u/michaelnovati replied ·
Bias disclosure: my company offers interview prep for experienced engineers so keep in mind in interpreting my opinions. We help, but not as much, in getting interviews, and we specialize in preparing you for actual interviews.
The short answer is yes, the industry generally doesn't like bootcamp grads, even in jobs #2, 3, 4, 5. But it's also not impossible to overcome that.
These are some common things I see to help:
- Recognizable name as your first company, e.g. a bank or even a solid tech company
- Career trajectory, i.e. fast promotions (or any promotions)
- Staying at the same company for 2+ years (and ideally with promotions)
- Outside of work activities: mentoring, projects, community leadership
- Excelling at something non-technical, e.g. Olympic-level at swimming.
But yeah it's much harder for bootcamp grads later on still. It's not impossible and I see those people get amazing jobs every day, but it's very hard to stand out.
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From the other side of things, if you have a stack of 1000 resumes and 100 are referrals, and of those, 30 went to good CS schools, and 10 of them worked at top tech companies.
You interview the 10. If you expand, you interview the 30.
No bootcamp grads make the cut.