The vast vast vast majority of people to not get a job right out of a bootcamp, even the best bootcamps.
It might happen to you but don't make plans based on finding a shortcut that "guarantees" a job on placement. It's not possible.
u/SlickkChickk wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Michael, if you were a new engineer in our shoes right now how would you navigate the current temp’s? Any suggestions u may be willing to share?
u/michaelnovatireplied·
It always depends on you and your goals, but some things to consider:
1. Working on a very large open source project, like Wikimedia, Wordpress, React, etc... It's very intimidating but you get exposure to real SWE development processes.
2. Working on a person project that is startup-like. Meaning a project that has real users (even if a small number) and is a real product that might even make some money, and you work on it for months/permanently
3. Working on fundamentals. The bootcamp approach is to learning on-demand practical skills to get a leg up, but that works best in a hot job market. In the current market companies aren't just looking for a React engineer as soon as possible, they are looking for strong engineers with strong fundamental problem solving skills.
4. Look for apprenticeships and try to get a foot in the door that way. Always good to learning in a more realistic setting. (e.g. [apprenticeships.me](https://apprenticeships.me))
5. Offer to volunteer at a startup. Look on WellFound (fmly. AngelList) for companies with under 10 people and ask if you can volunteer for a month on anything they need urgent help on.
u/NachosPalatino wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Could you go into a little more detail about what you mean by "fundamentals"? I imagine it involves something a little deeper than just practicing one specific framework, or just memorizing leetcode solutions
u/michaelnovatireplied·· edited
So in reality, the problems you solve are not as hard as Leetcode problems, but they aren't as easy as just practicing every day React use effect hooks over and over.
You need to be good at both to apply both sides of thinking to real work situations.
Real world example: we had some performance issues on the backend. It took a deep understanding of hash tables, sorting, references vs values, and more classic concepts APPLIED TO THE REAL WORLD to solve.
Someone who memorized Leetcode will struggle with applying those things to a very practical problem. Part of the practical is looking through thousands of lines of code and figuring out where to deep dive into the DSA. On the other hand if all you do is write "easy" code that keeps the ship running, you don't have the fundamentals to understand how to improve the performance of code.
As many will tell you in this subreddit, you can get a good job with a lot of hustle and practical skills, but you should be thinking about a 20+ year career and not just the job you'll have tomorrow.