Picking a bootcamp with a CS background

I'm bias because I'm the co-founder of a mentorship platform/career accelerator, but I would consider this type of option if you already have work experience - [Formation](https://Formation.dev).dev, Interview Kickstart, Pathrise, Coachable (all of these have deferred payment options as well). These are all very different but they are all built to prepare you in different ways for the job hunt. Since you already have legit work experience a bootcamp probably isn't what you want to do because the majority of people you work with be much further behind. **You will have way more exerience than most of the instructors who teach you.** And you don't actually learn much raw skills. If you do want to choose a bootcamp, Codesmith is probably the best option for you if you want to hustle your way into the next job and get all the support you need doing that, but I wouldn't go there to actually learn any coding skills. I would also look into Rithm and Launch School. Both focus more on learning, but again, you'll be with people much farther behind than you. If you want to learn new skills, I would recommend a career accelerator/interview prep option + learning JavaScript on the side with free/cheap courses or by building projects. Happy to dive more into your exact situation. I don't know if you know my rep on here, but I tell it how it is and try to help people figure out the right options for them and happy to advise more after knowing a little more about your experience and what you are looking for.

I actually explicitly removed Outco from the list because they seem to have shut down and aren't taking applications and numerous people I've talked to said they have been non responsive to them :S. Obviously I'm extremely bias but I would say that: Formation is a completely different world from Outco, I know some people that did Outco and came to Formation and can connect you. For example, you get a team of three dedicated support staff, an adaptive platform, mocks with actual senior engineers and recruiters who actually work at FAANG companies, personalized prep for upcoming interviews, a custom platform built from the ground up for your progress, scheduling, feedback, job hunt tracking, etc... Interview Kickstart is a little more structured than Formation and not adaptive to your progress and needs, but it's consistently been ok for preparing for interviews. Similar to Formation they have solid mentors who actually work at top tier companies. Pathrise is hyper focused on the job hunt and less on the technical help, you have a dedicated career coach meeting with you every week or two and their job hunt tools are hyper focused on conversion. The experience tends to be proportional to how good your coach is. Coachable is more of a 1-1 coaching service, super small, but focused on passing DS&A following their approach and method. Less support than the above, but it's very very small so if you like Darek then it might be a good fit. I would apply to Formation and talk to someone, the people are extremely not pushy and will be honest with you. I know Interview Kickstart will call you non stop and is a little more push so I might only apply if you are actually very interested.

So algo sessions are done in either JS or Python. Generally with your preferred language but it could be done in either. The main point of sessions is to learn and practice how to think about problems, so the language doesn't matter that much. But you don't develop a JS expertise at Formation. We do have frontend work you can that goes through for JS language practice, but similar to DS&A it's more practice focused than teaching focused. So the TLDR is that you probably want to be somewhat familiar with it but to not worry or stress about being good at it before starting.

Can you explain more about your experience and background prior to going, what you were looking for there, why you decided to enroll, the ways it helped and the ways it didn't help, and how it contributed to your job hunt? If someone is going to pay five figures they need to know more than "it was a game changer for me" haha.

Thanks for sharing and congrats on making the switch! How many other people you worked with had CS degrees and about 2 years of SWE work experience?