SWE Bootcamps?
Seen a lot of people on here talk about finance friends pivoting to tech after doing a swe bootcamp.
Heard horrible things about a lot of the bootcamps out there - can anybody recommend one or 2nd hand know of one were someone was successful?
Close friend of mine used one successfully. I also know a few people who went through bootcamps and got nowhere.
Think of it like a mid level MBA. Possible to get into banking with one? Absolutely. Probably not going to get you an MBA associate role with Evercore or Centerview or whatever the hottest bank out there is right now (We all know its FT partners lol). Most of your success will depend on how you network and interview. You might also need to work from crappy jobs to your dream job.
Additionally, if you're considering the pivot to SWE in tech, consider the salaries thrown around on WSO are like the 97th percentile of SWE pay. Its not like banking where everyone makes pretty much the same in a given year give or take 10-20%. The top earners pull in a ton, but average is much lower.
Most of the SWEs I know with 2-5 years of experience make 120-150k. I also know people pulling 70+ hours at absolute sweatshops to make that much. The guys pulling 300k plus to work a 30 hour week are much more rare than you would think reading boards like this. The market is generally pretty efficient. No free lunch.. Anyone telling you otherwise is probably stupid, a troll, or trying to sell you something.
whats the name of the one used successfully
Dev Mountain, out of Provo UT.
Also, like an MBA, I'd say regionality matters some. If you're trying to get to SF, you're probably better off doing a bootcamp in SF.
I'll chime in here since I left a comment in that one thread. Background: worked in tech as a software engineer, hit compensation ceiling and got my MBA before transitioning into finance.
First line of advice: don't waste your money on a bootcamp. This will sound counterintuitive, but breaking into big tech is trivial. It's meant to be. Because the number of jobs is so much greater than the number of engineers, the hiring philosophy in tech is hire freely, promote sparingly. Thus, there's a very clear playbook for landing an entry-level job.
Learn Data Structures and Algorithms
90% of CS/SWE is understanding how to store and manipulate data. There's a free online course on Coursera taught at Princeton that teaches you everything an entry-level software engineer needs to know (can't post links, just search "Algorithms Part I" on Coursera). It's under 100 hours of total material, so if you spend 10 hours/week, you can finish up in 2-3 months (though I've even seen some people complete the course in one week). As a frame of reference, most university students will apply for internships/jobs immediately after taking a DS&A class.
Practice LeetCode
Every tech interview will have a section dedicated to testing your DS&A knowledge by making you solve problems during the interview. Many companies will pull questions directly from the LeetCode database, so you can prepare by practicing on the website. There's a great list of sample questions compiled by Blind users (like WSO, but for tech) that covers all of the bases (again, can't post links, so just search "Blind 75"). Some companies like Facebook rely so heavily on LeetCode that the interview essentially just tests how well you remember LeetCode solutions. Solve those 75 problems and you'll be set. Solve more to improve your chances.
And that's it. That's all you need to successfully land an entry-level big tech job. No useless bootcamps, no need to waste money. Realistically, it will take you 6-8 months to fully prepare, but if you follow these steps to a T, you're set.
What were you making before you left?
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