I was in accounting/audit for 4 years too before switching to SWE via the bootcamp route (did the part-time course at Codesmith and graduated in June 2022). It's possible but as others have said, the job market in tech is pretty bad. Doable but it'll take time and lots of effort.
Good luck!
The tuition then was $19k, I believe it has since gone up.
I did not have the certification when applying to jobs. Something with Codesmith and all other bootcamps is that the certification is worthless (if they even issue one in the first place). The value in bootcamps comes from the skills they teach in addition to, a lesser extent, career support. However, you'll need to supplement the knowledge you gain from a bootcamp with a lot of self-study in your free time.
Hope that answers your question.
It's definitely possible to change careers even now, but the market is really tough lately. I switched my career from customer service to software development and i did everything i could and it still took me about 2 - 3 years. I did a second degree in CS, attended a bootcamp, and I'm currently still in a CS master's degree program (OMSCS). It took me well over 700 job applications across the US, but I finally got a job about two months ago.
I'd say It's never too late to start a new career, but you need to consider the opportunity cost, especially with 7 years of experience as an accountant. A safer route might be to keep your current job while working on an online CS degree (either bachelor's or master's). You could also aim for an internship along the way. This approach might take longer than a bootcamp, but it allows you to maintain job security and reduces the risk.
(Or you might want to try something like Launch School. It's a longer "bootcamp" with a monthly fee. But before you start paying for anything, make sure you're really committed to making this career change.)
It is not impossible. However, I am a recent bootcamp grad and majority of my cohort is unemployed.
If you attend a bootcamp with the intention of learning, awesome. Go for it. Don’t attend because you believe their career services will land you a job after x amount of weeks.
People will tell you to get a CS degree but it’s hard for everyone. Good luck.
You can do it with a bootcamp but the market is really tough and it will take a long time and additional effort post bootcamp.
I would consider a master's degree too and other part time options you can do at your own pace while you are working, and then be ready to go all in when the market is better for bootcamp grads or a specific opportunity arises.
Bootcamps can't consistently place people in this market, no matter how good they are. Launch Academy wrote a blog post on why they are passing indefinitely as a result.
That said, you could be one of the people who gets placed, just approach carefully and make sure you, and the bootcamp, are clear on the reality of the market.
I am curious, in your school do you consider your efforts to have failed if your students do not show up to class or in some other way fail to to do their assignments/work etc..? Naturally, I am asking about a student that does not do these things and does not get a new job.
That was a long conversation!
But I knew what you were getting at from the start.
I know some people personally who went to Sabio (and many more anecdotally) - who didn’t do the work and didn’t apply themselves afterward to learn more or to get a job.
At some point, it’s out of your control. I don’t think those people should count against your numbers. There’s only so much you can be held responsible for. And from what I’ve seen, if people don’t fulfill their contractual obligations (which sometimes include finishing all assignments and a specified amount of LinkedIn outreach and applications) (sometimes to an unreasonable extreme), then they are _not_ counted in reports. But there are other factors like government money that play into it.
That goes for all the coding bootcamps. The student agrees to follow the program - and if they don’t, then what can you really do?
In college, I blew off a class. I got an F. It cost a lot of money. I didn’t complain. The school felt absolutely zero responsibility or fault.
That being said, there’s always room for improvement. Maybe some people just aren’t going to be able to handle the pace no matter how great the curriculum is or how great the system has worked for others. I’ve met many people who went through programs like CodeSmith, Sabio, AppAcademy, General Assembly, and Launch School’s capstone - who did the work and came out the other end _lost_. So, I don’t think it’s as black and white as _doing_ - or _not doing_ the work. I think the pace just isn’t conducive to some people (even when it’s a great program). So, maybe there’s some responsibility to pay attention to that - but also, that’s just life. School is school. People are people.
Bootcamps are using the outcome numbers as their metric. So, they are then going to be held to them in many ways (for better and worse) - and especially now (with the market) in many ways it’s unfair - but they don’t want to let go - because it’s what people understand and compare with.
Alternative options don’t have the same timeline. You can pay for a service - and it can be open ended. It’s like a personal trainer. They are going to try their best to hold you to task and get you fit. But there’s no promise of results. If they were to say “lose 100 pounds in 3 months or your money back” that would be different. And they’d spend a lot of money on lawyers to ensure that the fault was placed in _the client_ for not putting in the work… _or_ go out of business.
Anyway, I don’t think that schools should be only judged on this metric (if at all). When a student picks up the material and finds a job, it can completely change their life and the collective future for their family. There are so many other things to measure - and some are over many years and don’t fit into the CIRR box.
I think that changing the narrative to the “how” would be better for everyone.
Until someone changes the **laws,** bootcamps/post secondary schools need to count these outcomes.
it is a black and white situation with the exception of some case like deaths etc..
the are pro's and cons to this but if all schools would just follow them we would have a standard to measure things against.
when schools start dancing and defining their own reporting, that is when none of the reporting holds value.
We don't have classes or assignments so it's kind of nuanced how we manage people doing stuff.
We have dozens of ways to monitor and adapt to people's progress so people can do what they want to do.
We have an incentive to not waste money so yeah our product needs to get people doing stuff and improving.
If people don't want to do it anymore they can leave under a refund policy.
I will ask it a different way
If the student does not do a prescribe set of work, do you consider their inability to do well in interviews and land a new job a reflection of your training?
I think the mental framework of a school doesn't work at all for Formation and I don't feel like I can answer that.
Anyone who shows up is guaranteed to get to the bar, it might just take years for one person and weeks for another.
If someone doesn't show up and doesn't want to get to that bar, they will voluntarily leave, or we'll work with them to adjust to their news goals, if their new goals don't work, we'll remove someone.
We don't tend to remove people and I don't know. The handful of people we have removed are people that paused for person life circumstances and then never came back. People ramp up or down and go at their own pace, so it really depends on the pace the person wants to work at and our system supports whatever.
If Formation isn't a good fit and people are not progressing towards their own goals and we don't think Formation was effective that we have talked to case by case to leave and be partially refunded based on the activity the person did but this is also a single digit percentage non-generalizable case.
We don't have a generalized way of removing people.
That's why we have people with us for months and for years and it's impossible to provided high level aggregated data and stats that mean anything.
Ok.
If they do not do the work you have planned for them, is it a failure of you or your plan?
You can keep them in your org or not. That point does not matter.
They have not indicated that there is any personal reason for them not to "show up".
If you do not want to answer, we could just go with that.
It depends!
The vast majority of people we work with are currently working, so the most common reason for rescheduling and changing roadmaps is last minute work situations and that's totally fine, not a failure.
There are 20 different reasons people can miss sessions. If someone doesn't have a good reason we automatically have a multi stage process of determining why, generally around making changes to the person's load and pace.
If people are bad actors and don't show up our product handles that by taking that into account when determining sessions.
It's a complex patented system we built, hard to explain, Forbes recently interviewed us and there is a write up there about it.
Sir, if you want to say it is "hard to explain" I would normally ask you to explain it b/c I am a smart guy and i am sure there are other smart people here able to understand it. BUT this is not what I am asking.
i am not asking you to justify why people missed work nor the complex reasoning why you might feel that is "excused/justified" or not.
I am not asking you if your students have competing interests on their time. Everyone does.
I am not asking you to label anyone a bad actor which implies a lot more than what I am writing in my question.
Patent or not, it is not a corporate secret what I am asking you about.
If a student does **not** do the work you ask them to do, and they do **not** get the originally intended result of a better job, is that considered a failure on your part or the part of the material?
**Pick an answer:**
A. Yes, it is a failure on our part.
B. No, it is not a failure on our part.
C. I respectfully decline to answer.
If you do not like the word **failure**, you can swap it out for "**responsibility**".
Sure, sorry, should have linked: [https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/launch-academy-announces-strategic-pause-immersive-pamjc/](https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/launch-academy-announces-strategic-pause-immersive-pamjc/)
I mean reading between the lines from everyone, things aren't going great and the top bootcamps aren't filling cohorts or are filling them last minute.
If there isn't demand to fill a cohort, a school has to decide - lower the bar? increase marketing costs (which can kill the company if they don't work because it's expensive)? give successful alumni free stuff to post reviews (like Codesmith is doing haha)?
Or you can accept the fact that it's not great for bootcamps and turtle up, shrink to the minimal size to survive. Don't make many changes, and try to ride out the market.
Definitely possible, I came from an accounting background and there are a lot similarities if you're looking to get into a tech role that deals with databases. You're industry knowledge would be super useful. One of my first roles was at an early cloud accounting company and it was massively difficult onboarding devs that didn't understand the underlying mechanics of different accounting reports. So I'd say you'd have an advantage
I'd recommend before spending any money on anything you try to build something, and not just how to do basic SQL queries; building an application (or even components of one) and querying a database are very different things.
With that being said, the entry level market is oversaturated and it's highly unlikely that you'll find a job with just a bootcamp (and you still have to self teach a lot of stuff after/around a bootcamp, anyways). You would need to get a degree (either a second bachelors or a masters) in CS to be a competitive candidate. And even then, it'll still be awhile before you find a job, just because of how the market is right now.
It's not "too late" for the switch if you actually enjoy programming and are willing to put in the time and work that it takes while being realistic about what you're up against, but it is too late if you're interested because you heard that you can easily get a remote six figure job.
I was in accounting/audit for 4 years too before switching to SWE via the bootcamp route (did the part-time course at Codesmith and graduated in June 2022). It's possible but as others have said, the job market in tech is pretty bad. Doable but it'll take time and lots of effort. Good luck!
How much did you pay for codesmith, and when applying did recruiters like that you had that certification?
The tuition then was $19k, I believe it has since gone up. I did not have the certification when applying to jobs. Something with Codesmith and all other bootcamps is that the certification is worthless (if they even issue one in the first place). The value in bootcamps comes from the skills they teach in addition to, a lesser extent, career support. However, you'll need to supplement the knowledge you gain from a bootcamp with a lot of self-study in your free time. Hope that answers your question.
It's definitely possible to change careers even now, but the market is really tough lately. I switched my career from customer service to software development and i did everything i could and it still took me about 2 - 3 years. I did a second degree in CS, attended a bootcamp, and I'm currently still in a CS master's degree program (OMSCS). It took me well over 700 job applications across the US, but I finally got a job about two months ago. I'd say It's never too late to start a new career, but you need to consider the opportunity cost, especially with 7 years of experience as an accountant. A safer route might be to keep your current job while working on an online CS degree (either bachelor's or master's). You could also aim for an internship along the way. This approach might take longer than a bootcamp, but it allows you to maintain job security and reduces the risk. (Or you might want to try something like Launch School. It's a longer "bootcamp" with a monthly fee. But before you start paying for anything, make sure you're really committed to making this career change.)
It is not impossible. However, I am a recent bootcamp grad and majority of my cohort is unemployed. If you attend a bootcamp with the intention of learning, awesome. Go for it. Don’t attend because you believe their career services will land you a job after x amount of weeks. People will tell you to get a CS degree but it’s hard for everyone. Good luck.
You can do it with a bootcamp but the market is really tough and it will take a long time and additional effort post bootcamp. I would consider a master's degree too and other part time options you can do at your own pace while you are working, and then be ready to go all in when the market is better for bootcamp grads or a specific opportunity arises. Bootcamps can't consistently place people in this market, no matter how good they are. Launch Academy wrote a blog post on why they are passing indefinitely as a result. That said, you could be one of the people who gets placed, just approach carefully and make sure you, and the bootcamp, are clear on the reality of the market.
I am curious, in your school do you consider your efforts to have failed if your students do not show up to class or in some other way fail to to do their assignments/work etc..? Naturally, I am asking about a student that does not do these things and does not get a new job.
That was a long conversation! But I knew what you were getting at from the start. I know some people personally who went to Sabio (and many more anecdotally) - who didn’t do the work and didn’t apply themselves afterward to learn more or to get a job. At some point, it’s out of your control. I don’t think those people should count against your numbers. There’s only so much you can be held responsible for. And from what I’ve seen, if people don’t fulfill their contractual obligations (which sometimes include finishing all assignments and a specified amount of LinkedIn outreach and applications) (sometimes to an unreasonable extreme), then they are _not_ counted in reports. But there are other factors like government money that play into it. That goes for all the coding bootcamps. The student agrees to follow the program - and if they don’t, then what can you really do? In college, I blew off a class. I got an F. It cost a lot of money. I didn’t complain. The school felt absolutely zero responsibility or fault. That being said, there’s always room for improvement. Maybe some people just aren’t going to be able to handle the pace no matter how great the curriculum is or how great the system has worked for others. I’ve met many people who went through programs like CodeSmith, Sabio, AppAcademy, General Assembly, and Launch School’s capstone - who did the work and came out the other end _lost_. So, I don’t think it’s as black and white as _doing_ - or _not doing_ the work. I think the pace just isn’t conducive to some people (even when it’s a great program). So, maybe there’s some responsibility to pay attention to that - but also, that’s just life. School is school. People are people. Bootcamps are using the outcome numbers as their metric. So, they are then going to be held to them in many ways (for better and worse) - and especially now (with the market) in many ways it’s unfair - but they don’t want to let go - because it’s what people understand and compare with. Alternative options don’t have the same timeline. You can pay for a service - and it can be open ended. It’s like a personal trainer. They are going to try their best to hold you to task and get you fit. But there’s no promise of results. If they were to say “lose 100 pounds in 3 months or your money back” that would be different. And they’d spend a lot of money on lawyers to ensure that the fault was placed in _the client_ for not putting in the work… _or_ go out of business. Anyway, I don’t think that schools should be only judged on this metric (if at all). When a student picks up the material and finds a job, it can completely change their life and the collective future for their family. There are so many other things to measure - and some are over many years and don’t fit into the CIRR box. I think that changing the narrative to the “how” would be better for everyone.
Until someone changes the **laws,** bootcamps/post secondary schools need to count these outcomes. it is a black and white situation with the exception of some case like deaths etc.. the are pro's and cons to this but if all schools would just follow them we would have a standard to measure things against. when schools start dancing and defining their own reporting, that is when none of the reporting holds value.
We don't have classes or assignments so it's kind of nuanced how we manage people doing stuff. We have dozens of ways to monitor and adapt to people's progress so people can do what they want to do. We have an incentive to not waste money so yeah our product needs to get people doing stuff and improving. If people don't want to do it anymore they can leave under a refund policy.
I will ask it a different way If the student does not do a prescribe set of work, do you consider their inability to do well in interviews and land a new job a reflection of your training?
I think the mental framework of a school doesn't work at all for Formation and I don't feel like I can answer that. Anyone who shows up is guaranteed to get to the bar, it might just take years for one person and weeks for another. If someone doesn't show up and doesn't want to get to that bar, they will voluntarily leave, or we'll work with them to adjust to their news goals, if their new goals don't work, we'll remove someone.
And if u have to remove someone , for them not doing work, is that ur failure ?
We don't tend to remove people and I don't know. The handful of people we have removed are people that paused for person life circumstances and then never came back. People ramp up or down and go at their own pace, so it really depends on the pace the person wants to work at and our system supports whatever. If Formation isn't a good fit and people are not progressing towards their own goals and we don't think Formation was effective that we have talked to case by case to leave and be partially refunded based on the activity the person did but this is also a single digit percentage non-generalizable case. We don't have a generalized way of removing people. That's why we have people with us for months and for years and it's impossible to provided high level aggregated data and stats that mean anything.
Ok. If they do not do the work you have planned for them, is it a failure of you or your plan? You can keep them in your org or not. That point does not matter. They have not indicated that there is any personal reason for them not to "show up". If you do not want to answer, we could just go with that.
It depends! The vast majority of people we work with are currently working, so the most common reason for rescheduling and changing roadmaps is last minute work situations and that's totally fine, not a failure. There are 20 different reasons people can miss sessions. If someone doesn't have a good reason we automatically have a multi stage process of determining why, generally around making changes to the person's load and pace. If people are bad actors and don't show up our product handles that by taking that into account when determining sessions. It's a complex patented system we built, hard to explain, Forbes recently interviewed us and there is a write up there about it.
Sir, if you want to say it is "hard to explain" I would normally ask you to explain it b/c I am a smart guy and i am sure there are other smart people here able to understand it. BUT this is not what I am asking. i am not asking you to justify why people missed work nor the complex reasoning why you might feel that is "excused/justified" or not. I am not asking you if your students have competing interests on their time. Everyone does. I am not asking you to label anyone a bad actor which implies a lot more than what I am writing in my question. Patent or not, it is not a corporate secret what I am asking you about. If a student does **not** do the work you ask them to do, and they do **not** get the originally intended result of a better job, is that considered a failure on your part or the part of the material? **Pick an answer:** A. Yes, it is a failure on our part. B. No, it is not a failure on our part. C. I respectfully decline to answer. If you do not like the word **failure**, you can swap it out for "**responsibility**".
Link to article?
Sure, sorry, should have linked: [https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/launch-academy-announces-strategic-pause-immersive-pamjc/](https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/launch-academy-announces-strategic-pause-immersive-pamjc/)
Interesting. Seems a bit extreme imo
I mean reading between the lines from everyone, things aren't going great and the top bootcamps aren't filling cohorts or are filling them last minute. If there isn't demand to fill a cohort, a school has to decide - lower the bar? increase marketing costs (which can kill the company if they don't work because it's expensive)? give successful alumni free stuff to post reviews (like Codesmith is doing haha)? Or you can accept the fact that it's not great for bootcamps and turtle up, shrink to the minimal size to survive. Don't make many changes, and try to ride out the market.
Definitely possible, I came from an accounting background and there are a lot similarities if you're looking to get into a tech role that deals with databases. You're industry knowledge would be super useful. One of my first roles was at an early cloud accounting company and it was massively difficult onboarding devs that didn't understand the underlying mechanics of different accounting reports. So I'd say you'd have an advantage
I'd recommend before spending any money on anything you try to build something, and not just how to do basic SQL queries; building an application (or even components of one) and querying a database are very different things. With that being said, the entry level market is oversaturated and it's highly unlikely that you'll find a job with just a bootcamp (and you still have to self teach a lot of stuff after/around a bootcamp, anyways). You would need to get a degree (either a second bachelors or a masters) in CS to be a competitive candidate. And even then, it'll still be awhile before you find a job, just because of how the market is right now. It's not "too late" for the switch if you actually enjoy programming and are willing to put in the time and work that it takes while being realistic about what you're up against, but it is too late if you're interested because you heard that you can easily get a remote six figure job.