Zero s/w or web dev knowledge. Math background/left brain/logical minded individual.

Gave up online grinding after a 10 year run. Took some time off. Ready to begin a career as a web dev or s/w eng.

Recommend an online bootcamp, and if so which, or a traditional classroom bootcamp? I reside in the silicon valley, however a bootcamp in SF is not an option. CodingDojo is on located in or near San Jose--that would work.

Do you feel these bootcamps have a reasonable chance of yielding a job? Is the industry still in demand of web devs or s/w engineers? fwiw I interview well--tactful, hygienic, social, confident, not awkward lol, etc...

If you can't do app academy or hack reactor, may have better luck just going full online like the free Odin Project, or Viking school if you want to pay for it.

Go through as much of Odin as you can now. Should take at least several hundred hours and will give you a great head start and access to loads of free online resources to see if you can learn that way.

You should spend time with all the free sources out there before you do anything. That way you find out if you actually like programming, and youll need some skills before you can get into a decent boot camp anyway

That's half true imo, I agree that you should check some free resources to see if you will actually enjoy coding(anyway, the fundamentals aren't that fun at all). But I won't spend much time trying coding on my own since I believe that what you will progress in maybe a month studying by yourself you might absorb in 1 day in a bootcamp.

If you have the money +- 18k, I would suggest that you only think about Hack Reactor, that's the industry leader and differently from other online options, their Remote Beta(online program) program is very immersive. It will demand you some knowledge in order to be accepted in the program, but they offer 2 prep-courses that will prepare you for the admission process. One is for absolute beginner(can't remember the name) and the other "Fulcrum" is kind of part of their curriculum, so you have a great chance of being accepted if you put the time into their preparation content. Their curriculum is based on JS language.

Other online options are:
- Launch Academy - monthly payment, very good instructors and you go on your own pace.
- Thefirehose Project - monthly payment, I am not sure about their content, but seems ok.
- Flatiron School(Learn Verified) - monthly payment, and I am not sure about their numbers, but it's a well respected coding school.

All these 3 schools teach Ruby on Rails.

So my online preference is - HR & LA, the other 2 I can't really comment.

On-site:
Hack Reactor(JS)
Maker Square(JS) - Part of Hack Reactor Core
Flatiron(RoR)
App Academy(RoR)

P.S - Please consider IOS bootcamps too!

This is a laughably horrible statement. My apologies if its just hyperbole. But if you can "absorb" in 1 day at a bootcamp what you learn in a month of self study, you will never make it through any bootcamp, because you lack so many fundamental skills for success that I wouldn't even know where to begin.

lololol. This mentality is why I hate bootcamps. Bootcamps are always taking credit from people who actually are doing the work. The success of these students from bootcamps is because of the STUDENTS who know how to study and teach themselves. It's not because the bootcamp has some magic formula that was able to turn some bum into a superstar.

Hi guys,

My apologies if I sounded full of certain or that my point of view is the real truth, english isn't my 1st language and I struggle to express my thoughts.

Anyway, my point is that once you are learning by yourself imo it's really hard to filter what content you should focus at the moment and what you should maybe leave for later check or don't check at all. I also agree that once you have enough experience you not going to need a bootcamp because you can guide yourself and filter what to learn and what to skip.

And yes, it was exaggerated to say that what you learn in 1 day can be paired with what you will learn in one month. But please consider a beginner point of view, give him one month with no guidance at all and see what he will come up within in 1 month.

My apologies once again if my words sounded arrogant or offensive.

I am considering anything/everything at this point in addition to just CS jobs. Actuarial science was very appealing to me but I gather those jobs are highly competitive/difficult to obtain. I also believe the majority of them may be in the Northeast (not an option for me--I'm a California lifer).

I thought about going for a MS in Math and teaching at a CC, but I hear those gigs are crazy hard to get as well (in Cali).

Anyway, if anyone has any ideas/suggestions for a math minded, highly analytical individual with no work experience in 10+ years (been grinding at poker), but great people skills, I'm always happy to hear. I feel that poker has pigeon holed me in a sense and this I am not marketable as far as traditional day jobs are concerned. It's frustrating to see FB "friends" that have half a brain and yet have cozy jobs at Apple, LinkedIn, etc. I couldn't get those companies to look at me if I paid them to, yet somehow these extremely unimpressive, less than creative people I know got their collective foot in the door. Sour grapes, I know. I admit to feeling bitter. I also blame myself for riding poker for as long as I did. That was a mistake. The money wasn't worth it...

Networking has a lot to do with it. My dentist in the Midwest has a son who got on at Apple, and said I could be put in contact with him if I was interested in applying.

You never know where you'll find someone who is willing to help you out.

Of course talent plays a role, too. But there's tons of postings online about how to prep for Apple and Google interview questions these days.

Really I think you need to just pick a goal, probably after a little research into what the various jobs' day-to-day is like, and just focus on that thing. I feel like it's too easy to drift when you think there's lots of options. You end up dabbling in everything and learning nothing

I was you 4 years ago and am now a lead developer. Step one is decide what to do and specialize on it, I strongly recommend doing that over learning 5 different languages. Step two is to learn everything there is to know about it. The rest is easy.

Start the App Academy application process right now, assuming you can move to SF (or NY but SF is probably preferable). If nothing else, their application process will force you to learn the basics of Ruby and you can see how you like it.

Edit: Sorry, re-read OP. Not doable to maybe rent a cheap room in SF for 9 weeks to do AA or HR? There are shared rooms nearby for around $600/mo.

Best option if not might be Viking. I would not do Coding Dojo or other in-person ones down there, though granted I don't have any real evidence against their effectiveness. Just educated guessing.

I was also him 1 year ago (except I'd been working in a chain restaurant since Black Friday) and am now a dev at a big dot com.

Doesn't hack reactor or app academy have online cohorts?

Did you bootcamp?

Hack Reactor has online, I don't think App Academy does. I said Viking as first choice because last I checked they were doing the only-pay-when-you-get-a-job thing. They are similar to AA in that way and probably have a pretty similar curriculum to AA given what Odin has (Viking is the paid version of Odin).

I went to AA in SF.

Email me all your notes?

Where would you suggest looking for cheap housing for during a bootcamp?

sfhousingservices.com

Other than that you can literally search "bootcamp student housing" and probably find things.

For those who went through AA I assume your salary is around $100k? after state and federal taxes how much do you have left? Are you in a position to start earning significantly more down the road or are you kind of locked in that range?

Took like an hour and a half because I was abstracting the hell out of it, but I wrote a Ruby program to calculate California tax burden (with federal included, plus standard deduction)

For a single person in CA making ~100k, the tax burden would be about $21545, $6800 from state, federal is $14700 (assuming $6300 standard deduction if that's how standard deduction works)

Hah, thanks! There is also SF city tax perhaps? And does that include the 7.5% for Social Security? It seems like it should be a little higher.

Hard to give a solid answer because of other voluntary deductions and who knows what will happen on April 15 - might owe or get money back.

Average salary is a little higher than what previous poster said. If you're lucky there's a signing bonus too, plus equity or in my case actual stock since they're already public. So again, hard to give a good answer about post-tax salary etc. in this field.

Yeah, removing taxes only doesn't give you a good answer really. And that doesn't include any city taxes. Just state and federal

You're in the same position as any other out-of-school developer, so others can speak more to the max earning potential of developers. Like them, you'd move into management or whatever else developers do if they want to go above the high-end programmer salary.

What are people's thoughts on http://www.freecodecamp.com/map ?

Why Viking over Odin? Job placement? Better core curriculum?

You have been a wealth of information BJ. I thank you.

PS How did you like the restaurant biz?

In addition to being left brained, I am also a social animal and manager type (ENTJ). Do you suppose there would be any value in hanging around techie meetups and such, for purposes of forming a partnership with others? Because I have no tech skills atm l am not sure if my marketing/managerial qualities would benefit them, but then again that may be just what some of the more introverted types need???

There's extras that Viking has which Odin doesn't, just look them up. It doesn't hurt.