Breaking into SWE – Bootcamps or Competitions?

Question

I have had a lot of trouble breaking into software engineering with just a Github portfolio and an unrelated degree. Basically, my applications get no response from companies. I discussed my plans to join a bootcamp-style program with a friend who is a Google engineer. My friend told me that bootcamps are a waste of my time and money and that he believes that anyone can break into SWE with just a few weeks of trying.His suggestion was to join and score well on programming competitions (such as Google Kickstart), which he describes as a direct funnel to SWE jobs. I have not heard of this option before. I have never tried competitive programming, so I do not know how much effort it takes to win at them. My Google friend says that the effort is minimal and that these competitions have a low bar to score well.Are code competitions an option you found useful during your job search? Would you recommend this path?

gregjor · Accepted Answer

Expect to spend several years of deliberate practice to learn how to program professionally. You can&rsquo;t learn a complex skill in a few weeks or months. You can decide how you put that time in &mdash; 5,000 to 10,000 hours for most people. Some people do it at school, some teach themselves, some get the experience on the job (not so much these days, employers rarely want to invest in training). Coding competitions may help, a bootcamp may help, but ultimately you need to put in the time honing your skills. There&rsquo;s no shortcut or easy &ldquo;funnel&rdquo; into a job at Google.

cookiengineer · Answer

Note that most HR departments have an automated software that they use with keyword searches.
By that I mean a fancy CV might be really cool, but if you describe your project instead of focussing on the terminology of frameworks they expect, you won't land anywhere.
I'm sorry to tell you this, but HR doesn't understand tech relevant stuff which means they use keyword searches...and when they see a bunch of buzzwords they think this is the candidate for the team.
Even when it's obviously too much or the person has zero experience, this will get filtered out only in the next step when the dev teams get involved.
You gotta SEO your way in :)
When we talk about bootcamps: the disadvantage of bootcamps is the lack of experience that's necessary to understand the underlying technologies. Workers from there might be able to include react components but all hell breaks lose when they have to fix a flexbox related CSS property.

mettamage · Answer

If I knew, I'd tell you. I have a master in CS and no FAANG company invited me. FB invited me after a year worth of experience. So if anything, you've taught me something!
I do see people asking recommendations on Team Blind, but I've never tried that. I think programming competitions help for the data structures and algorithms part based on what I just saw.
In any case, thanks for the Google Kickstart tip. This seems like my jam. Feel free to email me so we can code together (email in profile).

willcipriano · Answer

Here's how I did it:Sysadmin job at low end company --> IT manager job at bigger company ---> Release manager job at software company ---> Software Engineer at the same software companyBasically one step at a time.