Job Market and bootcamp

With my FAANG-hat on, If you don't have any experience you should be aiming for entry level roles for truly top tier companies. The Facebook/Google/Dropbox/Apple/Netflix/Microsoft/etc.... bar has multiple levels of cross-company calibration going on to make sure your level is based on your work experience and scope of responsibility and not on your raw skill level. If you are very skilled you will get very good performance reviews and bonuses at your level and take on more responsibility quickly to get promoted faster. But levels at FAANG are based on scope of responsibility. To answer the question, at Codesmith there are are combination of different things going in the "non-entry level" statement: 1. Somewhere between 10% and "a third" (different people have said different things) have some experience before Codesmith. Those people might be able to get "FAANG-level" mid-level roles depending on their experience and the scope of responsibility in their previous work. There are indeed 20% of people making over $140K but there are also 20% of people making under $110K. 2. "Non-FAANG Level Company" mid level jobs. This label is debatable what is included, but I'll just say the non-FAANG companies that don't have the same normalized bar and calibrated cross-org responsibility setting per level. When a local hiring manager has discretion over the level, then raw performance on an interview could sway them to do anything and Codesmith alumni are very strong compared to the vast majority of bootcamps. However, an entry level FAANG job is probably better than a non-entry level "non-FAANG-tier" job. 3. Many people list their open source contributions as Software Engineer roles at "companies" that are on LinkedIn labelled as "software companies". This is well done to maximize the benefit but I know 3 ex-FAANG recruiters (and heard from several more online) that have thought Codesmith alumni's resumes were for industry experienced candidates after the first normal "10 second pass" until they talked to them and learned they were not. If you apply somewhere non-FAANG that makes the same misunderstanding and doesn't realize this in conversation, you might get flagged as a mid level candidate. \*\*If you perform well on the job, as Codesmith alumni have done, this might not matter at all, but I'm answering the question for how people get mid-level roles\*\* I love all the Codesmith alumni I've worked with personally and they are all amazing and hard working people but just answering the question!