You on the fence of if a top tier bootcamp or career accelerator is right (or nothing at all!). I would consider Codesmith yeah. It's not guaranteed to get you a job but if you feel really stuck it might be worth it for the community. You'll highly likely be coding circles around everyone but their curriculum isn't what you are paying for - anyone can get the material and it's entirely taught by former graduates.
Also consider career accelerators and see if they are right for you - they tend to be job hunt and interview focused instead of learning focused.
Formation.dev (I'm a co-founder) (adaptive learning efficient practice, small group sessions, mock interviews with senior/staff engineers, support until you get a job)
Interview Kickstart (structured DS&A practice, lecture style sessions, mock interviews with senior engineers)
Interviewing.io (a la cart interview practice, or pay for dedicated mentor)
Pathrise (job hunt funnel optimization, not much technical learning)
Coachable (intense DS&A practice and resume optimization, good track record with new grads)
u/Butah1 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Thanks for the insight! I haven't considered career accelerators mainly because while my programming skills are strong, it's only in the basic concepts. I've never written a full stack app or done a massive project. That's another reason I'm considering a bootcamp
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
If you are concerned about building, yeah maybe not the accelerators. Codesmith could be an option, Launch School Capstone would be another.
Alternatively, look into things like Hack4LA - where you might want to just volunteer for free and build some stuff. Codesmith's open source partner OSLabs also seems to have free options for people to build stuff without doing Codesmith.
u/Butah1 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Launch School Capstone sounds like a very good option for me, but it seems I would need to complete their core curriculum first. Any idea how long that would take? I see some people saying 6+ months, but I already have good experience with the fundamentals.
u/michaelnovatireplied·
If you already know it then I think it can be done relatively quickly. Try messaging their team to see if you can test out of it. It's mastery-based - so if you should be able to test out of certain lessons, but I think they want you to spend some time doing it because it helps you-and-them identify if the Capstone is the right thing for you.