<story><title>Ask HN: People who completed a bootcamp 3+ years ago: what are you doing now?</title><text>I feel like I have seen various waves of hype regarding programming bootcamps but the people who I have talked to about it are always people who are considering going or just graduated. Interested to hear from someone who&amp;#x27;s been out in the wild for at least a couple years.&lt;p&gt;What are you doing now? Do you feel that the bootcamp prepared you for the jobs you got? Do you think most of your cohort are still working as developers?</text></story><parent_chain><item><author>abeyer</author><text>You can&amp;#x27;t work at Starbucks and read HN?&lt;p&gt;Seriously, though, after some early career burnout I did a stint at a restaurant job to pay the bills while I decided what I wanted to do with my life...and that was by far my most productive period of time as far as keeping up on general tech news, personal projects, academic research&amp;#x2F;reading&amp;#x2F;conferences, etc...&lt;p&gt;A non-code day job can be a great way to have the mental energy to spend on non-job code. :)</text></item><item><author>mabbo</author><text>Note some selection bias may exist in the answers.&lt;p&gt;If you did a tech bootcamp three years ago and it went fantastically, you&amp;#x27;re probably reading HN today and will see and reply to this. The more success you had, the more likely you&amp;#x27;re a developer today!&lt;p&gt;If it went terribly, you might still be working at Starbucks and don&amp;#x27;t read HN very often.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>mabbo</author><text>&amp;gt; You can&amp;#x27;t work at Starbucks and read HN?&lt;p&gt;My point isn&amp;#x27;t that non-programmers can&amp;#x27;t or don&amp;#x27;t read HN. My point is that there are more programmers reading and posting on HN than Starbucks baristas. If you hated your boot camp, the odds of you reading HN is lower. Selection bias doesn&amp;#x27;t mean absolutes, it means probabilities.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; after some early career burnout I did a stint at a restaurant job to pay the bills while I decided what I wanted to do with my life&lt;p&gt;I really respect that. I think I&amp;#x27;d like to do the same, but the mortgage can&amp;#x27;t be paid on minimum wage.</text></comment>
<story><title>Ask HN: People who completed a bootcamp 3+ years ago: what are you doing now?</title><text>I feel like I have seen various waves of hype regarding programming bootcamps but the people who I have talked to about it are always people who are considering going or just graduated. Interested to hear from someone who&amp;#x27;s been out in the wild for at least a couple years.&lt;p&gt;What are you doing now? Do you feel that the bootcamp prepared you for the jobs you got? Do you think most of your cohort are still working as developers?</text></story><parent_chain><item><author>abeyer</author><text>You can&amp;#x27;t work at Starbucks and read HN?&lt;p&gt;Seriously, though, after some early career burnout I did a stint at a restaurant job to pay the bills while I decided what I wanted to do with my life...and that was by far my most productive period of time as far as keeping up on general tech news, personal projects, academic research&amp;#x2F;reading&amp;#x2F;conferences, etc...&lt;p&gt;A non-code day job can be a great way to have the mental energy to spend on non-job code. :)</text></item><item><author>mabbo</author><text>Note some selection bias may exist in the answers.&lt;p&gt;If you did a tech bootcamp three years ago and it went fantastically, you&amp;#x27;re probably reading HN today and will see and reply to this. The more success you had, the more likely you&amp;#x27;re a developer today!&lt;p&gt;If it went terribly, you might still be working at Starbucks and don&amp;#x27;t read HN very often.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>watwut</author><text>I think that OP point was not that there is something special about Starbucks. It was that people who were unsuccessful after bootcamp or had otherwise bad experience are less likely to read these forums.</text></comment>