you are also 4 years older and x dollars more in debt. i think there are many fish in the sea, if one employer demands a degree another may not. also, the places doing interesting things are probably less worried about that. also, what if, not unlike poker, you get bored of it in x years or it becomes less fun or less profitable - whatever. now you have spent 4 years and x dollars before that... i just think, i mean, Victor just got through a boot camp and got a job, I really don't see why anyone would want to get in debt and add wait four years before getting their feet wet because of paranoia about prospective employer preferences.

You guys might have to drop the four-year point, seeing as how I posted a school that you can get through in one. (Less than one in my case)
Also, penguin made it through Boot Camp and it doesn't appear he was able to secure employment in the San Francisco area, so that's another data point

The one year school is a by-mail degree that will not be equivalent in most employer eyes to a 4-year in-person degree, correct?

Since moving for you involves moving with another person who has to switch jobs it is a pretty huge deal and I understand the waffling. Did you look into Viking (Odin)?

No, it's from a four year school. It's their normal four year degree. Accelerated for people with a bachelor's already.

I've looked into Viking before (who's hiring TAs if anyone is interested). They require that you be willing to relocate to a major metropolitan area if needed. Which we might be moving to one of those soon, so that's not a terrible option. But also, doesn't give you the piece of paper some places care about.

if my job starts at 8am, I consider myself late if i'm there later than 7:45am. But that's just me and I hardly expect others to be that way.

I do, however, despise time clocks. Which is odd because you'd normally expect people who were not punctual to hate time clocks.

How old are you Noodle?

Like Noodle, I am not considering a 4-year program (the "degree" I'd be taking is a 2-year program), and I wouldn't be taking on any debt to fund it.

As for there being many employers to choose from: this is true, but it doesn't change the fact that it's going to be very difficult to get noticed in a sea of resumes if all you have going for you is a bootcamp certificate and an unrelated degree. As for Victor, I'm pretty sure he has an engineering degree. As discussed in the article/discussion posted by Barrin6, a bootcamp grad with a somewhat related background/education makes a far more compelling combination than someone with only a bootcamp certificate.

That said, your other points are valid. I guess what it comes down to (and this is very obvious) is that whether or not a bootcamp is a +EV option is going to be highly dependent on a number of variables.

One variable being whether it becomes more or less socially acceptable to just do a bootcamp. If they become the new trade schools of the mid nineties, sure, they'll be fine to attend for a while. But if you went to a trade school in the late nineties to early oughts, you might have found that your trade school attendance was worthless

mid thirties

When you're trying to get an entry-level position, you have to think in terms of archetypes - when looking through resumes, every hiring manager and recruiter thinks in terms of archetypes that work and how to find people who fit in. Your job then is to figure out how to fit into one of those and how to look better than others that fit the same archetype. Generally when people are looking for CS degrees for an entry-level position, they are not saying that you need to understand CS concepts at a high level, but more that they are more comfortable with that archetype than others. At your age and with your background, it's just unlikely that you fit into "recent CS graduate" archetype and beyond that you will find that not a lot of people care about CS degrees per se.

Once you have a few years of strong experience, you will find that lack of formal CS training is not much of a barrier in finding jobs. The places that do care a lot about things you learn in CS classes will tend to test that directly and/or want PhDs. Employers and recruiters that care about CS degrees you received many years ago are usually more concerned about the selectivity of the programs you attended than what you learned.

Yea candybar I considered a similar response. Bootcamp vs Bachelor's degree would be a serious debate for an 18-20 year old. For an older person changing careers, bootcamp/self teach are clearly ahead. Noodle should not tack 9-24 more months onto the time before he STARTS looking for a dev job.

Do you think this also applies to someone coming from a "career" that employers are likely to view as completely unrelated to programming (poker)?

Although what you and candybar say makes perfect sense, I still wonder if any amount of bootcamp/self-learning will be enough to make up for an otherwise lackluster resume. I guess this will be much less of an issue after landing that first job and getting some relevant experience.

Get education only if you're not capable of self learning. No one cares if you don't have an education section on your resume. Know your stuff and you'll do fine.

It also depends what Noodle is doing right now. If he's unemployed with nothing on his resume, it's going to be hard to self-learn and land that first job. Sometimes the education route is the best way to reinvent yourself.

If he has a stable job, he could take the safe route and self-teach while working full-time.

Got a paid internship offer, super last minute as my lease is expiring tomorrow and was ready to book a plane ticket back home as it happened.

grats?

Are you taking it?

Yup, super excited about it.

Cheers, grats then!

What sort of thing are you gonna be doing there?

Thanks!

Front end work with React for a healthcare startup. Will be working mainly with one other guy. Not entirely sure what it will all involve, but I am pumped and terrified at the same time. If all goes well they said they will convert it to full time after the 1.5 months are up.

Congrats! Was hoping to see a post like that from you at the last minute.

nice, congrats!

Killa! Did you at least manage to secure something approximately a 'normal' salary? I would imagine paid internships pay peanuts compared to regular employee salaries.

Even if not, forty-five days isn't too long to be making suboptimal wages

Definitely lower than a full time bay area salary, but still more than my previous help desk job even accounting for the cost of living difference. The lowest paying job in the bay area I applied to paid slightly more than this, but not by much.

I talked to them about how I was concerned it wasn't full time and they said they want to bring me on full time if all goes well. Basically they don't want to hire someone without experience before seeing if I can actually perform well.

Congrats penguinpoker, let us know how things go. It's very motivating to see others get their start in the industry.

So I had a call with a company today that wants me to come in for an onsite Tuesday. I would prefer a full time offer. At the same time I told the company that offered me the internship that I was thinking of moving back/under a time crunch and I really needed a decision by Thursday. I feel if I now ask for more time to think it over I come across as ungrateful/dishonest. What is my play here?

Take the job, start working, interview at other company. If their offer is better, go with them.

This is business, son. It ain't personal.