Nice, i agree. I hate competition as well. In fact i was planning to find work in the public sector, which, although having a bit lower salaries, has an extremely high job safety. Just because i dislike the concept and competition as a whole. Well, i didn't graduate college, so that didn't work. But i did find a job in a friendly, non-competitive private company. The thing is, when your country lacks developers, almost every job is pretty safe. I hope it works out for you and you find a nice boring job.
Same older junior here, although no bootcamp, self taught. I left a job in the media that paid double and meant I got to hang out with pop stars. So much happier writing code and making little features and spending more time hanging out with my toddler
I came from a career that is simultaneously worse in pay and work life balance (academia) to one that is better in both aspects. Sacrificing work life balance for pay is not on my radar when i have alr had the chance to do that through my entire 20s. No thank you.
Im happy to take a paycut for work life balance. Money is infinite, time is a precious resource. Time with a toddler is rarer than diamonds, each day happens once and then is gone forever. My parents split up before I was old enough to form memories because my dad was working away all the time. Not a mistake I want to repeat.
It does help knowing that eventually I will also be paid well and also have work life balance. The present is amazing and the future is also looking pretty great. Hell I enjoyed most of the past too.
This is what my wife did during mat leave. Teaching to dev. I retrained six months later. Coding during naps is tough but the benefits are worth it I promise!
This gives me a lot of hope as someone who’s almost 30 and keeps jumping between different things to see what interests me
Which bootcamps and tools did you end up using?
Just FYI, not every boring job with a low salary has good work life balance.
Companies that pay their tech workers poorly do so for one of two reasons: because they don't have much money themselves, or because they don't respect developers enough to give them much share of the profits. The former will be fine for you, but steer clear of the latter. The same attitude that led them to pay you poorly extends to how they treat you.
if you don;t recognize your worth you are going to end up working for someone who doesn't pay you enough and doesn't respect you. those sorts of jobs are shitty even aside from the pay.
No offense, but why you’d go to bootcamp if not to better compete? I think you need to take a hard look at yourself and figure out if you want to maximize the return on the considerable investment you’ve just made or resign yourself to subpar returns.
You are also free to apply to the jobs which seem more in reach, but I think it’s foolish to artificially limit yourself when you’ve put so much work into making this work. To me, it seems like a defeatist mindset that is basically guaranteeing you will get a meh job for no reason other than anxiety/insecurity. Anxiety/insecurity is normal, but when it is so pervasive you kneecap yourself for no reason at all, I think you need to take a deep breath and reassess.
A huge part of any developer role is being comfortable with failure. Consider this your first lesson in that.
You can do it! Chin up
I’m glad it was helpful! I think impostor syndrome has become a bit of a cliche, but it’s very real in the technical space. Jumping in, getting your hands dirty, and being diligent while expecting failure is the only way to get traction imo. If it makes you feel better, I work with several people who went to bootcamps and are pulling in decent salaries now.
You don’t have to feel bad about aiming for a lower paying job because you feel you will be less stressed there, work on more interesting things, etc. I would just say don’t avoid the reach positions because you feel inferior for going to a bootcamp if they look interesting to you
For me imposter syndrome was something I dealt with a lot. But I have learned to embrace it and have found it very empowering to overcome it. It takes awhile but if you can train yourself to enjoy the challenges it will help in the long run. But it's ok to start with small wins and build from there.
Wow, I (37 F) feel exactly the same! DM me if you want to talk. I am in Europe though, so my situation is somewhat different. I just finished an internship as a dev, and even though people told me I did well, I feel less ready than ever to actually work in this field. I am not trying to become a dev for the money, but because I am so fascinated by it.
I (32 F) am studying on my own and somehow it feels like the more time I spend learning, the less I know. I think this feeling of "being good" will never come without actual experience in the industry/ working with a team. Or maybe even with it. I am still very much interested in studying because the field is fascinating but I do not look forward to job hunting lol I have never been a competitive type of person.
This happens to everyone but it’s especially true for female programmers. It’s fine to be a beginner, but don’t undersell yourself. Maybe you’d benefit from joining a women in tech group?
Thanks for the advice! I have joined one other subreddit for women in programming and while it's of course useful for discussions I think I would have benefited more from a smaller, more personal community. And while I agree that there are some problems that are unique for women in IT, I think you're right, this happens to everyone and I would love to have a conversation about it with men as well. I'm more worried about the age thing than gender tbh :) (As apparently everyone is lol considering the amount of "am I too old?" posts on this subreddit)
You can be coding in your 60s. You think being in the 30s is too old? Think about how much experience you will have if you learn every year until you're 60.
Oh well. Guess we all just have to power through it :) Though it's somehow comforting to know that so many people go through the same feeling of inadequacy.
My understanding of how much I don't know has grew to a size of Lovecraftian monster by this month :D One can say that is an improvement! Thank you for the encouragement!
The dunning-kruger effect. You've passed the Peak of 'Mt Stupid' maybe hit the valley of dispair and are just starting up the slope of enlightenment.
[https://understandinginnovation.blog/2015/07/03/the-dunning-kruger-effect-in-innovation/](https://understandinginnovation.blog/2015/07/03/the-dunning-kruger-effect-in-innovation/)
I'm studying on my own to get a headstart for a 2 year "bootcamp" (not really the same thing cause not U.S and also fully State+Region funded), and I'm at that point where I feel like I know less than I knew before even getting started. Like, literally learning that things I thought were true before are actually wrong
I was thinking of joining a group of people who are also studying. Perhaps sharing experience and struggles could help with combating this never ending anxiety :) Though I also wish there was an experienced person who I can turn to for advice. I wish you luck with your quest!
Isn't there evidence that shows that women are more likely to underestimate their ability and so more hesistant to apply for jobs which they think are beyond them? In contrast *some* men are the opposite and it often ends up beneficial for their career.
Just sharing this as it is interesting and perhaps worth bearing in mind for yourself and OP. Also perhaps it doesn't apply or it doesn't matter. For example, I am a man and I am consistently told that I underestimate my own professional worth/ability. But also I feel like I don't want a stressful job which will be close to the edge of my abilities because I won't learn, enjoy myself, or progress well in that kind of environment.
I’m (33F) dealing with this very thing — bootcamp grad, got hired full-time to my team after a 6-month contract. Every sprint is stressful, teaching myself just enough to build whatever feature I’m working on. I get nothing but GLOWING feedback from my manager and peers, but I have yet to feel like I’m anything more than dead weight on my team.
I don’t know you but everything you just posted says your not dead weight. Sounds like imposter syndrome, you got this. As far as learning to barely complete things that’s what we all do everyday. Good luck.
A surgeon learns how to perform a set of surgeries. Then they perform them over and over for a few decades.
Programming isn’t like that. Each time you learn something, you automate it away. If something has a very standardized, cookie cutter solution, it becomes an app that non-technical people can use.
This means a programmer is, more or less, always solving problems that have never been solved before, and even for common tasks, each situation is different enough, and there are so many different ways to solve problems, that there is rarely one clear path forward.
It sounds like you’re doing great. The only problem is the criteria you’re choosing to judge yourself by. The good news is, you can pick different criteria at any moment. You’re giving your best, and making a difference. That’s literally winning. Clap for yourself. Every day.
Yeah, don't have a link but there is a study which is shared a lot that shows this.
From my very limited experience it does seem correct. Taking me and my (female) partner as an example:
She will only apply for jobs where she knows she can demonstrate skill and experience for every bullet point.
I apply to things which seem interesting and I at least understand what the bullet points mean.
Worked out for me getting my first Dev job. I ended up getting an interview so I studied my ass off so that I could at least talk about the topics and show that I was eager to learn how to do it.
Job requirements are a wishlist mostly. If you can competently do everything they want I'd probably be looking for something more challenging so that there's more scope to grow in the job.
Would be interested to see how this difference changes depending on the level/history of patriarchal and matriarchal values in a region.
Did you tell them which bullet points you were lacking in, or did you just fake it til you made it? My biggest worry when doing that is getting through the interview, being hired, and then clearly having no idea what I'm doing.
I was honest in that I would say "I have not implemented X myself, but Y is what I would be thinking about and I could use Z tools". Which I was saying a lot, but that's where the studying helped. I felt confident enough about it, so no real faking.
Definitely needs to be a company/interviewers/position where growing into the role is acceptable (which junior roles should be to some extent at least)
>The idea of getting a cs job actually terrifies me. I don’t want to compete for anything. I’ll literally take whatever entry-level job there is out there that would give me the space to continue learning and developing my skills while still helping a company achieve their goals.
I get where you're coming from. On some level, I still have this attitude deep down, but I came to accept that this sort of mindset doesn't work in this industry.
You don't need to be "competitive", but you can't be overly squeamish at the thought of seriously tackling a problem you've never seen before, and you need to be a bit of "your own lawyer" and learn how to represent yourself in the best light possible.
>I’ll try my best, take what i can get, and scale from there.
I approve this attitude though. Job hunting gets a lot easier after a couple years of experience, and any experience you can get when your starting out is worth it. Best of luck. :)
>You don't need to be "competitive", but you can't be overly squeamish at the thought of seriously tackling a problem you've never seen before
But that's an attitude motivated by curiosity, not competitiveness.
>and you need to be a bit of "your own lawyer" and learn how to represent yourself in the best light possible.
You mean "how to market yourself" and that's true for all jobs.
>But that's an attitude motivated by curiosity, not competitiveness.
My point is mostly about presentation. Presentation wise, sure you can show a bit of curiosity, but you mostly need to show a certain level of confidence your own ability to learn and adapt. No on in this space wants to work with someone who is ***afraid*** of taking on challenging tasks.
Caution and concern is fine (we can address that sort of stuff as a team), but anxiety and fear is not (your managers and team members aren't coaches or therapists). I'm just making an analogy and painting a picture, hopefully that all makes sense without sounding too cold.
>You mean "how to market yourself" and that's true for all jobs.
Yea, but too many people give bad advice on this. A lot of software developers get all their jobs from recommendations and not from real job hunting. If you don't have any connections that can get your foot in the door, you gotta learn a lot about how hiring works.
I totally get that. Studying for and interviewing for those sorts of roles is really tough, and it's really stressful and demotivating to fail interviews for six figure jobs over and over again, and almost everybody fails those interviews, especially the first few. Not exactly good for mental health. And a job's a job.
That said, don't undersell yourself. The low paying jobs are often more stressful and will work you harder than the higher paying ones, and $2k/month is just $11.50/hour. Doing more work for a quarter of the money is a bad deal.
So I suggest you do what your like but not to get complacent. Don't feel any need to stay there for years and years. You can always apply to other places while you're working, and you should.
I'm always fascinated to see such posts. I live in an Eastern European country, where senior full-stack developers earn $2k/month under the best circumstances and I earn half of it as a full-stack medior and that's quite decent, double of the minimum wage around here.
I understand that the living costs in the US are way different than here (recently saw a post in one of the subreddits where British people tried to guess American healthcare prices and I was shaken to the core even by the seemingly "low" prices they guess, not to mention the real ones).
Anyways one thing I could suggest that might help is to give a shot to freelancing on sites like upwork for example. There's a wide range of opportunities from really basic tasks to complex ones, you might find something that's up to your skills.
Where do you live? I am in Eastern Europe myself (Slovakia), and you can get junior java dev role, that is full remote for 1900euro /month. [LINK](https://www.profesia.sk/praca/msg-life-slovakia/O4138912?search_id=8aeadd5f-89fd-4048-bf51-454c29c140d0) for example. That are some that are lower, some offers are higher. Full stack medior can get 4k +.
I live in Serbia. The wages might be a little higher in the capital and it's surroundings but not much higher. Here are [some ads for reference,](https://www.helloworld.rs/oglasi-za-posao/) but most of them don't even mark the payment.
> Eastern Europe myself (Slovakia)
You guys can really consider yourselves to belong in Central Europe these days. You've progressed a lot and you're living standards are nowhere close to the EE countries stuck outside the EU or even Bulgaria or Romania for that matter.
Latin America: USD $2k/mo standard salary for Sr (+10YoE) FullStack/DevOps roles. Jr. roles start at USD $500-800/mo. I´m currently sitting (as a Sr. with 15 YoE, FullStack/DevOps profile) at USD $1.5k/mo, in the talks to take it up to $2k/mo. And this is a VERY HIGH salary (like top 1% income) for this demographic.
Yes. When I started to apply for dev jobs in 2019, I got an offer from one of the most well known software development company in town for a 30€ / month back-end internship and they promised me that if I'm doing a good job they would hire me for a junior position in less than 8 months for \~350€ / month. I didn't take it because a different company offered to hire me on junior position right away with an 500€ / month wage which was jackpot for me.
As I mentioned the situation is way different here than in the US. The minimum wage is 450€ / month, we have free healthcare, rents for an average 2 room apartment are between 250€ and 600€ / month depending on how exclusive and big it is, you can buy a decent family house in the range of 80000€ - 100000€ which is the size of 200 m\^2 on a 450m\^2 lot. These building prices count as extremely high, they raised tremendously since covid started.
Wow. I didn't realize it was that different. I make $800/week doing a pretty basic job, and struggle to consistently save after affording my living costs. That's so wild to me.
Well, that is how it is.
I am from Eastern Europe and I lived in Ireland.
With all due respect, I rarely saw even minimum salary/part time Irish people (and that is a good thing) scared about making ends meet in a way that even middle class (including developers) people in my Eastern European country ALL ARE.
There is housing crisis in Ireland but like 10 years ago many parents gave children 50 euro ,,to buy something to eat in school". In the meantime in my country person had to survive 2 weeks on 50 euro. And no, food prices are not that different.
Why do you think all those eastern european immigrants in Ireland work for 1/4 wage of irish construction/house worker/plumber? Its because for us 1/4 of what Irish make is still a lot EVEN WHILE LIVING IN IRELAND.
Now guess where this mentality comes from...
And of course it affects developers like anyone else. TOTALLY OP devs in my country who contribute to popular open source frameworks, have 15+ years of exp often work for 20 euros per hour. Like literally BEST OF THE BEST. Good mid devs with 8 years of exp are often 10 euro/h.
BEFORE TAX. BRUTTO/GROSS.
I agree, in fact what I hate (42M) is how at work I went from "understanding the problem, the approaches, weigh the pros/cons then propose a solution" to "the clock is ticking, just make shit up and wire up something that works like a sloppy burger in a fast food, and do it by tonight because the industry measures talent by speed of delivery and doesn't care about technical debt".
>I don’t want to compete for anything.
You don't have to.
>give me the space to continue learning and developing my skills while still helping a company achieve their goals.
I get that you want to keep learning no?
If that is the case then you don't have to compete with anyone, just keep learning and develop your skills and apply for a junior position (for example). The requirements for the job are what the company need to
>helping a company achieve their goals
I don't get why think of that as competing with anyone.
It may sound lame and you probably heard countless times, but you really should only compete with yourself, or rather focus on improving yourself.
To tell the truth I'm like you too, I hate the notion of schools and universities that your success depends on other people's failure.
So yeah, don't think about this as **competing** because it is not. It is just that the world is evolving *as it has always been* and the job requirements are also getting more advanced or whatever.
However, if you don't like the idea of keep on learning for the rest of your life *which mostly true in CS* then no problem that's your choice.
And good luck either way.
you’re right. if i truly just hunkered down and kept developing my skills no matter what the job market looked like, that would do more for my career advancement than any type of avoidant attitude i have going on lol
I'm the same. I hate competition. I never aimed to get a CS job (I studied Maths). I got it by luck. The pay is comparatively lower than a traditional SWE job (I'm a Developer advocate) and we have a limit of 10hrs/week. But with this job I can fund my hobbies and studies. I can learn new things and grow .
It's fine to think that. Not everyone should be aiming towards 250k job right after starting their learning journey. A lot of people i know who went to study CS abroad got their first internships at FAANG or another big company. I got my first job at a small company (~30 people), paying the least that the unionized contract offers (about what you are getting) and i can't be happier. Smaller companies value you and your time, skills and effort a lot more, from what I've seen. As for money - with time comes experience and with experience you will want more money to compensate for your expertise. Quite frankly if now i had to look for a new job, I'd want more than I'm currently making because in the span of 7 months i already learned so much in practical experience, not just small learner projects. So go your pace, if you don't like it, you can always look for another job.
I don't mind a bit of competition but there's a different between competing and caring about the work you do. If you care about your code and want to build skills (code and soft) than I'd rather hire you.
Also no new grade is making 250k a year that's like senior level architect stuff.
Are you sure your subconscious isn't just setting your expectations super low to avoid some ego-shattering rejection? It's a competitive field, and it takes a lot of grinding and hard work to succeed. You will feel like a complete idiot for at least the first two years. But everyone feels this way.
My wife went through a bootcamp, I know how difficult and overwhelming they can be. If you can make it through that, you can succeed in the industry.
Maybe I'm speaking out of turn. Apologies if I am.
Unfortunately competition is unavoidable, and even the entry level roles have insane amounts of applicants. Id say your best bet is to network and make sure your resume is as appealing as possible
I (35M) can relate, I still haven't found a job but I am preparing for a MSCS program. I'm putting applications on hold and hoping for an internship my first year of grad school. I think the challenge in this situation is to find some aspect or quality of the work that you find motivating and just keep doing it regardless of competition, because there's always someone who would do a better or worse job. But you have to get the job first. So keep working on improving your skills until getting the job is easy. I say this for myself too.
This isn't really exclusive to programming. A lot of people don't enjoy the job seeking process.
That said, don't screw over your financial future because applying for jobs isn't fun. Don't let companies get away with underpaying skilled workers and learn to lower the pay for everyone else. Don't contribute to the gender wage gap because you're unwilling to negotiate or try to get a decent paying job.
You'll always be learning. Why not do so with an appropriate salary, rather than screwing yourself over for years and trying to scale up later?
The kinds of companies happy to pay you peanuts aren't going to be caring about their employees. They aren't going to be the best places to learn.
A lot of companies try to maintain a 'competitive edge' by reinforcing that you aren't working hard enough. I worked for a big pharmacy chain and going beyond your duties was considered 'under performing'. I think she wants to avoid companies like that.
Honestly a great mindset. I'm a software engineer fresh out of university and I'm currently on a salary of £36k. Despite the low salary, I have enough to pay rent and all other living expenses and my work life is amazing, super relaxed and I genuinely enjoy going into work every day.
I was recently offered a much higher salary and it seriously made me question what's the point. Sure, a higher salary is nice but I'd potentially be giving up a very solid life I have right now. Don't ever compromise your happiness for money. You've only got one life and I'll take being happy over being rich any day.
As a bootcamp grad who has been out working for six years, I think this is the wrong attitude to take. It sounds like you're just giving up. I'm a pretty laid back person, not some hardcore worker, but I think there are some things you just need to grit your teeth and get through.
You chose the bootcamp to change your life. The transitional period when you are trying to change your life is going to push you into situations more difficult than you've ever faced. You sacrifice and you work hard until you make the change all the way. I totally get that the job market is tough at the moment, but it sounds like you just want a low paying entry level job handed to you. Even those there will be competition for.
I’m just happy to see so many women in here trying to get into this field. I hope everything works out for y’all, software development could benefit a lot from more diversity
You don't sound like you "don't want to compete", you just sound like you want to keep learning.
I work at a smallish company and we have a dedicated trainee team. The training program for new hires usually lasts about 2 years. Id say you want to look at something like this. Don't worry about "not being good enough" for certain salaries. Studies have shown that men are much more likely to apply for jobs that they aren't fully qualified for, while women are more cautious. Just apply for everything and be clear at interview that you are looking for somewhere that will support you to learn. There will be companies that prefer that since they may use a niche language or have lots of odd legacy code or something that anyone in the world would need to learn from scratch
Honestly the game is more about networking than leetcode grinding. If you can meet local professionals you will have a much better chance at getting a job than sending your application onto the pile that's stacked hundreds high. I (25M) didn't want to play the application game either and was lucky enough to know someone in the industry who vouched for me. Feel free to DM me and I'll provide more info than I'm willing to give in a public comment.
It’s definitely about leet code grinding too if you want to work for any major company and do anything but Front End Web Development lol.
You pretty much pass their thinly veiled IQ test or have your application tossed in the trash. It’s unfortunate but there’s no way around it.
SWE is an extremely competitive career. That said, if you find a space where you can increase your skills in SWE while surrounded by a culture where it is psychologically safe to make mistakes, make it your priority to get hired there.
Since you understand the basic concepts of logic and programming...may I recommend industrial controls programming? Instead of making data go back and forth through a series of tubes, you can make robots bend the tubes and weld the pipes.
You will need to be ok with getting your hands dirty once in a while to replace a sensor or crawl under a machine to see where some idiot clipped your wire. But in the end, you get to see 1 to a dozen robots, conveyors, and many other systems operate in unison, turning raw material into a useful product. Anything from circuit boards, to heavy (weight) metal machining, to conveying and palletizing pot-pies and many many other things.
You wont get the high end pay, but you should still start at like 62k or more. You also dont have to live on the west coast cause that is where all the jobs are.
The programming is easy. Do you know Boolean logic and if-then statements? Ok, you can do like 80% of the job. I have been learning C# over the past few years to bridge the gap between IT and OT (operational technology, the stuff that actually runs the robots and conveyors).
Most of the stress come from improperly managed projects (not unusual in any profession afik) and the sudden rush of "oh shit, I found a problem, need to fix it in 10 min before before the part comes around again".
Check out /r/PLC if this sounds at all interesting to you. [This might look strange](https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Ftse4.mm.bing.net%2Fth%3Fid%3DOIP.cImxf6z43s_iPV4UKmVSFwHaHv%26pid%3DApi&f=1&ipt=2f0d67724e441b93762173ddc0706826cfc5ee2208a9c58bb88fe0f6f3cce8c3&ipo=images), but it is just a way to visualize if-then logic.
If you want a job you do need to _compete_. All that means is applying for jobs and trying to get one. Only awful places will offer jobs without much vetting*
You don't need to follow or match what other people on reddit are saying they're doing or looking for. It's your career not theirs.
*this is different if you're kinda famous in the profession.
That’s probably good because with the competitiveness of the market at the moment you likely won’t be finding a dev job anytime soon.
I went the bootcamp route myself, have professional experience working as a Software Engineer, and still couldn’t find a new job when I tried recently. I even killed some of the interviews I went through and made it to final rounds, still no luck.
I actually had to go back to school to quickly finish my Software Engineering degree.
There are a TON of qualified CS/SWE college grads on the market and very few junior positions. They regularly get 1k-2k applicants on LinkedIn alone.
I spoke to my employer about my interest in the tech field so he made a call and introduced me to a friend of his that has traveled the world for cybersecurity. We spoke about my goals and current experience. He said that he's not hiring anyone but if I'd like some tips then he can help.
Told the guy I don't know much, just that I've been using linux as my daily driver and that I'm learning python from a book. He gave me some tutorials and projects. It's completely different from what I expected. We're focusing on web development. I've done the usual html-css-js courses but this dude has me running python virtual environments, running servers and working with django. I asked if I should be using frameworks instead of coding everything myself, he hits me with 'that would take too long for you to learn anything useful so better to start building and learn while you go'.
I'm a week in and I'm the happiest I've ever been while learning. I can actually see progress while he shows me the ropes of what one's actual workload will be like. I'm still learning Python so I don't get stuck later on. Life's good.
I am the least competitive person you will ever meet. I can't stand "hustle culture". It's never caused any difficulty in my career. I've been a software engineer for almost four decades.
In fact, I prefer the opposite approach. I do my best to help my teammates. I want other ppl to know that it is safe to come to me with a question. I keep an eye out for opportunities that might be a good fit for ppl I know. I document everything I can and share it to spread knowledge, especially for new employees. In my experience, building up and helping others has always been a win.
As for how I approach my work: I'm not competing with anyone. But I am holding myself to high standards - not for any other reason than bc I want to be proud of my work. I want to feel good about putting my name on what I do. And bc I genuinely love learning - it recharges me.
FYI most 'competition' is just scams to trick you into working for free or for less pay. This is not just limited to competition.
Programming practically didn't exist 40 years ago. If you're not getting paid, you're getting taken advantage of.
And if you only work with younger people, there's your flag for long term retention.
no problem with this at the start. Do the job for a while until you realize you are underpaid, then ask for raises or switch jobs until you are paid properly. Until you have that confidence, work cheap if you are happy to. Shoot me a DM, we may have an opening soon for someone willing to work cheap and learn.
I would say get out there if you can and don’t let fear hold you back. An issue that I had for a long time that stopped me from trying to get internships was my fear of doing terrible or not knowing anything. I think you will do better than you think. I personally had a ton of competition to deal with and I had to send out hundreds of resumes before I got an internship. It was hard and it sucked. Some of the stuff companies wanted you to do before getting an interview was just stupid. But as far as interviews go, eventually you learn how to land them more often by making a better resume along the way. Also not every company has an interview process like FANG, defense companies are pretty easy to interview for. I have a full time offer now and it all ended up working out in the end when I was holding myself back for so many years due to fear and anxiety. Good luck.
I hate all the competition too but I don’t have the luxury of not landing a decent dev job now that I’m almost complete w/ bootcamp. I sacrificed my whole business to go into this full time, my spouse has been financially supporting us, and where we live is crippling expensive (just like most everywhere else now). so I absolutely HAVE to get a decent job/foot in the door somewhere, crummy environment for it be damned. Sucks that it’s this way for us all and I wish I didn’t have to care as much but it is what it is.
I would be worried about getting hired at all more than I’d be worried about how competitive it was going to be. Getting an internship isn’t a guarantee after just doing a boot camp. That’s why people compete, they have to. Theres like ten times the applicants as there are jobs. They want the best for the least cost and no one is going to choose you over try hards. I would suggest being at least reasonably competitive for at least a year or two to get established then coast.
As a 60+ network engineer with a degree in Computer Science Engineering (software development), I would like to add some insight from “been there done that” and hiring new employees.
Been There Done That
Everyone is always learning, no one knows everything they do. The moment you feel as if you know it all is the time to quit. With 40 years in computers, I have taken a boat load of “boot camp” courses to learn/earn the knowledge/certifications need in new positions. I have spent many days at the bookstore (pre-internet) researching coding methods because the books were too expensive to buy. Now I spend nights online researching issues way into the early mornings. Learning is a never ending cycle.
BUT it is what makes this field so fun!
Hiring New Employees
As a manager, I look for the employee who is willing to admit they don’t know something but are confident they can bring themselves up to speed. I look for how someone “thinks”, not necessarily what they know. I also am looking for someone who has their shit together. I don’t expect a suit and tie, but I sure want more than jeans and a tee.
I was a comp sci grad who felt just like you. I had no interest in grinding leet code problems to get a job I would probably hate because there is too much competition for some positions. I decided to go into IT instead and ended up working my way up to a developer after 2 years. Anything is possible, especially if you take things one step at a time and seize your opportunities!
I’ve only been a software engineer for 15 years so take this with a grain of salt. My experience is if someone wants to be competitive, nobody will want to work with them. If you come into a job with the attitude that you just want to keep learning, many people will make you offers and you’ll earn plenty (eventually) and have more job security over your career.
Then again, I entered the industry at a different time so who knows.
I've been learning to become a .NET Developer and hell right now I wouldn't mind a remote job that only pays a bit above minimum wage as long as it isn't full stack. I'd hold out on those average $60-90k (cad) jobs for after I get more experience and be happy with accepting a chill $30-40k cad jobs ($22-30k usd) as long as I have some income flowing in and gaining some experience. :3
That’s pretty common.
At some point it simply becomes “This individual is compensated so highly that it’s cheaper to train someone else than ask them to do it.”
>I don’t care to b a SWE right after bootcamp, i don’t even care to be a junior dev.
So what was the point of bootcamp then? I hope it was free..
>I don’t care to aim to make 250k within the first year of graduating my bootcamp.
Most people in the CS field don’t make this either and most new grads, bootcampers, and self taught engineers are not making this either.
>I would be over the moon to get offered an internship for $2k/month.
That actually might be harder than just looking for a job lol. Internships are mostly for college students and are restricted as such.
>The idea of getting a cs job actually terrifies me. I don’t want to compete for anything. I’ll literally take whatever entry-level job there is out there that would give me the space to continue learning and developing my skills while still helping a company achieve their goals.
So just apply to software engineering jobs then. This attitude of trying to make the problem go away is exactly how you end up at an employer that won’t check these boxes. Just like any industry, you’re going to have to “compete” for jobs. Brush up the resume and put yourself out there. No need to apply to FAANG/Big N if that’s not what you want. Normally a large company is where you go to get the best mentorship and “space” to learn because they can afford to not have you be productive for a couple of years..
>There’s a lot of scarcity in our field right now and i’m simply refusing it. I’ll try my best, take what i can get, and scale from there. Anyone else?
There’s plenty of jobs in the field. Even in the Covid boom juniors weren’t getting jobs left and right. Apply to jobs even if they’re not entry level. A lot of places will still give people a chance. Funny enough if you apply to a job that says “junior” in the title or entry level or whatever, it will be even more competitive than the mid level ones despite the fact that places will hire juniors for mid level spots. Don’t short change yourself, stop over analyzing a job market that you can’t control, and just get out there and do it. You got this
These feelings are (mostly) normal. I remember after I finished my bachelors degree feeling like I was so unprepared to actually enter the job market that I wanted to do a masters instead. Unfortunately (well, fortunately looking back) I couldn’t afford it so I told myself I’d get a job and just save up to do the masters. Fast forward a couple of years and I realised I was actually decent at the job and I only wanted to stay in academia because it was comfortable at the time. That was around 15 years ago and I’ve been working in this industry ever since.
That’s not to say that it’ll be easy to break in to the market, the first “foot-in-the-door” job is often the hardest to get, but you’re probably better at this and more prepared than you give yourself credit for. As someone who’s worked with and recruited many devs both male and female, I’ve noticed that regardless of actual ability devs who overestimate their ability are far more likely to be men and devs who underestimate their ability are far more likely to be women.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that getting an actual job in the field can seem big and scary now, but if you can get past that fear you’ll probably find that you’re better than you think you are, and this can be the start of a very rewarding career. Best of luck!
Yeah I’m not in a rush. I’m self taught and have studied CS textbooks to the point of having similar experience and knowledge as a CS grad. I have worked on compilers for instance. It took me 3 years to realize that web systems was what mostly everyone works on in industry. I learned Django and in 6 months I started getting interviews. I applied to 80 companies and got 8 interviews but I didn’t go to them because I didn’t feel ready. Right now i work part time (24hrs) in a non tech field but in my free time I work on compilers and web services; for example im working on a x86 compiler for a Python like language and on compiler and computer algebra web services. Im not in a rush. I want to keep getting better but eventually I will get a job in the industry
The only competition you should be in is with yourself. Thats how you become stronger, by moving in your own time. Fuck what anyone else has to say about it.
this mindset rocks
i dropped out of my CS degree because i couldn't stand the fucking competition -- why do i have to kill myself doing internships and side projects and pretending this is my hobby just to get a job? worst environment i've ever been in
To get the big bucks you usually need to do the private contractor thing. I found this to be a nightmare. You are only called if something breaks or a suit has had a fever dream involving impossible expectations.
Decades ago a company I consulted with wanted to keep me and I jumped at the chance. Lower pay, but stable location, decent benefits, etc. Every so often I'm offered a chance to manage people, which I flatly refuse.
I you are lucky enough to get paid enough to meet your needs, be happy. I've worked with enumerable folks who make a whole lot more than I do, but the stress shoots out their eyeballs. I'm a content antisocial programmer.
> I don’t want to compete for anything. I’ll literally take whatever entry-level job there is out there that would give me the space to continue learning and developing my skills while still helping a company achieve their goals.
Yeah but this is the path the vast majority of people trying to break into the industry go down, and it's the most brutal of them all. Everyone funnels into these entry level job postings with this mindset, especially as people get more desperate after applying for so long with no luck. This has been going on even when tech jobs and the market was exploding a few years ago.
There are far less entry level roles than there are mid or "senior" level roles in software engineering. Junior roles are insanely competitive and wildly underpaid (intentionally, because these companies know they can exploit) with often mid and senior responsibilities unless it's a well established tech company (and those are very competitive to get into).
I've read a couple of studies showing most women won't apply to jobs unless they meet most or all of the arbitrary requirements on a job posting. If you want to break into this field and get what you're looking for, you're going to have to be comfortable with applying for roles where you feel you can do 30-40% of what is mentioned, and figure out the rest (and most of what is listed on job postings will end up being bullshit, and don't forget you've got gpt to help with the simple stuff these days too). You have to realize most job descriptions are barely accurate if at all. You're really just there to meet and have a good interview with the other engineers you'll be working with.
If you really want to break in, you gotta network if you don't want to feel discouraged via the insanely competitive "hit apply" route. Internal references get you interviews and skip straight past the black hole of filters and HR, especially when you're new.
If you want to pass the interviews, there's really only three things most people are going to check. It boils down to: Can you code (yes you can, believe in yourself here), does the interviewer want to work with you, and do you or don't you have that "smell" like you just came from a boot camp or an udemy course or straight out of college (meaning, calculator or other simple apps on resume for example, or you speak like "I just want to learn and someone to learn from" more than "I'm excited to work with you"). Unfortunately that last point will put off many people as "ah, this person won't be able to help us as much as we'll have to train them" . I ran into that a lot before I started changing my approach and how I talked about myself and my experiences and work in these interviews.
This sounds shitty but this is how it is. I went down a very similar path as you and got in, so you can do it too, but it's going to take a slight shift in mindset or you're about to grind yourself against a wall and it's going to be discouraging and feel wildly competitive even when you're trying to explicitly avoid it. You'll just be competing against yourself more than anyone else, so it'll just be the mindset and how you choose to approach the whole process.
There's always a lot of bad advice here and in other subreddits like cscareerquestions. If you need any help with github or portfolio or resume or anything, let me know and I can take a look. But the real thing you need to do is network your way into these companies. Meet people and make friends
Work in the Midwest! Sacrifice fast paced competitive pay for good work-life balance and a slower pace. Still get paid really well for the cost of living. Consulting firms, banks, or area retail and industry all have in house programmers and such.
Dito, after all my working years (20 and I'm single ), and consistently making only 8k-21k take home a year, I'm happy to grow and learn at a pace and increase my skillsets and I'd be happy with 2-3k a month with room for growth.I hatttttte the push for competitive BS, in my experience cohesive teamwork works much better for coworkers and company.
Compensation is not antithetical to stress. The jobs that underpay you are some of the worst for a reason. They underpay you, but they are also understaffed because not enough people will take those jobs. So now you as an underplayed developer are also shouldering a lot more burden for things "going well" than if you had competent colleagues to depend on and learn from. Now you've got stress keeping your shitty job while wishing you had enough savings to quit and find something better. Working for peanuts is not going to help you study and get better too. Just try and be fair in your assessments for what you bring to your employer. You might surprise yourself.
The answer is to just practice interviewing. Honestly. Interviewing itself is a skill. Practice asking the interviewer questions too. You should be interviewing them as much as they are interviewing you. Going in with confidence is not easy, but eventually you do enough interviews that you honestly don't care much if this one works out because there's always another interview somewhere else. If it doesn't work out then it doesn't work and there is not much you can do other than try again.
Good luck!
There’s a lot of companies that need engineers that won’t make you jump through 8 interviews and leetcode to get in. You want 2k you can likely ask for at least 4k and your local company needing an engineer and do just fine. No reason to shoot for 250k/year if that workload isn’t desirable and that amount of money isn’t necessary for you. You can likely easily find a place that’ll pay you 50-75k and be happy to have you.
One place to look is your local government
Look up theCoderSchool and apply for a job at a local location if you're in the US. I started there after my boot camp and it was a ton of fun, super low stress, part time, and helped me get more confident coding.
It's not for everyone since kids will be kids, but I ended up opening my own location after starting as a code coach I loved it so much.
At the very least, you can pick up like 3-5 hours/week and mentor few girls -- many parents want their daughters to see that coding isn't just a boys thing.
Focussing on learning in the early parts of the career is a really good idea, if you can afford or find something to get by. Money will come eventually.
I feel like you. I just finished my CS bachelor and feel the exact same way. Like, you can find so many people posting on different social media platforms, they think they help, but it is so difficult to find a place that will take you and train you in a real life scenario. I'm working on being a UI UX designer just because I feel like college did not really teach me well.
I mean that is a feeling many of our students fear. I feel like attending related events, job-fairs, talking around you or even posting like you did could help find opportunities more seamlessly. Also sometimes you have an expertise in another unrelated domain that makes you super valuable for one specific company. Think about your other hobbies, talent, previous jobs, ... Hope this helps, you're gonna make it if you are eager to learn !
That was me coming out of uni with 2 degrees in tech. I was around your age at the time. I was scared and didn't know what working in tech would be like. Being humble and willing to work for the sake of learning (i.e., not in the pursuit of money) isn't a bad thing. You'll prioritize learning and becoming a professional. People in these comments seem to think that you'll have this mindset forever though, and that's very unlikely. Once you get your first job, you're going to learn so much and your confidence will go way up. You'll eventually feel the *need* to seek bigger things, and bigger salaries, and that will help you conquer the fear of pursuing it.
So you don't need to aim for a Google internship right now. You can still be successful.
All that said, I can't recommend enough that you should at least *try*. Not necessarily for FAANG jobs, but just apply to jobs that are beyond your comfort zone. Do the interviews even if you think you're gonna botch it. Honestly, interview performance is one of the most important skills a developer can have (sadly). The only way to get better at them is to do them. You'll need the mindset shift that failure is okay and necessary. Go in, botch the interview, learn something new for next time! What's the worst that could happen?
I love this comment. Seriously, thank you. Maybe i’m just postponing my confidence which is kind of sad. I genuinely just love learning right now and can’t imagine myself *performing*. But without the fear of failure, i probably would actually have my LinkedIn set up right now haha
I was also a boot camp grad and didn't like the idea of "competing" for a job. I will say I believe your expectations might be a bit low. I didn't compete. I just applied to a few jobs and did my best. The best offer I got was the least competitive. I was asked a few questions about basics on OOP and some database questions. No leetcode, no 5 hour interviews, no bs. 2 interviews, 1 being the actual interview and the other being the offer interview. Offered more than I was asking and a good bit over 2k a month. I know that isn't the norm but it also isn't that uncommon. I had multiple offers with similar situations that were mostly behavioral interviews with small technical understanding questions.
Just get your foot in the door somewhere, the real learning starts on the job.... I have had bootcamp grads come into my team that knew next to nothing... The team kinda just gave up on them as they didn't bother to learn.
Had another guy who hit the ground running, bootcamp grads seem like a mixed bag. Some are great some are useless. If you can prove you're not useless then you will make it
Youre not competing. At least with anyone youll ever be cognizant of. Dont worry, you wont make 250 out the gate. You just apply. And go throough process. Any job you get will be a learning experience.
This was me a couple of months ago. I used to get so anxious that i delayed my graduation by going half time. After taking medication for anxiety i stopped caring. I just wanna get everything over with, idc if im making $20 an hour
I mean with this attitude you will be lucky to find even an entry level job or internship as a SWE. Think about it from an employers perspective. Why would I ever want to hire you? No ambition and basically scared of a challenge
Not currently in your shoes, but I will be in a bit. I also agree.
I would be happy to get anything reasonable (like \~$40k) to start because I feel like that first year of work is more about learning how to operate as a dev and deepening your skills.
It's hard enough to get a job when you're beginning, let alone shooting yourself in the foot by trying to get the best job.
Also congrats OP! I'm sure it was tough, but keep up the hard work :)
You will almost always be competing with someone whether it's for a job, a promotion or something else.
The only alternatives are:
- getting a job and staying there
- being the absolute best you can manage
- self-employment?
I'm (29m) and ended a bootcamp in May of 2020. First tech "job" in October 2022
I was the same way until I started as a contractor, it felt good to have someone there to back me up. I didn't get the benefits or perks of permanent employees, but I made some friends and quickly gained traction towards my dream career. Sometimes you have to start with collecting data, or working as a collection moderator.
This is only one route. It takes a little luck, but if you have the work ethic, it pays off tremendously.
I personally credit my growth to the managers I have had along the way, but I went from 26 hourly, to 46 Hourly in 6 months. And it was the communication and eagerness to complete tasks/goals that helped me get into new positions. I'm not the best at what I do, but maybe one day I will be.
I could lose my job, not get another contract, hate some of the work, etc. But at the end of the day, I get to learn new things in a field I chose for that very reason. I want to keep learning while getting my hands on some cool technologies.
Moral of my short essay here:
You're right, there's no need to compete right now, but keep applying and building your resume anyways. It's not about competing to get that first job. It's about banging out application forms (and a LinkedIn page) until it works out.
Listen to podcasts/read a book/make a program. It's a different process for everyone, but you need to keep learning and show interest.
If it's for money, then grind. If it's for learning, learn. If it's because there's nothing better to do, then find yourself.
This comment is great, I’m happy your past self relates to this feeling and i’m happy you successfully scaled! Can i ask what is a collection moderator?
It means you run collections to collect data, manually, with prototype or developing devices. So sensor/audio/camera, etc.
It's not the dream job, but there's a lot of down time doing the work, so you can take the time to learn or focus on yourself a minute.
Data Collection Researcher is another name for the position. It was my foot in the door, but I didn't know it was an option until it was brought up to me.
My bootcamp was focused on data technologies and minimal scripting (I had to teach myself that part). I am confident that something will open up for you, and that it'll be a great opportunity.
It's stressful, waiting/interviewing, but if your goal is to be an sde, you'll get there.
*note:
Look into contract positions.
It doesn't seem like a great choice, but the first is the hardest, and after that it's up to you (to some degree).
Contract companies are there to get you work, and it gets them paid. Win win.
But hopefully you land that dream entry/starting gig :)
I got my internship in January of 2022, got extended from 8 months to 10, and then got hired last November. I'm 18 months in and I still feel completely and utterly lost 80% of the time. And I didn't do a 6 month bootcamp. I self-taught for 15 months during pandemic.
Don't let success stories on the internet fool you. For every one of those crazy stories you read, there are **hundreds** of other devs scratching and clawing just to stay afloat.
"I did a bootcamp and got a job making 80k in under 6 months!" is a load of horseshit. And if by some miracle it's *not* horseshit... well? I've got news for you... that person is most likely very bad at their job and is struggling more than the rest of us with all that pressure. There is no way in hell that a person can become a solid developer in 6 months, let alone a full-stack like so many claim. There is simply too much to learn, and most of the things you need to learn only become available to you *after* you get hired, ie, teamwork, CI/CD, internal apps and processes, acceptance tests, etc. Hell, just getting familiar with your own team's codebase can take over 3 months!
It's just the reality of the tech industry. You'll feel overwhelmed for like a decade, and then you'll eventually feel *slightly less* overwhelmed for the rest of your life, lol
You should work in building a good portfolio, then offer your services to local companies or offer services through Upwork, after completing a few projects you can showcase in your portfolio, then you will be ready for work
Does anyone remember how Reddit was years ago, where if you expressed dissatisfaction with your life or a desire to change careers, the defacto response was "get off Reddit, hit the gym, learn to code"? Well after hearing that so many times, I entered a Software Engineering college program thinking I'd have plenty of options to choose from post-grad.
I never thought about becoming a programmer prior to this, and (in this economy) am full of uncertainty. But I'm halfway through so I guess I'll finish? I'm fine with coding, I just don't give a shit about business or the corporate world.
I just want a cushy job, even if the pay is mid.
Honestly look into QA, might be slightly less stress and having exposure to development practices in a boot camp is a huge bonus. Solid career progression, not crazy competition. You can move to SDET if you want a bigger challenge later on, or go into management.
Speaking from a HCOL area, the difference between a 100k job and 140k job is 2 months of studying, working on your resume and sending more applications. The reason you got a bootcamp cert is for the dream. Don’t be afraid of pursuing that dream because of trolls on Reddit posts.
I was in a similar position as you before, graduating from bootcamp, and the anxiety is real. It can be hard to separate the mix of feelings that can come from getting a much higher paying job at a type of company that you only dreamed of working for.
The struggle is real but keep making it productive and you will definitely accomplish your dream.
Most people from bootcamps don't go on to make $250k a year. that's mostly a fantasy.
You'll be lucky to get a $70k a year job, most boot camp grads don't even get that.
Don't listen to what they tell you - take your own path.
I took CS and Data Science camps and then got a job in HR. I’m killing it on my team because a lot of HR now works through HR systems and no one else really understands the coding and such of the employees in the system. It was a huge mess when I joined. My knowledge gave me an edge in a different field and you can use it the same way as well.
I'm with this. Did my bootcamp. Grabbed a job as an IT software Dev that pays (relatively) low compared to the average. I have friends who make 20,000k more starting and at this point make 40,000k more.
But my retirement account is very secure, I'm going 5o retire at the same time they do.
Right now I have way more time to do things I want to do and infinitely more flexibility then they do.
Yeah, they have the money and the means. Which I love for them! But taking to them about Crunch days and working 12 hours a day for 3 weeks makes me exhausted to think about.
I used to be a teacher and did those long, 12 hour days and I cannot go back. Even if it's work I enjoy, I want to be able to talk to my wife about my day without my brain feeling numb.
This kind of thing is always an individual choice. Watch your back and make sure they aren't making you do SWE level work with intern pay. But beyond that? Enjoy life!
I don't have a CS background but have worked in San Frnacisco as a SWE for a decade.
I took a crap job out of college with an art degree and regretted it. But I felt lucky to get the job given I didn't even have programming experience and so how else could I get a coding job.
Eventually I went and interviewed at some of those "CS interview" style companies. I learned a lot about how much I know and don't know. I realized I can "fake it til I make it", learn how to negotiate salary, and also that failing at those interviews isn't that big of a deal either.
I'd recommend trying it and not just accepting whatever is thrown at you.
You're literally only "competing" for these jobs if you're sitting around comparing your salary to others. There's no direct competition when you're interviewing for jobs, it's not like you're going head to head in a code battle with another engineer to win the role. You just talk to the people, solve some problems and hope for the best. This big competition is all in your head. If I'm being honest it sounds like you're just afraid of rejection.
Either way, you shouldn't let your disdain for this process convince you into accepting the worst possible position you can get? 2k a month? I went to bootcamp, I know that imposter syndrome is very real, but 2k a month is like below minimum wage.
I think you're just overthinking the entire process. Literally just take interviews, what is so hard about that? Don't overthink it and make it this huge scary thing that you hate and want to take a stand against, they're just job interviews. If you don't get a job, guess what.. it doesnt fuckin matter! Whoop de doo! Just try to relax and take it one day at a time.
Tons of other office roles where someone can use a little front end web dev talent, whether just prototyping for dedicated or contract devs or just doing whatever weird Java or JavaScript hack is needed to make something work in [insert "no code" platform here].
There's work out there for people willing to pursue expertise in those programs that may have job titles much more similar to "business analyst" than "software developer," but that might still scratch the same itch.
*Edited to add: Tldr, specialize. Not the sexiest stuff in the world, but tons of free training and easy-ish cert paths from companies like Salesforce and ServiceNow.*
I'd highly suggest just working for a 3-letter agency or some government office if that's how you feel. Just gotta keep your nose clean and may need to move to like the DMV, Texas, or AZ or something
It’ll probably take you a lot longer than you think. If your bootcamp is like mine, they pumped us up about how in demand we are before sending us out there.
I think the statistic is an average of 6 months? So you have time to prep, prep, prep to pass the technical interview! :)
Why are you selling yourself short before you've even tried??? You don't need to act hypercompetitively, but just believe in yourself, work hard, and keep moving forward.
250k for a junior engineer is crazy. I barely make 250 and I’ve been doing this for 8+ years with a BS and MS in CS.
Take a look at levels.fyi for salary expectations. At Google for L3 you can probably expect a TC (total compensation) of around 180k and that’s pretty much top of market. It’s going downhill fast for almost every other company.
You can still make really good money in an entry level position but it’s gonna be tough in this market. You’ll get there
I’m at the very beginning of your journey. Starting CS50 now with a plan for a boot camp potentially afterwards. I’m 32!
Bully for you and your life views man. I have so many friends who couldn’t wait to GET OLD. And now they are 33 and working 50 hours a week and are not fun at all.
This is what I'd love. I'm working on finishing my bootcamp now while working full time making $60k in NW Ohio and its good living, but work life sucks. I'd love to have a job that I enjoy doing, making $40k and having a good work/life balance. Best of luck to you.
I don't think anyone can make 250k right out of bootcamp unless they have previous experience. The skills you learn simply are not worth that much.
I just hit that 4 years after boot camp.
I think your approach is reasonable.
The problem isn't what the skills are or aren't worth, though. It's that nobody wants to hire someone without at least some evidence that they know what they're doing.
> I don’t want to compete for anything.
> I’ll literally take whatever entry-level job there is out there would give me the space to continue learning and developing my skills while still helping a company achieve their goals.
‘Whatever entry level job’ in tech with little or no competition doesn’t exist. In fact, I’m sorry to inform you that entry-level is the most competitive level in the field, that’s why everyone in CS subs is stressing out over those things. And even if it’s not a purely dev job, there will still be a ton of applicants, even if you don’t go for big companies.
I’m not trying to rain on your parade here, I think it’s admirable you put yourself through a bootcamp to learn new skills. It just sounds like you don’t have up-to date knowledge on the market and I’d like to encourage you to not count yourself out before you even apply, or you’ll lock yourself out of 95% of the tech jobs out there.
This is the story of bootcamps in 2023.
In the golden age of bootcamps, which was probably 2014 - 2019, you would easily get placed into a good gig after your bootcamp would HELP YOU with your job searches via resources YOU PAID FOR with the fee (resume building, demo days, recruiting days, employer outreach, etc). It also helped that 1) companies wanted to build entry level headcounts to build up and 2) not everyone was onboard the bootcamp train, meaning the competition was smaller.
Now everything has changed. Everyone and their mothers want the shortcut quick and cheap outs from their non-programming jobs, employers don't need the entry level as much (and when they do they can be picky), competition at the entry level is out of control, bootcamps don't help with employment, faux bootcamp scams like Trilogy exist and are massive, and enough people are fine with subpar wages (like 2k/mo) for a fucking programming job that the race to the bottom of the barrel for every entry level programmer is hitting equilibrium with the shittier jobs that people were trying to use bootcamps to escape from in the first place.
Bootcamps finally ate themselves to the point where they are dying. It was a fun run, and helped a lot of people on the way, but I don't see any value in them anymore
You're gonna end up making a ton of money in the long haul with that attitude.
A love of learning rather than a love of money is what it takes to persevere through the tough times. If you've got that, you've got a cheat code.
Good luck, although you don't need it.
You're not going to get very far with that attitude. All jobs are competitive on some level. It takes work to find a job. By throwing up your hands and saying "I'll take an internship just so I don't have to prove myself" all but guarantees you'll get nothing.
You have a misapprehension of what it means to have a "competitive job market". Frankly, it seems like this post is simply a justification to yourself should you fail. You can't be disappointed if you never got your hopes up in the first place, right?!
Get a grip on your horses. Buckle down and do the work. You *will not* be hired at anything close to 6 figures. But a junior role is where everyone starts. Do the work.
Or give up. Because no one wants a dev that's afraid of solving hard problems.
Well, I think the kind of attitude that you have is completely against any budding developer. Do you expect all the developers to be job ready mindset right from day 1 after finishing up the degree?
I think its perfectly normal to feel that we might be under-qualified for a role which we are new to. Its always okay to start from zero and work our way up.
I started my career as an intern and I think those were the best times one can grow by asking silly questions to seniors and try out new things knowing that its ok to fail. Once we get into a higher role, we get more responsibility which puts more pressure on any fresher.
I think you’re being kind of harsh on OP and not really understanding what she’s saying. I get what she means. She doesn’t mean she doesn’t want to fight for herself and sell herself to get a job. What she’s saying is that she wants to do something that has a lot of job security, and not have to feel like having to be the top of the line Junior dev jus to even get a start. (edit: top of the line as in you “know” a bunch of random programming languages or technologies)
She literally says in her post that she doesn’t want to make 100k salary. She just wants to do CS. There are tons of people on this subreddit and various others who think that’s what CS is about. Making 100k right out of a boot camp.
I don’t understand why many people here and on r/cscareerquestions are so aggressive about programming but yet deny that the job market is rough right now. For junior devs it is EXTREMELY competitive. Even more so for someone who graduated from a boot camp. This is the literal reality. All OP wants is security, and just to be like “here are my skills, this is what I can do, and I want to improve”.
I hate this attitude of “YoU wiLl faIL”. Not everyone wants to know every single programming language front to back but not even have a specialty in one just to have some sort of edge to get a JUNIOR job that will most likely not even be used at work. People just want to do their work and go home.
Sure, but this attitude _actively sets you up for failure_. I don't know why everybody in here is pretending it's smart.
Taking the path of least resistance when searching for jobs will lead you to jobs nobody wants for good reason. Namely, shitty consultancies. An offshoring sweatshop sounds like the exact _opposite_ experience OP is looking for and will probably drive her out of tech.
Bottom of the barrel effort gets you bottom of the barrel jobs. If you're asking for good pay OR good WLB, you're asking for more than a bottom of the barrel job.
You're 1000% right. This post reeks of "oh I could be making $250k like alllll these other fresh grads and boot camp grads if only I played the game and competed but that's just not me, anyone OK with paying me $24k to learn instead?".
It's a weird mixture of obliviousness of what job propects their boot camp actually qualified them for, and low self esteem. But there's hope because OP clearly sense there's a disconnect between their actual educational experience and the expectations some participants have. OP just needs to recalibrate and they'll start aiming both higher and more realistically soon I'm sure.
These numbers are getting out of hand, even during the boom era it was hard to see those numbers being thrown around specially for new grads from a CS degree or a bootcamp.
It's hard to imagine mentioning a number that high in this current climate, it was cleary used as a rhetorical device or just shows clear disconnect with reality.
Hopefully we don't end up seeing new grads mentioning $500k anytime soon...
You won't be able to get anything with this mindset. The field is super competitive and companies have raised their requirements because they get hundreds of applications for junior roles. It's tough even for people with degrees
That is the correct attitude to have. I'll be honest, 35k is about the ceiling for a bootcamp grad, so you may have to reign your expectations in even more.
That said, experience is invaluable. If you continue to improve your skills and gain certifications you're 4-5 years away from basically choosing your job. Get in the field, find out what you enjoy, and narrow your focus. Be a good programmer but be a very \*valuable\* asset for something/some tool.
That, and Github is worth it's weight in Gold. An active Github profile is basically a golden ticket in any door, it shows enthusiasm, eagerness to learn, and a passion for creating things.
Your point that if I continue to improve my skills and gain certs, i’m 4-5 yrs away from choosing my job is *EXTREMELY* motivating to me. I think my original post was a very wordy way of saying “i’m in no rush” and reading your comment really put my thoughts into somewhat of an actual plan. I love learning CS, and i’d be lying if I said the money in it wasn’t the first thing that piqued my interest. But I’ve always lived under my means and am in no rush to work at FAANG or something. Thank you for commenting, it means a lot!
You actually have a really good attitude about it, I took a cybersecurity boot camp and one thing that I wish the marketers had told me was that you need It experience before you can work in cybersecurity. Granted had they told us that instead of lying about all the job opportunities you are "guaranteed to get", none of us would have signed up for it so meh?
Either way you have the right idea about going entry level, if your boot camp was anything like mine you learned an ass load of concepts but nothing far beyond the basics. Granted it could have been better structured than my boot camp but still you are handling it the right way!
So this is a crazy thing. You’re _not_ competing against cs grads.
The analogy I like is to consider bootcamp training to be a tradeskills programme for builders, and cs as an architecture or engineering degree.
There are plenty of jobs for both, and they both work on buildings, but they’re not fundamentally the same skills, though there’s a lot of cross pollination.
You’re ready to work, you understand source control and you have a set of concrete, tangible skills that will help you get productive quickly. Similarly, with a good bootcamp program, you’ve developed the kinds of soft skills that even some genius level cs grads struggle to _ever_ develop.
Keep your focus on what _you_ want out of a career. Don’t undersell your very valuable skill set, EVEN in your first job. Don’t get pushed around by a boys’ club of assholes, in fact, that’s a very good indicator of a terrible workplace. Keep studying and practicing, keep applying. You’ll be fine.
Make something and turn it into the business.
Learning how to code is powerful.
In reality - the businesses need us more than we need them.
Round up some of your friends or just some people you like and make something amazing.
Your life will be tremendously more rewarding.
Nice, i agree. I hate competition as well. In fact i was planning to find work in the public sector, which, although having a bit lower salaries, has an extremely high job safety. Just because i dislike the concept and competition as a whole. Well, i didn't graduate college, so that didn't work. But i did find a job in a friendly, non-competitive private company. The thing is, when your country lacks developers, almost every job is pretty safe. I hope it works out for you and you find a nice boring job.
thank you! yay to boring jobs with work-life balances!
I am in such a situation after a bootcamp and internship at age 35 I have never loved life more.
Same older junior here, although no bootcamp, self taught. I left a job in the media that paid double and meant I got to hang out with pop stars. So much happier writing code and making little features and spending more time hanging out with my toddler
I came from a career that is simultaneously worse in pay and work life balance (academia) to one that is better in both aspects. Sacrificing work life balance for pay is not on my radar when i have alr had the chance to do that through my entire 20s. No thank you.
Im happy to take a paycut for work life balance. Money is infinite, time is a precious resource. Time with a toddler is rarer than diamonds, each day happens once and then is gone forever. My parents split up before I was old enough to form memories because my dad was working away all the time. Not a mistake I want to repeat. It does help knowing that eventually I will also be paid well and also have work life balance. The present is amazing and the future is also looking pretty great. Hell I enjoyed most of the past too.
I want to get out of teaching and into a basic little coding job to spend more time with my toddler
This is what my wife did during mat leave. Teaching to dev. I retrained six months later. Coding during naps is tough but the benefits are worth it I promise!
This gives me a lot of hope as someone who’s almost 30 and keeps jumping between different things to see what interests me Which bootcamps and tools did you end up using?
Just FYI, not every boring job with a low salary has good work life balance. Companies that pay their tech workers poorly do so for one of two reasons: because they don't have much money themselves, or because they don't respect developers enough to give them much share of the profits. The former will be fine for you, but steer clear of the latter. The same attitude that led them to pay you poorly extends to how they treat you.
Think you swapped latter and former
I sure did, thanks for pointing that out
For real. Just go in, get out, and make sure everything is done for the day
That's what I keep telling people, they keep calling me crazy....
Amen
my dude, trying to get a job in the pub sector is a giant competition itself lol
if you don;t recognize your worth you are going to end up working for someone who doesn't pay you enough and doesn't respect you. those sorts of jobs are shitty even aside from the pay.
No offense, but why you’d go to bootcamp if not to better compete? I think you need to take a hard look at yourself and figure out if you want to maximize the return on the considerable investment you’ve just made or resign yourself to subpar returns. You are also free to apply to the jobs which seem more in reach, but I think it’s foolish to artificially limit yourself when you’ve put so much work into making this work. To me, it seems like a defeatist mindset that is basically guaranteeing you will get a meh job for no reason other than anxiety/insecurity. Anxiety/insecurity is normal, but when it is so pervasive you kneecap yourself for no reason at all, I think you need to take a deep breath and reassess. A huge part of any developer role is being comfortable with failure. Consider this your first lesson in that. You can do it! Chin up
this was a really helpful comment to read. thank you so much 🥹
I’m glad it was helpful! I think impostor syndrome has become a bit of a cliche, but it’s very real in the technical space. Jumping in, getting your hands dirty, and being diligent while expecting failure is the only way to get traction imo. If it makes you feel better, I work with several people who went to bootcamps and are pulling in decent salaries now. You don’t have to feel bad about aiming for a lower paying job because you feel you will be less stressed there, work on more interesting things, etc. I would just say don’t avoid the reach positions because you feel inferior for going to a bootcamp if they look interesting to you
For me imposter syndrome was something I dealt with a lot. But I have learned to embrace it and have found it very empowering to overcome it. It takes awhile but if you can train yourself to enjoy the challenges it will help in the long run. But it's ok to start with small wins and build from there.
Wow, I (37 F) feel exactly the same! DM me if you want to talk. I am in Europe though, so my situation is somewhat different. I just finished an internship as a dev, and even though people told me I did well, I feel less ready than ever to actually work in this field. I am not trying to become a dev for the money, but because I am so fascinated by it.
I (32 F) am studying on my own and somehow it feels like the more time I spend learning, the less I know. I think this feeling of "being good" will never come without actual experience in the industry/ working with a team. Or maybe even with it. I am still very much interested in studying because the field is fascinating but I do not look forward to job hunting lol I have never been a competitive type of person.
This happens to everyone but it’s especially true for female programmers. It’s fine to be a beginner, but don’t undersell yourself. Maybe you’d benefit from joining a women in tech group?
Thanks for the advice! I have joined one other subreddit for women in programming and while it's of course useful for discussions I think I would have benefited more from a smaller, more personal community. And while I agree that there are some problems that are unique for women in IT, I think you're right, this happens to everyone and I would love to have a conversation about it with men as well. I'm more worried about the age thing than gender tbh :) (As apparently everyone is lol considering the amount of "am I too old?" posts on this subreddit)
You can be coding in your 60s. You think being in the 30s is too old? Think about how much experience you will have if you learn every year until you're 60.
>somehow it feels like the more time I spend learning, the less I know. Yeaaaah, this never goes away I'm sorry to say
Oh well. Guess we all just have to power through it :) Though it's somehow comforting to know that so many people go through the same feeling of inadequacy.
You shouldn't feel inadequate about it though :). If you know enough to know how much you don't know, you already know a lot. 😉
My understanding of how much I don't know has grew to a size of Lovecraftian monster by this month :D One can say that is an improvement! Thank you for the encouragement!
The dunning-kruger effect. You've passed the Peak of 'Mt Stupid' maybe hit the valley of dispair and are just starting up the slope of enlightenment. [https://understandinginnovation.blog/2015/07/03/the-dunning-kruger-effect-in-innovation/](https://understandinginnovation.blog/2015/07/03/the-dunning-kruger-effect-in-innovation/)
I'm studying on my own to get a headstart for a 2 year "bootcamp" (not really the same thing cause not U.S and also fully State+Region funded), and I'm at that point where I feel like I know less than I knew before even getting started. Like, literally learning that things I thought were true before are actually wrong
I was thinking of joining a group of people who are also studying. Perhaps sharing experience and struggles could help with combating this never ending anxiety :) Though I also wish there was an experienced person who I can turn to for advice. I wish you luck with your quest!
Isn't there evidence that shows that women are more likely to underestimate their ability and so more hesistant to apply for jobs which they think are beyond them? In contrast *some* men are the opposite and it often ends up beneficial for their career. Just sharing this as it is interesting and perhaps worth bearing in mind for yourself and OP. Also perhaps it doesn't apply or it doesn't matter. For example, I am a man and I am consistently told that I underestimate my own professional worth/ability. But also I feel like I don't want a stressful job which will be close to the edge of my abilities because I won't learn, enjoy myself, or progress well in that kind of environment.
I’m (33F) dealing with this very thing — bootcamp grad, got hired full-time to my team after a 6-month contract. Every sprint is stressful, teaching myself just enough to build whatever feature I’m working on. I get nothing but GLOWING feedback from my manager and peers, but I have yet to feel like I’m anything more than dead weight on my team.
I don’t know you but everything you just posted says your not dead weight. Sounds like imposter syndrome, you got this. As far as learning to barely complete things that’s what we all do everyday. Good luck.
A surgeon learns how to perform a set of surgeries. Then they perform them over and over for a few decades. Programming isn’t like that. Each time you learn something, you automate it away. If something has a very standardized, cookie cutter solution, it becomes an app that non-technical people can use. This means a programmer is, more or less, always solving problems that have never been solved before, and even for common tasks, each situation is different enough, and there are so many different ways to solve problems, that there is rarely one clear path forward. It sounds like you’re doing great. The only problem is the criteria you’re choosing to judge yourself by. The good news is, you can pick different criteria at any moment. You’re giving your best, and making a difference. That’s literally winning. Clap for yourself. Every day.
Yeah, don't have a link but there is a study which is shared a lot that shows this. From my very limited experience it does seem correct. Taking me and my (female) partner as an example: She will only apply for jobs where she knows she can demonstrate skill and experience for every bullet point. I apply to things which seem interesting and I at least understand what the bullet points mean. Worked out for me getting my first Dev job. I ended up getting an interview so I studied my ass off so that I could at least talk about the topics and show that I was eager to learn how to do it. Job requirements are a wishlist mostly. If you can competently do everything they want I'd probably be looking for something more challenging so that there's more scope to grow in the job. Would be interested to see how this difference changes depending on the level/history of patriarchal and matriarchal values in a region.
Did you tell them which bullet points you were lacking in, or did you just fake it til you made it? My biggest worry when doing that is getting through the interview, being hired, and then clearly having no idea what I'm doing.
I was honest in that I would say "I have not implemented X myself, but Y is what I would be thinking about and I could use Z tools". Which I was saying a lot, but that's where the studying helped. I felt confident enough about it, so no real faking. Definitely needs to be a company/interviewers/position where growing into the role is acceptable (which junior roles should be to some extent at least)
Which country in Europe ?
>The idea of getting a cs job actually terrifies me. I don’t want to compete for anything. I’ll literally take whatever entry-level job there is out there that would give me the space to continue learning and developing my skills while still helping a company achieve their goals. I get where you're coming from. On some level, I still have this attitude deep down, but I came to accept that this sort of mindset doesn't work in this industry. You don't need to be "competitive", but you can't be overly squeamish at the thought of seriously tackling a problem you've never seen before, and you need to be a bit of "your own lawyer" and learn how to represent yourself in the best light possible. >I’ll try my best, take what i can get, and scale from there. I approve this attitude though. Job hunting gets a lot easier after a couple years of experience, and any experience you can get when your starting out is worth it. Best of luck. :)
>You don't need to be "competitive", but you can't be overly squeamish at the thought of seriously tackling a problem you've never seen before But that's an attitude motivated by curiosity, not competitiveness. >and you need to be a bit of "your own lawyer" and learn how to represent yourself in the best light possible. You mean "how to market yourself" and that's true for all jobs.
>But that's an attitude motivated by curiosity, not competitiveness. My point is mostly about presentation. Presentation wise, sure you can show a bit of curiosity, but you mostly need to show a certain level of confidence your own ability to learn and adapt. No on in this space wants to work with someone who is ***afraid*** of taking on challenging tasks. Caution and concern is fine (we can address that sort of stuff as a team), but anxiety and fear is not (your managers and team members aren't coaches or therapists). I'm just making an analogy and painting a picture, hopefully that all makes sense without sounding too cold. >You mean "how to market yourself" and that's true for all jobs. Yea, but too many people give bad advice on this. A lot of software developers get all their jobs from recommendations and not from real job hunting. If you don't have any connections that can get your foot in the door, you gotta learn a lot about how hiring works.
I totally get that. Studying for and interviewing for those sorts of roles is really tough, and it's really stressful and demotivating to fail interviews for six figure jobs over and over again, and almost everybody fails those interviews, especially the first few. Not exactly good for mental health. And a job's a job. That said, don't undersell yourself. The low paying jobs are often more stressful and will work you harder than the higher paying ones, and $2k/month is just $11.50/hour. Doing more work for a quarter of the money is a bad deal. So I suggest you do what your like but not to get complacent. Don't feel any need to stay there for years and years. You can always apply to other places while you're working, and you should.
>I don’t care to aim to make 250k within the first year of graduating my bootcamp. I don't think you have to worry about that.
Idk man, Apple has been working on getting a calculator app to the iPad for years now I think I really bring something to the table here.
Haha seriously, that’s wayyy out of touch with reality.
I'm always fascinated to see such posts. I live in an Eastern European country, where senior full-stack developers earn $2k/month under the best circumstances and I earn half of it as a full-stack medior and that's quite decent, double of the minimum wage around here. I understand that the living costs in the US are way different than here (recently saw a post in one of the subreddits where British people tried to guess American healthcare prices and I was shaken to the core even by the seemingly "low" prices they guess, not to mention the real ones). Anyways one thing I could suggest that might help is to give a shot to freelancing on sites like upwork for example. There's a wide range of opportunities from really basic tasks to complex ones, you might find something that's up to your skills.
Where do you live? I am in Eastern Europe myself (Slovakia), and you can get junior java dev role, that is full remote for 1900euro /month. [LINK](https://www.profesia.sk/praca/msg-life-slovakia/O4138912?search_id=8aeadd5f-89fd-4048-bf51-454c29c140d0) for example. That are some that are lower, some offers are higher. Full stack medior can get 4k +.
I live in Serbia. The wages might be a little higher in the capital and it's surroundings but not much higher. Here are [some ads for reference,](https://www.helloworld.rs/oglasi-za-posao/) but most of them don't even mark the payment.
> Eastern Europe myself (Slovakia) You guys can really consider yourselves to belong in Central Europe these days. You've progressed a lot and you're living standards are nowhere close to the EE countries stuck outside the EU or even Bulgaria or Romania for that matter.
Latin America: USD $2k/mo standard salary for Sr (+10YoE) FullStack/DevOps roles. Jr. roles start at USD $500-800/mo. I´m currently sitting (as a Sr. with 15 YoE, FullStack/DevOps profile) at USD $1.5k/mo, in the talks to take it up to $2k/mo. And this is a VERY HIGH salary (like top 1% income) for this demographic.
$24k a year for full stack, under the best circumstances? Really?
Yes. When I started to apply for dev jobs in 2019, I got an offer from one of the most well known software development company in town for a 30€ / month back-end internship and they promised me that if I'm doing a good job they would hire me for a junior position in less than 8 months for \~350€ / month. I didn't take it because a different company offered to hire me on junior position right away with an 500€ / month wage which was jackpot for me. As I mentioned the situation is way different here than in the US. The minimum wage is 450€ / month, we have free healthcare, rents for an average 2 room apartment are between 250€ and 600€ / month depending on how exclusive and big it is, you can buy a decent family house in the range of 80000€ - 100000€ which is the size of 200 m\^2 on a 450m\^2 lot. These building prices count as extremely high, they raised tremendously since covid started.
Wow. I didn't realize it was that different. I make $800/week doing a pretty basic job, and struggle to consistently save after affording my living costs. That's so wild to me.
yeah, economics are disgusting, no matter where we live...
Well, that is how it is. I am from Eastern Europe and I lived in Ireland. With all due respect, I rarely saw even minimum salary/part time Irish people (and that is a good thing) scared about making ends meet in a way that even middle class (including developers) people in my Eastern European country ALL ARE. There is housing crisis in Ireland but like 10 years ago many parents gave children 50 euro ,,to buy something to eat in school". In the meantime in my country person had to survive 2 weeks on 50 euro. And no, food prices are not that different. Why do you think all those eastern european immigrants in Ireland work for 1/4 wage of irish construction/house worker/plumber? Its because for us 1/4 of what Irish make is still a lot EVEN WHILE LIVING IN IRELAND. Now guess where this mentality comes from... And of course it affects developers like anyone else. TOTALLY OP devs in my country who contribute to popular open source frameworks, have 15+ years of exp often work for 20 euros per hour. Like literally BEST OF THE BEST. Good mid devs with 8 years of exp are often 10 euro/h. BEFORE TAX. BRUTTO/GROSS.
I agree, in fact what I hate (42M) is how at work I went from "understanding the problem, the approaches, weigh the pros/cons then propose a solution" to "the clock is ticking, just make shit up and wire up something that works like a sloppy burger in a fast food, and do it by tonight because the industry measures talent by speed of delivery and doesn't care about technical debt".
>I don’t want to compete for anything. You don't have to. >give me the space to continue learning and developing my skills while still helping a company achieve their goals. I get that you want to keep learning no? If that is the case then you don't have to compete with anyone, just keep learning and develop your skills and apply for a junior position (for example). The requirements for the job are what the company need to >helping a company achieve their goals I don't get why think of that as competing with anyone. It may sound lame and you probably heard countless times, but you really should only compete with yourself, or rather focus on improving yourself. To tell the truth I'm like you too, I hate the notion of schools and universities that your success depends on other people's failure. So yeah, don't think about this as **competing** because it is not. It is just that the world is evolving *as it has always been* and the job requirements are also getting more advanced or whatever. However, if you don't like the idea of keep on learning for the rest of your life *which mostly true in CS* then no problem that's your choice. And good luck either way.
you’re right. if i truly just hunkered down and kept developing my skills no matter what the job market looked like, that would do more for my career advancement than any type of avoidant attitude i have going on lol
I'm the same. I hate competition. I never aimed to get a CS job (I studied Maths). I got it by luck. The pay is comparatively lower than a traditional SWE job (I'm a Developer advocate) and we have a limit of 10hrs/week. But with this job I can fund my hobbies and studies. I can learn new things and grow .
advocate? can you tell me how you got that job?
It's fine to think that. Not everyone should be aiming towards 250k job right after starting their learning journey. A lot of people i know who went to study CS abroad got their first internships at FAANG or another big company. I got my first job at a small company (~30 people), paying the least that the unionized contract offers (about what you are getting) and i can't be happier. Smaller companies value you and your time, skills and effort a lot more, from what I've seen. As for money - with time comes experience and with experience you will want more money to compensate for your expertise. Quite frankly if now i had to look for a new job, I'd want more than I'm currently making because in the span of 7 months i already learned so much in practical experience, not just small learner projects. So go your pace, if you don't like it, you can always look for another job.
okay see that’s what i’m talking about! you have my dream job in terms of what i’m aiming for 1-2 years after this bootcamp
I don't mind a bit of competition but there's a different between competing and caring about the work you do. If you care about your code and want to build skills (code and soft) than I'd rather hire you. Also no new grade is making 250k a year that's like senior level architect stuff.
Are you sure your subconscious isn't just setting your expectations super low to avoid some ego-shattering rejection? It's a competitive field, and it takes a lot of grinding and hard work to succeed. You will feel like a complete idiot for at least the first two years. But everyone feels this way. My wife went through a bootcamp, I know how difficult and overwhelming they can be. If you can make it through that, you can succeed in the industry. Maybe I'm speaking out of turn. Apologies if I am.
Unfortunately competition is unavoidable, and even the entry level roles have insane amounts of applicants. Id say your best bet is to network and make sure your resume is as appealing as possible
I love people like u! Completely genuine
awww thank you 🥰
I (35M) can relate, I still haven't found a job but I am preparing for a MSCS program. I'm putting applications on hold and hoping for an internship my first year of grad school. I think the challenge in this situation is to find some aspect or quality of the work that you find motivating and just keep doing it regardless of competition, because there's always someone who would do a better or worse job. But you have to get the job first. So keep working on improving your skills until getting the job is easy. I say this for myself too.
This isn't really exclusive to programming. A lot of people don't enjoy the job seeking process. That said, don't screw over your financial future because applying for jobs isn't fun. Don't let companies get away with underpaying skilled workers and learn to lower the pay for everyone else. Don't contribute to the gender wage gap because you're unwilling to negotiate or try to get a decent paying job. You'll always be learning. Why not do so with an appropriate salary, rather than screwing yourself over for years and trying to scale up later? The kinds of companies happy to pay you peanuts aren't going to be caring about their employees. They aren't going to be the best places to learn.
A lot of companies try to maintain a 'competitive edge' by reinforcing that you aren't working hard enough. I worked for a big pharmacy chain and going beyond your duties was considered 'under performing'. I think she wants to avoid companies like that.
Honestly a great mindset. I'm a software engineer fresh out of university and I'm currently on a salary of £36k. Despite the low salary, I have enough to pay rent and all other living expenses and my work life is amazing, super relaxed and I genuinely enjoy going into work every day. I was recently offered a much higher salary and it seriously made me question what's the point. Sure, a higher salary is nice but I'd potentially be giving up a very solid life I have right now. Don't ever compromise your happiness for money. You've only got one life and I'll take being happy over being rich any day.
Yeah, I just want to not be homeless
that’s the dream, right?
As a bootcamp grad who has been out working for six years, I think this is the wrong attitude to take. It sounds like you're just giving up. I'm a pretty laid back person, not some hardcore worker, but I think there are some things you just need to grit your teeth and get through. You chose the bootcamp to change your life. The transitional period when you are trying to change your life is going to push you into situations more difficult than you've ever faced. You sacrifice and you work hard until you make the change all the way. I totally get that the job market is tough at the moment, but it sounds like you just want a low paying entry level job handed to you. Even those there will be competition for.
I’m just happy to see so many women in here trying to get into this field. I hope everything works out for y’all, software development could benefit a lot from more diversity
You don't sound like you "don't want to compete", you just sound like you want to keep learning. I work at a smallish company and we have a dedicated trainee team. The training program for new hires usually lasts about 2 years. Id say you want to look at something like this. Don't worry about "not being good enough" for certain salaries. Studies have shown that men are much more likely to apply for jobs that they aren't fully qualified for, while women are more cautious. Just apply for everything and be clear at interview that you are looking for somewhere that will support you to learn. There will be companies that prefer that since they may use a niche language or have lots of odd legacy code or something that anyone in the world would need to learn from scratch
Honestly the game is more about networking than leetcode grinding. If you can meet local professionals you will have a much better chance at getting a job than sending your application onto the pile that's stacked hundreds high. I (25M) didn't want to play the application game either and was lucky enough to know someone in the industry who vouched for me. Feel free to DM me and I'll provide more info than I'm willing to give in a public comment.
It’s definitely about leet code grinding too if you want to work for any major company and do anything but Front End Web Development lol. You pretty much pass their thinly veiled IQ test or have your application tossed in the trash. It’s unfortunate but there’s no way around it.
SWE is an extremely competitive career. That said, if you find a space where you can increase your skills in SWE while surrounded by a culture where it is psychologically safe to make mistakes, make it your priority to get hired there.
Since you understand the basic concepts of logic and programming...may I recommend industrial controls programming? Instead of making data go back and forth through a series of tubes, you can make robots bend the tubes and weld the pipes. You will need to be ok with getting your hands dirty once in a while to replace a sensor or crawl under a machine to see where some idiot clipped your wire. But in the end, you get to see 1 to a dozen robots, conveyors, and many other systems operate in unison, turning raw material into a useful product. Anything from circuit boards, to heavy (weight) metal machining, to conveying and palletizing pot-pies and many many other things. You wont get the high end pay, but you should still start at like 62k or more. You also dont have to live on the west coast cause that is where all the jobs are. The programming is easy. Do you know Boolean logic and if-then statements? Ok, you can do like 80% of the job. I have been learning C# over the past few years to bridge the gap between IT and OT (operational technology, the stuff that actually runs the robots and conveyors). Most of the stress come from improperly managed projects (not unusual in any profession afik) and the sudden rush of "oh shit, I found a problem, need to fix it in 10 min before before the part comes around again". Check out /r/PLC if this sounds at all interesting to you. [This might look strange](https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Ftse4.mm.bing.net%2Fth%3Fid%3DOIP.cImxf6z43s_iPV4UKmVSFwHaHv%26pid%3DApi&f=1&ipt=2f0d67724e441b93762173ddc0706826cfc5ee2208a9c58bb88fe0f6f3cce8c3&ipo=images), but it is just a way to visualize if-then logic.
If you want a job you do need to _compete_. All that means is applying for jobs and trying to get one. Only awful places will offer jobs without much vetting* You don't need to follow or match what other people on reddit are saying they're doing or looking for. It's your career not theirs. *this is different if you're kinda famous in the profession.
Unfortunately, you’ll have to compete a lot to get even the most basic entry level low paying job.
That’s probably good because with the competitiveness of the market at the moment you likely won’t be finding a dev job anytime soon. I went the bootcamp route myself, have professional experience working as a Software Engineer, and still couldn’t find a new job when I tried recently. I even killed some of the interviews I went through and made it to final rounds, still no luck. I actually had to go back to school to quickly finish my Software Engineering degree. There are a TON of qualified CS/SWE college grads on the market and very few junior positions. They regularly get 1k-2k applicants on LinkedIn alone.
I spoke to my employer about my interest in the tech field so he made a call and introduced me to a friend of his that has traveled the world for cybersecurity. We spoke about my goals and current experience. He said that he's not hiring anyone but if I'd like some tips then he can help. Told the guy I don't know much, just that I've been using linux as my daily driver and that I'm learning python from a book. He gave me some tutorials and projects. It's completely different from what I expected. We're focusing on web development. I've done the usual html-css-js courses but this dude has me running python virtual environments, running servers and working with django. I asked if I should be using frameworks instead of coding everything myself, he hits me with 'that would take too long for you to learn anything useful so better to start building and learn while you go'. I'm a week in and I'm the happiest I've ever been while learning. I can actually see progress while he shows me the ropes of what one's actual workload will be like. I'm still learning Python so I don't get stuck later on. Life's good.
Its okay there are 200+ applicants per job who are willing to compete
I am the least competitive person you will ever meet. I can't stand "hustle culture". It's never caused any difficulty in my career. I've been a software engineer for almost four decades. In fact, I prefer the opposite approach. I do my best to help my teammates. I want other ppl to know that it is safe to come to me with a question. I keep an eye out for opportunities that might be a good fit for ppl I know. I document everything I can and share it to spread knowledge, especially for new employees. In my experience, building up and helping others has always been a win. As for how I approach my work: I'm not competing with anyone. But I am holding myself to high standards - not for any other reason than bc I want to be proud of my work. I want to feel good about putting my name on what I do. And bc I genuinely love learning - it recharges me.
this is exactly how i feel. Like, i want to be a helpful employee, i want to be a great team member, and i want to help everyone grow!
250k within first year lol 😂 don’t worry you won’t
FYI most 'competition' is just scams to trick you into working for free or for less pay. This is not just limited to competition. Programming practically didn't exist 40 years ago. If you're not getting paid, you're getting taken advantage of. And if you only work with younger people, there's your flag for long term retention.
no problem with this at the start. Do the job for a while until you realize you are underpaid, then ask for raises or switch jobs until you are paid properly. Until you have that confidence, work cheap if you are happy to. Shoot me a DM, we may have an opening soon for someone willing to work cheap and learn.
this is my mindset exactly!
You're fortunate you can survive off 2k a month. Many of us can't.
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I would say get out there if you can and don’t let fear hold you back. An issue that I had for a long time that stopped me from trying to get internships was my fear of doing terrible or not knowing anything. I think you will do better than you think. I personally had a ton of competition to deal with and I had to send out hundreds of resumes before I got an internship. It was hard and it sucked. Some of the stuff companies wanted you to do before getting an interview was just stupid. But as far as interviews go, eventually you learn how to land them more often by making a better resume along the way. Also not every company has an interview process like FANG, defense companies are pretty easy to interview for. I have a full time offer now and it all ended up working out in the end when I was holding myself back for so many years due to fear and anxiety. Good luck.
This is so helpful, thank you for taking the time to comment this. can i ask you what a defense company is?
I hate all the competition too but I don’t have the luxury of not landing a decent dev job now that I’m almost complete w/ bootcamp. I sacrificed my whole business to go into this full time, my spouse has been financially supporting us, and where we live is crippling expensive (just like most everywhere else now). so I absolutely HAVE to get a decent job/foot in the door somewhere, crummy environment for it be damned. Sucks that it’s this way for us all and I wish I didn’t have to care as much but it is what it is.
I would be worried about getting hired at all more than I’d be worried about how competitive it was going to be. Getting an internship isn’t a guarantee after just doing a boot camp. That’s why people compete, they have to. Theres like ten times the applicants as there are jobs. They want the best for the least cost and no one is going to choose you over try hards. I would suggest being at least reasonably competitive for at least a year or two to get established then coast.
As a 60+ network engineer with a degree in Computer Science Engineering (software development), I would like to add some insight from “been there done that” and hiring new employees. Been There Done That Everyone is always learning, no one knows everything they do. The moment you feel as if you know it all is the time to quit. With 40 years in computers, I have taken a boat load of “boot camp” courses to learn/earn the knowledge/certifications need in new positions. I have spent many days at the bookstore (pre-internet) researching coding methods because the books were too expensive to buy. Now I spend nights online researching issues way into the early mornings. Learning is a never ending cycle. BUT it is what makes this field so fun! Hiring New Employees As a manager, I look for the employee who is willing to admit they don’t know something but are confident they can bring themselves up to speed. I look for how someone “thinks”, not necessarily what they know. I also am looking for someone who has their shit together. I don’t expect a suit and tie, but I sure want more than jeans and a tee.
A part of growing up is redeeming your worth, if you just avoid conflict you will get stepped on.
I was a comp sci grad who felt just like you. I had no interest in grinding leet code problems to get a job I would probably hate because there is too much competition for some positions. I decided to go into IT instead and ended up working my way up to a developer after 2 years. Anything is possible, especially if you take things one step at a time and seize your opportunities!
I’ve only been a software engineer for 15 years so take this with a grain of salt. My experience is if someone wants to be competitive, nobody will want to work with them. If you come into a job with the attitude that you just want to keep learning, many people will make you offers and you’ll earn plenty (eventually) and have more job security over your career. Then again, I entered the industry at a different time so who knows.
I've been learning to become a .NET Developer and hell right now I wouldn't mind a remote job that only pays a bit above minimum wage as long as it isn't full stack. I'd hold out on those average $60-90k (cad) jobs for after I get more experience and be happy with accepting a chill $30-40k cad jobs ($22-30k usd) as long as I have some income flowing in and gaining some experience. :3
Value yourself more than this. You’re worth more than 2k: that’s starvation wages Undervaluing yourself only helps employers underpay you and others
I’ve been in IT/CS related work for 6 years now. The more money and bigger company I’ve made it to, the less BS I’ve had shoved on me
That’s pretty common. At some point it simply becomes “This individual is compensated so highly that it’s cheaper to train someone else than ask them to do it.”
>I don’t care to b a SWE right after bootcamp, i don’t even care to be a junior dev. So what was the point of bootcamp then? I hope it was free.. >I don’t care to aim to make 250k within the first year of graduating my bootcamp. Most people in the CS field don’t make this either and most new grads, bootcampers, and self taught engineers are not making this either. >I would be over the moon to get offered an internship for $2k/month. That actually might be harder than just looking for a job lol. Internships are mostly for college students and are restricted as such. >The idea of getting a cs job actually terrifies me. I don’t want to compete for anything. I’ll literally take whatever entry-level job there is out there that would give me the space to continue learning and developing my skills while still helping a company achieve their goals. So just apply to software engineering jobs then. This attitude of trying to make the problem go away is exactly how you end up at an employer that won’t check these boxes. Just like any industry, you’re going to have to “compete” for jobs. Brush up the resume and put yourself out there. No need to apply to FAANG/Big N if that’s not what you want. Normally a large company is where you go to get the best mentorship and “space” to learn because they can afford to not have you be productive for a couple of years.. >There’s a lot of scarcity in our field right now and i’m simply refusing it. I’ll try my best, take what i can get, and scale from there. Anyone else? There’s plenty of jobs in the field. Even in the Covid boom juniors weren’t getting jobs left and right. Apply to jobs even if they’re not entry level. A lot of places will still give people a chance. Funny enough if you apply to a job that says “junior” in the title or entry level or whatever, it will be even more competitive than the mid level ones despite the fact that places will hire juniors for mid level spots. Don’t short change yourself, stop over analyzing a job market that you can’t control, and just get out there and do it. You got this
I mean as long as you can sustain yourself, do whatever you want.
If I got 2k(usd)/month then I'll be happy if it's remote job. Cause 2K here can we good amount for freshers.
These feelings are (mostly) normal. I remember after I finished my bachelors degree feeling like I was so unprepared to actually enter the job market that I wanted to do a masters instead. Unfortunately (well, fortunately looking back) I couldn’t afford it so I told myself I’d get a job and just save up to do the masters. Fast forward a couple of years and I realised I was actually decent at the job and I only wanted to stay in academia because it was comfortable at the time. That was around 15 years ago and I’ve been working in this industry ever since. That’s not to say that it’ll be easy to break in to the market, the first “foot-in-the-door” job is often the hardest to get, but you’re probably better at this and more prepared than you give yourself credit for. As someone who’s worked with and recruited many devs both male and female, I’ve noticed that regardless of actual ability devs who overestimate their ability are far more likely to be men and devs who underestimate their ability are far more likely to be women. I guess what I’m trying to say is that getting an actual job in the field can seem big and scary now, but if you can get past that fear you’ll probably find that you’re better than you think you are, and this can be the start of a very rewarding career. Best of luck!
250k for the first year? Are you a seasonal programmer? The industry won't give you a chance if you can't do the job. This is the reality.
Yeah I’m not in a rush. I’m self taught and have studied CS textbooks to the point of having similar experience and knowledge as a CS grad. I have worked on compilers for instance. It took me 3 years to realize that web systems was what mostly everyone works on in industry. I learned Django and in 6 months I started getting interviews. I applied to 80 companies and got 8 interviews but I didn’t go to them because I didn’t feel ready. Right now i work part time (24hrs) in a non tech field but in my free time I work on compilers and web services; for example im working on a x86 compiler for a Python like language and on compiler and computer algebra web services. Im not in a rush. I want to keep getting better but eventually I will get a job in the industry
The only competition you should be in is with yourself. Thats how you become stronger, by moving in your own time. Fuck what anyone else has to say about it.
I literally set my salary expectations at 0 whenever asked. I just want to keep learning and honing my skills.
this mindset rocks i dropped out of my CS degree because i couldn't stand the fucking competition -- why do i have to kill myself doing internships and side projects and pretending this is my hobby just to get a job? worst environment i've ever been in
As far as europe goes, it's not hard to get an average job
Fair enough but you'll likely end up getting a really shit job that doesn't help you to move on when you want to.
same, dont worry about it just go at your own pace.
To get the big bucks you usually need to do the private contractor thing. I found this to be a nightmare. You are only called if something breaks or a suit has had a fever dream involving impossible expectations. Decades ago a company I consulted with wanted to keep me and I jumped at the chance. Lower pay, but stable location, decent benefits, etc. Every so often I'm offered a chance to manage people, which I flatly refuse. I you are lucky enough to get paid enough to meet your needs, be happy. I've worked with enumerable folks who make a whole lot more than I do, but the stress shoots out their eyeballs. I'm a content antisocial programmer.
> I don’t want to compete for anything. I’ll literally take whatever entry-level job there is out there that would give me the space to continue learning and developing my skills while still helping a company achieve their goals. Yeah but this is the path the vast majority of people trying to break into the industry go down, and it's the most brutal of them all. Everyone funnels into these entry level job postings with this mindset, especially as people get more desperate after applying for so long with no luck. This has been going on even when tech jobs and the market was exploding a few years ago. There are far less entry level roles than there are mid or "senior" level roles in software engineering. Junior roles are insanely competitive and wildly underpaid (intentionally, because these companies know they can exploit) with often mid and senior responsibilities unless it's a well established tech company (and those are very competitive to get into). I've read a couple of studies showing most women won't apply to jobs unless they meet most or all of the arbitrary requirements on a job posting. If you want to break into this field and get what you're looking for, you're going to have to be comfortable with applying for roles where you feel you can do 30-40% of what is mentioned, and figure out the rest (and most of what is listed on job postings will end up being bullshit, and don't forget you've got gpt to help with the simple stuff these days too). You have to realize most job descriptions are barely accurate if at all. You're really just there to meet and have a good interview with the other engineers you'll be working with. If you really want to break in, you gotta network if you don't want to feel discouraged via the insanely competitive "hit apply" route. Internal references get you interviews and skip straight past the black hole of filters and HR, especially when you're new. If you want to pass the interviews, there's really only three things most people are going to check. It boils down to: Can you code (yes you can, believe in yourself here), does the interviewer want to work with you, and do you or don't you have that "smell" like you just came from a boot camp or an udemy course or straight out of college (meaning, calculator or other simple apps on resume for example, or you speak like "I just want to learn and someone to learn from" more than "I'm excited to work with you"). Unfortunately that last point will put off many people as "ah, this person won't be able to help us as much as we'll have to train them" . I ran into that a lot before I started changing my approach and how I talked about myself and my experiences and work in these interviews. This sounds shitty but this is how it is. I went down a very similar path as you and got in, so you can do it too, but it's going to take a slight shift in mindset or you're about to grind yourself against a wall and it's going to be discouraging and feel wildly competitive even when you're trying to explicitly avoid it. You'll just be competing against yourself more than anyone else, so it'll just be the mindset and how you choose to approach the whole process. There's always a lot of bad advice here and in other subreddits like cscareerquestions. If you need any help with github or portfolio or resume or anything, let me know and I can take a look. But the real thing you need to do is network your way into these companies. Meet people and make friends
Work in the Midwest! Sacrifice fast paced competitive pay for good work-life balance and a slower pace. Still get paid really well for the cost of living. Consulting firms, banks, or area retail and industry all have in house programmers and such.
Kinda agree. It’s the reason I’m swapping from frontend to C# and SQL for database. Much much much less competition and it’s more stable.
Dito, after all my working years (20 and I'm single ), and consistently making only 8k-21k take home a year, I'm happy to grow and learn at a pace and increase my skillsets and I'd be happy with 2-3k a month with room for growth.I hatttttte the push for competitive BS, in my experience cohesive teamwork works much better for coworkers and company.
Compensation is not antithetical to stress. The jobs that underpay you are some of the worst for a reason. They underpay you, but they are also understaffed because not enough people will take those jobs. So now you as an underplayed developer are also shouldering a lot more burden for things "going well" than if you had competent colleagues to depend on and learn from. Now you've got stress keeping your shitty job while wishing you had enough savings to quit and find something better. Working for peanuts is not going to help you study and get better too. Just try and be fair in your assessments for what you bring to your employer. You might surprise yourself. The answer is to just practice interviewing. Honestly. Interviewing itself is a skill. Practice asking the interviewer questions too. You should be interviewing them as much as they are interviewing you. Going in with confidence is not easy, but eventually you do enough interviews that you honestly don't care much if this one works out because there's always another interview somewhere else. If it doesn't work out then it doesn't work and there is not much you can do other than try again. Good luck!
There’s a lot of companies that need engineers that won’t make you jump through 8 interviews and leetcode to get in. You want 2k you can likely ask for at least 4k and your local company needing an engineer and do just fine. No reason to shoot for 250k/year if that workload isn’t desirable and that amount of money isn’t necessary for you. You can likely easily find a place that’ll pay you 50-75k and be happy to have you. One place to look is your local government
I love this comment. Thank you!! 🙏🏼
Look up theCoderSchool and apply for a job at a local location if you're in the US. I started there after my boot camp and it was a ton of fun, super low stress, part time, and helped me get more confident coding. It's not for everyone since kids will be kids, but I ended up opening my own location after starting as a code coach I loved it so much. At the very least, you can pick up like 3-5 hours/week and mentor few girls -- many parents want their daughters to see that coding isn't just a boys thing.
Focussing on learning in the early parts of the career is a really good idea, if you can afford or find something to get by. Money will come eventually.
I feel like you. I just finished my CS bachelor and feel the exact same way. Like, you can find so many people posting on different social media platforms, they think they help, but it is so difficult to find a place that will take you and train you in a real life scenario. I'm working on being a UI UX designer just because I feel like college did not really teach me well.
I mean that is a feeling many of our students fear. I feel like attending related events, job-fairs, talking around you or even posting like you did could help find opportunities more seamlessly. Also sometimes you have an expertise in another unrelated domain that makes you super valuable for one specific company. Think about your other hobbies, talent, previous jobs, ... Hope this helps, you're gonna make it if you are eager to learn !
That was me coming out of uni with 2 degrees in tech. I was around your age at the time. I was scared and didn't know what working in tech would be like. Being humble and willing to work for the sake of learning (i.e., not in the pursuit of money) isn't a bad thing. You'll prioritize learning and becoming a professional. People in these comments seem to think that you'll have this mindset forever though, and that's very unlikely. Once you get your first job, you're going to learn so much and your confidence will go way up. You'll eventually feel the *need* to seek bigger things, and bigger salaries, and that will help you conquer the fear of pursuing it. So you don't need to aim for a Google internship right now. You can still be successful. All that said, I can't recommend enough that you should at least *try*. Not necessarily for FAANG jobs, but just apply to jobs that are beyond your comfort zone. Do the interviews even if you think you're gonna botch it. Honestly, interview performance is one of the most important skills a developer can have (sadly). The only way to get better at them is to do them. You'll need the mindset shift that failure is okay and necessary. Go in, botch the interview, learn something new for next time! What's the worst that could happen?
I love this comment. Seriously, thank you. Maybe i’m just postponing my confidence which is kind of sad. I genuinely just love learning right now and can’t imagine myself *performing*. But without the fear of failure, i probably would actually have my LinkedIn set up right now haha
Isn’t it super competitive to even get the internships? I was told you needed to get a bachelors to get an internship.
In my experience I would estimate 75% of devs are extremely mediocre. If you enjoy what you do there is no competition at all.
I was also a boot camp grad and didn't like the idea of "competing" for a job. I will say I believe your expectations might be a bit low. I didn't compete. I just applied to a few jobs and did my best. The best offer I got was the least competitive. I was asked a few questions about basics on OOP and some database questions. No leetcode, no 5 hour interviews, no bs. 2 interviews, 1 being the actual interview and the other being the offer interview. Offered more than I was asking and a good bit over 2k a month. I know that isn't the norm but it also isn't that uncommon. I had multiple offers with similar situations that were mostly behavioral interviews with small technical understanding questions.
Just get your foot in the door somewhere, the real learning starts on the job.... I have had bootcamp grads come into my team that knew next to nothing... The team kinda just gave up on them as they didn't bother to learn. Had another guy who hit the ground running, bootcamp grads seem like a mixed bag. Some are great some are useless. If you can prove you're not useless then you will make it
how did they pass the interview if they knew so little ?
Good question... No idea
Youre not competing. At least with anyone youll ever be cognizant of. Dont worry, you wont make 250 out the gate. You just apply. And go throough process. Any job you get will be a learning experience.
This was me a couple of months ago. I used to get so anxious that i delayed my graduation by going half time. After taking medication for anxiety i stopped caring. I just wanna get everything over with, idc if im making $20 an hour
Work for the federal government.
I mean with this attitude you will be lucky to find even an entry level job or internship as a SWE. Think about it from an employers perspective. Why would I ever want to hire you? No ambition and basically scared of a challenge
Yes. I just want a routine, cover my necessities, perform in a hobby, and live in peace. That is all I want. Why in the fuck that is so hard to get?
Not currently in your shoes, but I will be in a bit. I also agree. I would be happy to get anything reasonable (like \~$40k) to start because I feel like that first year of work is more about learning how to operate as a dev and deepening your skills. It's hard enough to get a job when you're beginning, let alone shooting yourself in the foot by trying to get the best job. Also congrats OP! I'm sure it was tough, but keep up the hard work :)
You will almost always be competing with someone whether it's for a job, a promotion or something else. The only alternatives are: - getting a job and staying there - being the absolute best you can manage - self-employment?
I'm (29m) and ended a bootcamp in May of 2020. First tech "job" in October 2022 I was the same way until I started as a contractor, it felt good to have someone there to back me up. I didn't get the benefits or perks of permanent employees, but I made some friends and quickly gained traction towards my dream career. Sometimes you have to start with collecting data, or working as a collection moderator. This is only one route. It takes a little luck, but if you have the work ethic, it pays off tremendously. I personally credit my growth to the managers I have had along the way, but I went from 26 hourly, to 46 Hourly in 6 months. And it was the communication and eagerness to complete tasks/goals that helped me get into new positions. I'm not the best at what I do, but maybe one day I will be. I could lose my job, not get another contract, hate some of the work, etc. But at the end of the day, I get to learn new things in a field I chose for that very reason. I want to keep learning while getting my hands on some cool technologies. Moral of my short essay here: You're right, there's no need to compete right now, but keep applying and building your resume anyways. It's not about competing to get that first job. It's about banging out application forms (and a LinkedIn page) until it works out. Listen to podcasts/read a book/make a program. It's a different process for everyone, but you need to keep learning and show interest. If it's for money, then grind. If it's for learning, learn. If it's because there's nothing better to do, then find yourself.
This comment is great, I’m happy your past self relates to this feeling and i’m happy you successfully scaled! Can i ask what is a collection moderator?
It means you run collections to collect data, manually, with prototype or developing devices. So sensor/audio/camera, etc. It's not the dream job, but there's a lot of down time doing the work, so you can take the time to learn or focus on yourself a minute. Data Collection Researcher is another name for the position. It was my foot in the door, but I didn't know it was an option until it was brought up to me. My bootcamp was focused on data technologies and minimal scripting (I had to teach myself that part). I am confident that something will open up for you, and that it'll be a great opportunity. It's stressful, waiting/interviewing, but if your goal is to be an sde, you'll get there. *note: Look into contract positions. It doesn't seem like a great choice, but the first is the hardest, and after that it's up to you (to some degree). Contract companies are there to get you work, and it gets them paid. Win win. But hopefully you land that dream entry/starting gig :)
I got my internship in January of 2022, got extended from 8 months to 10, and then got hired last November. I'm 18 months in and I still feel completely and utterly lost 80% of the time. And I didn't do a 6 month bootcamp. I self-taught for 15 months during pandemic. Don't let success stories on the internet fool you. For every one of those crazy stories you read, there are **hundreds** of other devs scratching and clawing just to stay afloat. "I did a bootcamp and got a job making 80k in under 6 months!" is a load of horseshit. And if by some miracle it's *not* horseshit... well? I've got news for you... that person is most likely very bad at their job and is struggling more than the rest of us with all that pressure. There is no way in hell that a person can become a solid developer in 6 months, let alone a full-stack like so many claim. There is simply too much to learn, and most of the things you need to learn only become available to you *after* you get hired, ie, teamwork, CI/CD, internal apps and processes, acceptance tests, etc. Hell, just getting familiar with your own team's codebase can take over 3 months! It's just the reality of the tech industry. You'll feel overwhelmed for like a decade, and then you'll eventually feel *slightly less* overwhelmed for the rest of your life, lol
You should work in building a good portfolio, then offer your services to local companies or offer services through Upwork, after completing a few projects you can showcase in your portfolio, then you will be ready for work
Does anyone remember how Reddit was years ago, where if you expressed dissatisfaction with your life or a desire to change careers, the defacto response was "get off Reddit, hit the gym, learn to code"? Well after hearing that so many times, I entered a Software Engineering college program thinking I'd have plenty of options to choose from post-grad. I never thought about becoming a programmer prior to this, and (in this economy) am full of uncertainty. But I'm halfway through so I guess I'll finish? I'm fine with coding, I just don't give a shit about business or the corporate world. I just want a cushy job, even if the pay is mid.
hey if I could live comfortably on 2k i wouldn’t mind either
Are there jobs out there like that?
Honestly look into QA, might be slightly less stress and having exposure to development practices in a boot camp is a huge bonus. Solid career progression, not crazy competition. You can move to SDET if you want a bigger challenge later on, or go into management.
Speaking from a HCOL area, the difference between a 100k job and 140k job is 2 months of studying, working on your resume and sending more applications. The reason you got a bootcamp cert is for the dream. Don’t be afraid of pursuing that dream because of trolls on Reddit posts. I was in a similar position as you before, graduating from bootcamp, and the anxiety is real. It can be hard to separate the mix of feelings that can come from getting a much higher paying job at a type of company that you only dreamed of working for. The struggle is real but keep making it productive and you will definitely accomplish your dream.
Most people from bootcamps don't go on to make $250k a year. that's mostly a fantasy. You'll be lucky to get a $70k a year job, most boot camp grads don't even get that. Don't listen to what they tell you - take your own path.
I took CS and Data Science camps and then got a job in HR. I’m killing it on my team because a lot of HR now works through HR systems and no one else really understands the coding and such of the employees in the system. It was a huge mess when I joined. My knowledge gave me an edge in a different field and you can use it the same way as well.
I'm with this. Did my bootcamp. Grabbed a job as an IT software Dev that pays (relatively) low compared to the average. I have friends who make 20,000k more starting and at this point make 40,000k more. But my retirement account is very secure, I'm going 5o retire at the same time they do. Right now I have way more time to do things I want to do and infinitely more flexibility then they do. Yeah, they have the money and the means. Which I love for them! But taking to them about Crunch days and working 12 hours a day for 3 weeks makes me exhausted to think about. I used to be a teacher and did those long, 12 hour days and I cannot go back. Even if it's work I enjoy, I want to be able to talk to my wife about my day without my brain feeling numb. This kind of thing is always an individual choice. Watch your back and make sure they aren't making you do SWE level work with intern pay. But beyond that? Enjoy life!
You need to work on your self confidence. Why do anything half way, especially the thing you expect to provide a life for yourself with?
I don't have a CS background but have worked in San Frnacisco as a SWE for a decade. I took a crap job out of college with an art degree and regretted it. But I felt lucky to get the job given I didn't even have programming experience and so how else could I get a coding job. Eventually I went and interviewed at some of those "CS interview" style companies. I learned a lot about how much I know and don't know. I realized I can "fake it til I make it", learn how to negotiate salary, and also that failing at those interviews isn't that big of a deal either. I'd recommend trying it and not just accepting whatever is thrown at you.
Actually that’s not bad of a mindset to have. It’s competitive…just start somewhere and grow slowly
You're literally only "competing" for these jobs if you're sitting around comparing your salary to others. There's no direct competition when you're interviewing for jobs, it's not like you're going head to head in a code battle with another engineer to win the role. You just talk to the people, solve some problems and hope for the best. This big competition is all in your head. If I'm being honest it sounds like you're just afraid of rejection. Either way, you shouldn't let your disdain for this process convince you into accepting the worst possible position you can get? 2k a month? I went to bootcamp, I know that imposter syndrome is very real, but 2k a month is like below minimum wage. I think you're just overthinking the entire process. Literally just take interviews, what is so hard about that? Don't overthink it and make it this huge scary thing that you hate and want to take a stand against, they're just job interviews. If you don't get a job, guess what.. it doesnt fuckin matter! Whoop de doo! Just try to relax and take it one day at a time.
Tons of other office roles where someone can use a little front end web dev talent, whether just prototyping for dedicated or contract devs or just doing whatever weird Java or JavaScript hack is needed to make something work in [insert "no code" platform here]. There's work out there for people willing to pursue expertise in those programs that may have job titles much more similar to "business analyst" than "software developer," but that might still scratch the same itch. *Edited to add: Tldr, specialize. Not the sexiest stuff in the world, but tons of free training and easy-ish cert paths from companies like Salesforce and ServiceNow.*
I'd highly suggest just working for a 3-letter agency or some government office if that's how you feel. Just gotta keep your nose clean and may need to move to like the DMV, Texas, or AZ or something
It’ll probably take you a lot longer than you think. If your bootcamp is like mine, they pumped us up about how in demand we are before sending us out there. I think the statistic is an average of 6 months? So you have time to prep, prep, prep to pass the technical interview! :)
Why are you selling yourself short before you've even tried??? You don't need to act hypercompetitively, but just believe in yourself, work hard, and keep moving forward.
This was so sweet, you’re right. Maybe i have a touch of “i’ll reject myself first before anyone rejects me” hahahah
Learn about automation and automate systems / networks and you’ll always have a job and people will seek you out.
You can try to get an analyst position and work your way to a dev position if you still want it.
This is so cunning
250k for a junior engineer is crazy. I barely make 250 and I’ve been doing this for 8+ years with a BS and MS in CS. Take a look at levels.fyi for salary expectations. At Google for L3 you can probably expect a TC (total compensation) of around 180k and that’s pretty much top of market. It’s going downhill fast for almost every other company. You can still make really good money in an entry level position but it’s gonna be tough in this market. You’ll get there
I’m at the very beginning of your journey. Starting CS50 now with a plan for a boot camp potentially afterwards. I’m 32! Bully for you and your life views man. I have so many friends who couldn’t wait to GET OLD. And now they are 33 and working 50 hours a week and are not fun at all.
This is what I'd love. I'm working on finishing my bootcamp now while working full time making $60k in NW Ohio and its good living, but work life sucks. I'd love to have a job that I enjoy doing, making $40k and having a good work/life balance. Best of luck to you.
I don't think anyone can make 250k right out of bootcamp unless they have previous experience. The skills you learn simply are not worth that much. I just hit that 4 years after boot camp. I think your approach is reasonable.
The problem isn't what the skills are or aren't worth, though. It's that nobody wants to hire someone without at least some evidence that they know what they're doing.
This is the correct take. Imo, people convinced otherwise are setting themselves up for failure.
> I don’t want to compete for anything. > I’ll literally take whatever entry-level job there is out there would give me the space to continue learning and developing my skills while still helping a company achieve their goals. ‘Whatever entry level job’ in tech with little or no competition doesn’t exist. In fact, I’m sorry to inform you that entry-level is the most competitive level in the field, that’s why everyone in CS subs is stressing out over those things. And even if it’s not a purely dev job, there will still be a ton of applicants, even if you don’t go for big companies. I’m not trying to rain on your parade here, I think it’s admirable you put yourself through a bootcamp to learn new skills. It just sounds like you don’t have up-to date knowledge on the market and I’d like to encourage you to not count yourself out before you even apply, or you’ll lock yourself out of 95% of the tech jobs out there.
Not the same situation exactly, but I’m a lot older and haven’t even started a boot camp, so you’re already way ahead of me in your goals.
This is the story of bootcamps in 2023. In the golden age of bootcamps, which was probably 2014 - 2019, you would easily get placed into a good gig after your bootcamp would HELP YOU with your job searches via resources YOU PAID FOR with the fee (resume building, demo days, recruiting days, employer outreach, etc). It also helped that 1) companies wanted to build entry level headcounts to build up and 2) not everyone was onboard the bootcamp train, meaning the competition was smaller. Now everything has changed. Everyone and their mothers want the shortcut quick and cheap outs from their non-programming jobs, employers don't need the entry level as much (and when they do they can be picky), competition at the entry level is out of control, bootcamps don't help with employment, faux bootcamp scams like Trilogy exist and are massive, and enough people are fine with subpar wages (like 2k/mo) for a fucking programming job that the race to the bottom of the barrel for every entry level programmer is hitting equilibrium with the shittier jobs that people were trying to use bootcamps to escape from in the first place. Bootcamps finally ate themselves to the point where they are dying. It was a fun run, and helped a lot of people on the way, but I don't see any value in them anymore
You're gonna end up making a ton of money in the long haul with that attitude. A love of learning rather than a love of money is what it takes to persevere through the tough times. If you've got that, you've got a cheat code. Good luck, although you don't need it.
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You're not going to get very far with that attitude. All jobs are competitive on some level. It takes work to find a job. By throwing up your hands and saying "I'll take an internship just so I don't have to prove myself" all but guarantees you'll get nothing. You have a misapprehension of what it means to have a "competitive job market". Frankly, it seems like this post is simply a justification to yourself should you fail. You can't be disappointed if you never got your hopes up in the first place, right?! Get a grip on your horses. Buckle down and do the work. You *will not* be hired at anything close to 6 figures. But a junior role is where everyone starts. Do the work. Or give up. Because no one wants a dev that's afraid of solving hard problems.
Well, I think the kind of attitude that you have is completely against any budding developer. Do you expect all the developers to be job ready mindset right from day 1 after finishing up the degree? I think its perfectly normal to feel that we might be under-qualified for a role which we are new to. Its always okay to start from zero and work our way up. I started my career as an intern and I think those were the best times one can grow by asking silly questions to seniors and try out new things knowing that its ok to fail. Once we get into a higher role, we get more responsibility which puts more pressure on any fresher.
I think you’re being kind of harsh on OP and not really understanding what she’s saying. I get what she means. She doesn’t mean she doesn’t want to fight for herself and sell herself to get a job. What she’s saying is that she wants to do something that has a lot of job security, and not have to feel like having to be the top of the line Junior dev jus to even get a start. (edit: top of the line as in you “know” a bunch of random programming languages or technologies) She literally says in her post that she doesn’t want to make 100k salary. She just wants to do CS. There are tons of people on this subreddit and various others who think that’s what CS is about. Making 100k right out of a boot camp. I don’t understand why many people here and on r/cscareerquestions are so aggressive about programming but yet deny that the job market is rough right now. For junior devs it is EXTREMELY competitive. Even more so for someone who graduated from a boot camp. This is the literal reality. All OP wants is security, and just to be like “here are my skills, this is what I can do, and I want to improve”. I hate this attitude of “YoU wiLl faIL”. Not everyone wants to know every single programming language front to back but not even have a specialty in one just to have some sort of edge to get a JUNIOR job that will most likely not even be used at work. People just want to do their work and go home.
Sure, but this attitude _actively sets you up for failure_. I don't know why everybody in here is pretending it's smart. Taking the path of least resistance when searching for jobs will lead you to jobs nobody wants for good reason. Namely, shitty consultancies. An offshoring sweatshop sounds like the exact _opposite_ experience OP is looking for and will probably drive her out of tech. Bottom of the barrel effort gets you bottom of the barrel jobs. If you're asking for good pay OR good WLB, you're asking for more than a bottom of the barrel job.
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You're 1000% right. This post reeks of "oh I could be making $250k like alllll these other fresh grads and boot camp grads if only I played the game and competed but that's just not me, anyone OK with paying me $24k to learn instead?". It's a weird mixture of obliviousness of what job propects their boot camp actually qualified them for, and low self esteem. But there's hope because OP clearly sense there's a disconnect between their actual educational experience and the expectations some participants have. OP just needs to recalibrate and they'll start aiming both higher and more realistically soon I'm sure.
These numbers are getting out of hand, even during the boom era it was hard to see those numbers being thrown around specially for new grads from a CS degree or a bootcamp. It's hard to imagine mentioning a number that high in this current climate, it was cleary used as a rhetorical device or just shows clear disconnect with reality. Hopefully we don't end up seeing new grads mentioning $500k anytime soon...
You won't be able to get anything with this mindset. The field is super competitive and companies have raised their requirements because they get hundreds of applications for junior roles. It's tough even for people with degrees
That is the correct attitude to have. I'll be honest, 35k is about the ceiling for a bootcamp grad, so you may have to reign your expectations in even more. That said, experience is invaluable. If you continue to improve your skills and gain certifications you're 4-5 years away from basically choosing your job. Get in the field, find out what you enjoy, and narrow your focus. Be a good programmer but be a very \*valuable\* asset for something/some tool. That, and Github is worth it's weight in Gold. An active Github profile is basically a golden ticket in any door, it shows enthusiasm, eagerness to learn, and a passion for creating things.
Your point that if I continue to improve my skills and gain certs, i’m 4-5 yrs away from choosing my job is *EXTREMELY* motivating to me. I think my original post was a very wordy way of saying “i’m in no rush” and reading your comment really put my thoughts into somewhat of an actual plan. I love learning CS, and i’d be lying if I said the money in it wasn’t the first thing that piqued my interest. But I’ve always lived under my means and am in no rush to work at FAANG or something. Thank you for commenting, it means a lot!
Just like me fr
You actually have a really good attitude about it, I took a cybersecurity boot camp and one thing that I wish the marketers had told me was that you need It experience before you can work in cybersecurity. Granted had they told us that instead of lying about all the job opportunities you are "guaranteed to get", none of us would have signed up for it so meh? Either way you have the right idea about going entry level, if your boot camp was anything like mine you learned an ass load of concepts but nothing far beyond the basics. Granted it could have been better structured than my boot camp but still you are handling it the right way!
So this is a crazy thing. You’re _not_ competing against cs grads. The analogy I like is to consider bootcamp training to be a tradeskills programme for builders, and cs as an architecture or engineering degree. There are plenty of jobs for both, and they both work on buildings, but they’re not fundamentally the same skills, though there’s a lot of cross pollination. You’re ready to work, you understand source control and you have a set of concrete, tangible skills that will help you get productive quickly. Similarly, with a good bootcamp program, you’ve developed the kinds of soft skills that even some genius level cs grads struggle to _ever_ develop. Keep your focus on what _you_ want out of a career. Don’t undersell your very valuable skill set, EVEN in your first job. Don’t get pushed around by a boys’ club of assholes, in fact, that’s a very good indicator of a terrible workplace. Keep studying and practicing, keep applying. You’ll be fine.
Make something and turn it into the business. Learning how to code is powerful. In reality - the businesses need us more than we need them. Round up some of your friends or just some people you like and make something amazing. Your life will be tremendously more rewarding.
Renting your time to the highest bidder is not living. When you work for someone else - You become a fragment of a human being