Why do so many bootcamp graduates end up working for their bootcamp as instructors?

From what I've observed it's the following reasons, some good, some bad, and not in any order: - Recent grads just went through the curriculum and might relate more to the struggles you went through. It's additionally good practice for those grads to reinforce their learnings. - Some programs count people who are hired by the program as "placed" to boost their placements stats. Codesmith is bootcamp that hires back a lot of grads, currently about 50 to 60 of the 150 or so staff are former grads but they explicitly do not count these people as placed. They do however not consider them graduated either so they don't count at all on the CIRR stats until their 3 months contract is done. Most other bootcamps hire people back indefinitely while they are job hunting, which might result in them leaving suddenly and is a bad experience. - If there are too many former students teaching, you don't really have anyone with real industry experience teaching you and it's a slippery slope. A lot of the bootcamps with most complaints have more and more students over time. - Former students often are paid very little and the bootcamps are charging so much, so it's good for the company running the bootcamp to have more students. - Most bootcamps are described as a "firehose" and really who is teaching is less relevant when a lot of bootcamps are a selection process for the hardest working and naturally talented people more than actually teaching anything the way a college or private tutor does. - Most bootcamps that have alumni at FAANG have them getting there on their 2nd 3rd and 4th jobs... Hack Reactor and Hackbright are two where people end up at FAANG very often down the road but not in their first job. Codesmith has alumni enter less strong companies that pay higher right out the bat, but alumni don't seem to end up at FAANG any more likely down the road than some others. FAANG companies have a very high data structures and algorithms bar that no bootcamps meet (I've been challenged on this and Hack Reactor and Codesmith do some data structures and algorithms, but it's not nerely enough to hit that bar consistently for most grads)

From the ones I've worked with it's pretty good for a bootcamp, and pretty good overall, just not consistently at the FAANG bar. Like maybe 5% chance of passing FAANG onsite by getting all the stars aligning and the right recruiter, right questions, right hiring manager. Which is pretty good. To consistently prepare for FAANG you need a long period of dedicated learning and practice of fundamentals and no 12, 16, 19 weeks bootcamps just are built around a super compressed curriculum in fixed time and does not work at all for properly mastering any topic.

Yeah I'm pretty sure after 2023, FAANG as a term is going to end and we'll see something else arise from the turbulence. There will always be some hot place to work that has tremendously interesting and impactful work, and compensates at the top of market. That said, even now, at Formation, we see many people chose companies over traditional FAANG on a weekly basis. We tend to call all these companies "top-tier companies" and the bar is very high, and often higher, for some of these other companies. Not to sound too condescending but it's a lot of the "not knowing what you don't know" coming into play. Like a typical person in America who dreams of going to Hollywood, probably thinks of blockbuster movies and household-name actors. But the reality is that it's a complex industry where being in a leading role in a blockbuster movie might not be the best outcome for you. Maybe you are best off in some indy movies, or in television, or in a different role. I'm obviously very bias because I now coach people on figuring these things out, but step one is knowing that what you don't know and entering the industry with an open mind.

I can't give an answer but I normally suggest looking into the breadth of teaching styles to make sure you are considering a broad set. Super intense bootcamp style: Hack Reactor and Codesmith 9 to 6 with personal teaching from experienced instructors: Rithm Self paced mastery based: Launch School Core and then Capstone Focusing on specific demographics: Ada Academy In each of those buckets there are more options but you want to cover your bases instead of looking for objective goodness. Big tip is try to talk to people with similar backgrounds as yourself to hear how they found a program target than higher level metrics or reviews (use those to initially filter your list instead)