Bootcamp vs. self-taught: which actually works for landing a first dev job?

I was at a local tech meetup in Austin last week and heard two recruiters arguing about this. One said bootcamp grads get hired faster, the other said self-taught devs stick longer. Which route do you think actually works better for beginners trying to break in?

3 comments

3 Comments

jordan_hill11d ago

I heard two recruiters arguing about this" - yeah I actually disagree with both of them honestly. Bootcamp grads get hired faster because they have career coaching and interview prep built in, but that first job often doesn't stick because they lack deeper fundamentals. Self-taught people usually take longer to find that first role but they've already built the discipline to figure things out on their own, which matters more after year one. The real split isn't bootcamp vs self-taught, its who actually ships real projects and can talk through their code decisions during the interview.

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spencer_gonzalez111d ago

Yeah totally agree with you there. The real test is shipping stuff.

charles72010d ago

Three months ago I watched a bootcamp grad completely freeze during a whiteboard session because they couldn't explain why they used a for loop instead of forEach - that's exactly the kind of gap you're talking about @spencer_gonzalez1. The self-taught people I know who just built stuff and got on GitHub were miles ahead after year one.