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currently looking to do a bootcamp and need some help

2 of Michael's comments in this thread · View thread on Reddit ↗

u/pfistergood wrote (the comment Michael replied to):

As an owner of a bootcamp, a bootcamp graduate, iOS developer, and someone whose instructed 500+ students I can tell you this is wrong. Anyone is capable of changing their career or life. For some people the learning environment of a traditional college doesn’t align well with

u/michaelnovati replied ·
As a ex-Facebook E7 level principal engineer who has interviewed hundreds of people and now coach and mentor a lot of people who were bootcamp grads in the past, have two other E7+ engineers on my team, and two other 8+ year ex-Facebook engineers who trained interviewers at Facebook, as well as a 3 ex-Facebook recruiters, 1 of which was there for 10 years and ran the internship program, I can give my stance on this. Which is fairly middle of the road and not exciting haha. It DOES depend on the person as pfistergood mentioned. Doing a top tier CS degree is probably the best path for someone in high school. You get to meet people from all different backgrounds who will go to other top tier companies in different fields. You get a broad education and do things for the sake of learning and not just getting a job. Most importantly you'll do at least two internships and get experience for not only getting a full time job, but also for setting yourself up for success on those jobs. It's not just about getting the job, but having an incredible career! That said, that's top tier CS school. Other colleges I might feel differently about. If you want to change careers then bootcamps are an option. But it will take time, you shouldn't expect to get a job right away (even though you might), and you should expect to transition a few jobs before settling in on top tier incredible position. My answer is biased towards people seeking out top tier jobs, so again, answer depends on the person and their goals.

u/pfistergood wrote (the comment Michael replied to):

Elegant position, u/michaelnovati, I agree with you whole heartily. More specifically I agree with what you said about a top-tier CS school being the best route for some. Especially for someone in high school. I would be a fool if I tried to tell anyone that traditional coll

u/michaelnovati replied ·
Yeah lots of agreement here. Highly depends on a lot of things. I know self taught people with great fundamentals and they just need to connect some dots (a few months still but like definitely faster than a degree) to get pretty close to a CS-degree level theory. I also know self taught people who don't know any theory and it tends to take longer, as expected, to get interview ready and it feels more painful and confusing along the way. In terms of practical skills, it's really those internships that make a difference. University of Waterloo is the best case study - people do SIX LEGIT internships in their degree and it takes 5 years to complete instead of 4 years. People come out almost at a Facebook E4 level (even though they are hired as E3 and typically progress to E4 quickly). I could see a bootcamp grad being able to hit the group running faster than a CS college grad that has had zero work experience.