prorated (after 3 years of undergrad).

I live and work in LA.

Haha no man - a lawyer isn't going to out earn a software engineer of similar talent. If you're halfway decent you're making 150k. If you're making under 100k you're in the bottom 20% or just suck at finding a good employer

nojamin wrote:

Haha no man - a lawyer isn't going to out earn a software engineer of similar talent. If you're halfway decent you're making 150k. If you're making under 100k you're in the bottom 20% or just suck at finding a good employer

Just like any career field, the brightest and most ambitious will make the most money. In software you can make 100K by just coding or move up the ladder into management or director level and VERY good money.

Not all Lawyers are making 500K.

There is also a big difference between being a software engineer with advanced degrees working in Silicone Valley and a coder working at a insurance company in the Midwest. The coder isn't making as much money but is still pulling in a good salary.

I'm curious how many companies in Silicon Valley or the US as a whole would look for cheaper labor overseas.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/26/us/lawsuit-claims-disney-colluded-to-replace-us-workers-with-immigrants.html?_r=0

Why pay an American $150K when they can pay some Indian dood $60K.

Total BS in my opinion...

Tenzig wrote:

I'm curious how many companies in Silicon Valley or the US as a whole would look for cheaper labor overseas.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/26/us/lawsuit-claims-disney-colluded-to-replace-us-workers-with-immigrants.html?_r=0

Why pay an American $150K when they can pay some Indian dood $60K.

Total BS in my opinion...

The going rate over the surface web for programmers in India, Russia, Iran, Israel, Cambodia, ... is $5/hr

at my university wrote:

There is computer science, computer engineering, and information technology, in descending level of difficulty.

Posted the insecure CS grad.

I've been on plenty of bridges with CS grads who can't troubleshoot their way out of a water closet. The solutions from CS grads can be impressive in their needless complexity.

The national average pay for a mid-career software engineer is $94K. In silicon valley it is $123K. Those saying $150 are just making stuff up. They are probably Trump supporters.

Remember programming is just a common rudimentary skill. Thus a "software engineer' with a ITT Certificate on a Java EE Obama Care project makes less than a "software engineer" with an MS in Bio-Medical Engineering.

way off wrote:

The national average pay for a mid-career software engineer is $94K. In silicon valley it is $123K. Those saying $150 are just making stuff up. They are probably Trump supporters.

You say the average in silicon valley is 123K but don't find it plausible that some are making 150K?

We don't have to worry about you ever making more than 50k.