DonTheDeveloper Podcast
DonTheDeveloper Podcast
Did You Just Graduate From a Coding Bootcamp in 2025?
Just finished your coding bootcamp and wondering what the heck to do next? Maybe you're a bit worried about the job market for coding bootcamp grads. If so, this one is for you.
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Did you just graduate a coding bootcamp and now you're worried that you know the markets are off, you're not going to get a job. You've probably been hearing things. It's been increasing your anxiety. I'm going to share some advice with you and kind of a different perspective with you that I think will help alleviate some of those concerns. But the very first piece of advice I'm going to give is stay away from r slash coding bootcamp. Stay away from r slash coding bootcamp.
Don Hansen:It's just a black pilled community of a bunch of people saying like yep, shouldn't went to a coding bootcamp and no one should go to a coding bootcamp and if you did, you're screwed. I'm sorry, you got scammed. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It's just a bunch of really bad advice where the blind is just leading the blind. Or like sore CS grads that are not getting jobs. Or like coming into r slash coding boot camp shitting on coding boot camp grads or students. It's just, it's a mess. I I always have to take an opportunity to shit on toxic communities like that, but I'm being serious. Just stay away from that community. It is horrible and it's just going to discourage you. It's not really going to give you a lot of practical advice or there's going to be a lot of conflicting advice. So I know you think I'm joking. Trust me with this, but I'm just going to kind of rant about, like, because I've been helping people that have been coming out of coding boot camps trying to find jobs and you know, quite frankly, a lot of coding boot camp grads. They went through crappy programs. This is true a while back. This is even true in 2021, when developers were more easily hired. Like, there are a lot of bad coding bootcamps. There are a lot of bad coding bootcamps but it doesn't matter. It just doesn't matter. Coding bootcamps should have always just been kind of like a piece of your journey.
Don Hansen:Coding bootcamps are meant to give you some mentorship journey. Coding boot camps are meant to give you some mentorship. It's meant to give you a bit of a foundation to learning, to becoming a better student, to kind of give you some sort of an outline of what to learn and give you some insight into the industry so that you cover a bunch of topics. You don't really get a deep knowledge on a lot of these topics and when you graduate, you really deepen that knowledge and you build projects to reinforce everything that you're learning. That's the trick. When you come out of it, that is your opportunity to really build a ton of stuff to, or build a deep, complex capstone project to deepen that knowledge. Your goal is to deepen that knowledge.
Don Hansen:At that point, right, you are still like, if you have a project to showcase, you're still going to be applying to jobs every week, but majority of your time until you get that position is spent with project work. It's still too early on for you to let the foot off the gas with a ton of coding work. Spend a ton of time coding afterwards. Don't give yourself a long break after the program. I see so many people give up because they take two weeks, three weeks, four weeks and then they never really develop a schedule, a consistent pattern of growing as a software engineer and some people will just like latch on to lead code problems and that's all they do think and that's going to help them grow and that's going to help them get a job. It's a balance of things and I want to talk about that balance right now. So when you graduate, here's your schedule Majority of your time throughout your day or week. Sometimes you only have like an hour to two to spend because you have to go back to a part-time job or a full-time job or whatever. So look at this as a ratio, not how many hours you should spend on each thing, but majority of your time is spent on project work. You have to reinforce those skills and you've got to build like project work is just going to build you up as a software engineer.
Don Hansen:Once you're past the coding bootcamp, you've gone through the majority of your coursework phase and as you start diving into project work, you're going to realize there are things that you don't know, you're not familiar with, and you look up documentation, you look up very specific niche articles to learn. It's not heavy coursework at this point. Majority of your learning comes through project work and looking specific things up to be able to progress through your projects. Majority of your time is project work. Please spend that amount of time with project work. A lot of people skip this portion and they don't really grow and they don't really have anything to showcase, which is another thing that you want to consider.
Don Hansen:When you get out of a coding bootcamp, maybe the curriculum was so bad or rushed, or you were rushed through it too much, or you had bad mentorship, where you don't really remember much. That's where a variety of small projects to reinforce these foundational concepts or libraries or frameworks that you've learned come into play. You build a variety of projects to reinforce these foundations through different implementations, different contexts, and you spend a lot of time doing that. After the coding bootcamp, if you feel, like your knowledge is, you're a little bit better off with your foundations, with your knowledge, that's when you dive into a capstone project. A capstone project is an in-depth project that solves a problem that you want to get hired to solve. It solves a problem in a more simplistic way, maybe in the industry In which you are going to be applying To dev jobs in, maybe you want to build dev.
Don Hansen:You want to, like build applications that are focused on, like they're just common applications You're going to find in the fitness industry. Maybe it's going to be mobile apps. I don't know if, like, you're going for mobile development, maybe that's what you're coding boot camp was about. If you're going for websites, like in that industry, what are websites, um, in the fitness industry, going to look like? What kind of tools are out there? What kind of dashboards are out there? What kind of analytics tools are out there in the fitness industry? Study that and if you, for example, are really passionate about bodybuilding and fitness, like you know, apps that can be built that can help you out, that could probably help other people out, apps that would do things differently than apps that you currently have. You're like, if you have thoughts of like I wish this did this thing, I wish this had this feature. That's a new opportunity to build an application that is better than one of your favorite apps, that does things very differently and it's your own kind of unique flavor of how to solve this problem in the fitness industry.
Don Hansen:That's what you're aiming to do with a capstone project. You build a landing page around it, you launch it. You know, this is just an example of kind of like a mindset to have with that capstone project. You're building something real that you're going to use, that other people are going to use, and you share it with other people in that industry. You share it on subreddits, you share it in forums. You get feedback. You take that feedback and you continue building that capstone project up and up and up and up until it becomes very complex and you need.
Don Hansen:Now it's like oh, I gotta manage user authentication. A lot of people want to save data? Um, now we you know like what happens if there is a lot of data coming through this application. Um, does my application aggregate a bunch of data every single time someone loads the page, like I did with an old Twitch API app that I built that crashed Because it started out like it would take 30 seconds because it aggregated a bunch of data every single time someone loaded the page until it crashed and employers couldn't even load it. Every single time someone loaded the page until it crashed and employers could even load it. I made that mistake, but that's a good learning mistake to make, as I would flesh out an application that more people used when I was trying to still become a developer so you can do this as an aspiring developer but I kept building that up and up and up and put it out in front of people until the features got more complex and it became harder to manage and I had to build better conventions and build better organizational patterns and I really knew my app through and throughout and I could talk about that in the interview.
Don Hansen:And because I had to scale it a bit, because I had to keep adding features, it created an interesting conversation in the interview that employers wanted to talk about, that showcased a lot of skills that I had or skills that I lacked right and that I needed to improve. And that was where I could identify that stuff that came up in the interviews where they're like, oh they care about this thing. Huh, is there a feature that I could develop that my users have been asking for? That would kind of like add authentication to it Because, like, if I'm applying to full stack positions, a lot of these positions might be asking like how I implemented auth stuff, how I implemented OAuth, which is tricky for new developers to implement. Even just developing a custom OAuth for aspiring backend developers can kind of really set you apart from a lot of other aspiring backend developers.
Don Hansen:But A variety of projects to reinforce shaky knowledge and a larger, more complex project that you continue iterating on to really deepen your knowledge and build something that really helps you stand out among so many other developers that are just going to continue spitting out cookie cutter apps until they eventually give up because no company cares about those cookie cutter apps. That's the mindset you have, no matter where the coding boot camp brought you to, skill-wise and mindset-wise, you just use that as a bit of a springboard to then be a better student, learn how to learn, have a little bit more of a solidified path, have a little bit more of a solidified path and you just continue growing and growing and growing outside of your coding bootcamp until you finally land that dev job. Oh, by the way, if you're trying to become a front-end developer, I highly recommend you check out Scrimpa. I'm specifically talking about their front-end developer career path. They have a fun, interactive way to learn how to code and become a web developer, and while that's true, that's not the main reason that I want to promote them. Honestly. The main reason is their curriculum is solid. There are a lot of curriculums that do not prepare people to actually be competitive in the market, and I've reviewed a ton of programs and to this day, it is still one of my favorites and one of the best front-end curriculums out there for self-taught developers, and they're backed by MDN, a leading and well respected resource in the developer community, and I actually personally run my own mentees through the program to prepare them for front-end developer jobs. And if you choose to sign up via my affiliate link below in the description, you actually get 30% off if you sign up for a paid plan, but you have to sign up by the end of February to take advantage of that, because it expires after that.
Don Hansen:Anyways, check it out for yourself. What do you have to lose? And let's get back to the topic. That's it. We're going to go into a few other details, but that's really the plan. Is no matter where. You ended up with a coding bootcamp, it's ton of project work to reinforce your skills and showcase what you could do with those skills. So a little bit of time should be spent towards coding challenges.
Don Hansen:Dsa problems I don't think you have to go heavy into leak code problems and it depends on you know what you're aiming for. You know front end is going to be much lighter on the DSA stuff than backend positions are. You have to study that. You have to research like what are common questions or types of questions that are going to be in backend issues versus front end? What do mobile care like? What does mobile care about? What kind of problems are they going to test you over? These things differ depending on the type of deposition that you go into, which is another thing you need to think about. You're not going to be that developer just spamming your resume out to every deposition, hoping for the best. No, everyone else is doing that. There's nothing that makes you unique with that. You have a tailored project plan. You have a tailored job search strategy that aligns with more specific positions. That's what's going to make you stand out. So it's going to be majority project work, a little bit of DSA challenges and then networking and then.
Don Hansen:So networking doesn't mean just sending random connection requests on LinkedIn. It means like going to meetups in your local area and talking to other people. You don't just go and leave. That's a waste of your time. You talk with other people. Just make human connections, you believe it or not. You don't even have to talk dev stuff to other people. Um, you just like connect with them. You notice a sticker on their laptop, you spark up a conversation and then eventually say hey, let's stay in touch. Uh, phone number. Say hey, let's stay in touch, phone number. Linkedin, linkedin's really good, but let's stay connected on LinkedIn.
Don Hansen:What is your LinkedIn? Because you should be talking about your journey, the things that you learn, the things that you're struggling with, the things that you create on your LinkedIn profile. You should be engaging with other developers and aspiring developers on your LinkedIn to organically build up those meaningful connections of people that can stand you, that want to hear what you have to say. That like how you lift them up, that like how you challenge them in certain ways, in constructive, positive ways. Linkedin is like that one social platform and listen, I got to say it every time. I know it's cringe, right, you're always going to have posts with people putting their dog down the well, taking a video and rescuing that dog and turning it into business advice. I know that kind of advice or that those kind of posts exist on LinkedIn. I know it's cringe. You need to just bite your lip, bite your tongue and get through it.
Don Hansen:There are going to be other people that you can connect with that are saying things that you care to engage with. You engage with the things that you want to see, and it's going to teach LinkedIn's algorithm that you want to engage with this type of content, just like when they engage with your content, what you have to say, even if it's posts on other people's feeds, it's teaching LinkedIn that this type of person likes to engage with your content. This is the content strategy on LinkedIn You're engaging with people that you want to talk with, that you want to interact with and people that engage with you that like you. It teaches LinkedIn what kind of people to push your post out to and that's how you organically build connections and your network in meaningful connections people that want to engage with you on the best platform that you can do it as an aspiring developer, and that's LinkedIn as a professional developer in general. So bite your tongue with a cringe. Focus on engaging with the content that you actually like and if people are posting too much cringe content, you just unfollow them or just remove the connection entirely. You could do that. It's okay, it's not a big deal if you remove a connection because you met someone at um a meetup, and all they talk about is politics on their linkedin. It's like I don't want to hear this anymore. I'm just gonna delete that connection and I I got, like you know, a dozen others that I got this week.
Don Hansen:So networking is about building relationships in the dev industry and you never know where those are going to lead. Again, when you build relationships in the dev industry, you make human connections. You companies will often ask the team like who do we want to hire? Who do we want to bring in an interview before we even make the job posting right, because they kind of vet you a little bit and they make your resume pop to the top. If you've like bullshitted about how you know how Cursor or Copilot is just making developers bad, which is an awesome take you have that take. That's a win, at least in my book.
Don Hansen:Maybe some people disagree with it. You're not going to connect with people. If you have that opinion, I don't care. You shouldn't care, right? But you're just speaking your mind and making connections with people that vibe with you and when they vibe with you, they want to help you, they want to lift you up. That's how you network. That's how you build connections. It doesn't have to be this cheesy thing where you go to like these stuffy networking events and sell yourself like, just don't do that, just connect with them like another human being, spark up a conversation after a lecture.
Don Hansen:Sometimes meetups will have um moments. At the end of the meetup or even before. You can kind of talk to people again. Sticker on the laptop is perfect, um, so you could participate in hackathons. Hackathons are really good. You can participate in online hackathons and you go to online discords and make friends and build connections. This is what you do. This is what you should have been doing all along and hopefully you have cause. It's a long-term strategy to build up your network, but you know, better late than never. Start connecting with other developers as a human being that they can stand being around and talking with. That's it Build meaningful connections.
Don Hansen:A lot of coding bootcamp grads do not do that. They kind of just stick to their local alumni network, which you can take advantage of. Right, if you do see alumni from your coding bootcamp, you can reach out to those alumni and say, hey, you know, say no kind of what program you came from. They. The business has already validated that. You know that coding bootcamp grad from this coding bootcamp is a good developer, which you hope they are Like. If they've been there for like two years, they better be a good developer. You know, if they're just starting, you hope they're not a bad developer, giving you a bad reputation already. But you don't know that. But what you can do is reach out to that alumni saying, hey, I actually put my application in, would you mind? Kind of just like making sure that my resume gets looked at? You could do stuff like with your close alumni network. There's so many other cool relationships you can build in the dev industry. Focus on that. What else?
Don Hansen:I think the thing that holds coding bootcamp graduates back? In reality, they just get discouraged. They don't continue growing. They don't really follow through with a capstone project, which is eventually what you want to do, and they continue just throwing, just splitting up their attention between a bunch of different things and not really doubling down on anything. Again, you are doubling down on project work and eventually, a capstone project. Most coding boot camps aren't willing to spend six months to a year on a capstone project. Most coding bootcamps aren't willing to spend six months to a year on a capstone project. When I talk about a capstone project, it gets more impressive the more you dive into it. When you provide documentation, if you're going for a back-end position or full stack, you provide API documentation. No matter what position you're going for, you have a proper readme, you have a landing page. This is a real thing that people are using and when you spend six months to a year on a project like this, it starts becoming a more impressive project to showcase than like 95% of other people. Most people are not willing to do this.
Don Hansen:You want to stand out as a Coding Bootcamp graduate. You need to deepen your knowledge, spend a lot more time learning after the Coding Bootcamp and showcase that you aren't just a Coding Bootcamp graduate. You didn't come out with some random templated project that the Coding Boot had you build. You are a developer that loves coding. You're interested in this. You kept growing afterwards.
Don Hansen:Coding bootcamp was just a stepping stone. You kept going and going and going and you dove deep and eventually because you're applying for jobs right after you start graduating. But eventually this project, this capstone project, the self-branding you project, the self branding you're building for yourself as you're connecting with other developers it just it starts finally getting noticed. And you don't know when you're finally going to get noticed. But you have to continue moving forward without long breaks, to continue growing until developers start reaching back out. To start with that phone screening and technical screenings and when you start getting a pattern of these. Now you know you're moving in the right direction. You've revised your resume in the right format. The cover letters are finally hitting you. Following up with employers is fine Like. Your messages are finally like, humanized and they're getting people to want to respond to you.
Don Hansen:Your capstone project is getting to an impressive state, um, and you could provide, you know, like, user analytics and usage. Uh, you could provide like real, tangible data from your capstone project on your resume which looks way better than some random e-commerce app that was built in a coding bootcamp that didn't. That is just a graveyard project right now. It's just a basic, crud e-commerce app that you kind of didn't really spend a lot of time with and do anything with. Do you see my point? I know I'm kind of like I'm really being verbose with this, but do you see my point?
Don Hansen:The coding boot camp is a stepping stone and you just continue to grow from there. Use it as a bit of a foundation, even if it's a flaky foundation, to then build yourself into a curious, good software engineers. That now starts to get noticed, because most people will give up and they'll get discouraged and they'll go to r slash coding boot camp and just completely quit coding. I'm gonna take every opportunity I can to bring that community up. It's fun, um, but seriously, like, not just r slash coding boot camp.
Don Hansen:A lot of subreddits will be very discouraging. They'll be very discouraging. A lot of blackpilled people on reddit. You you want to like find the social media platform that is like the biggest aggregate for depressed people that are just victims and never encourage each other to take action to improve their situation. That's Reddit. That is so many programming subreddits.
Don Hansen:I bash r slash coding bootcamp all the time because I think they're particularly bad, but there are a ton of other subreddits in the programming space within Reddit that are just so discouraging. You can get bits and pieces of useful advice and information, but if you are someone that's highly influenced and gets discouraged easily by what other people are saying, just stay off of Reddit entirely. There's so many other platforms that are going to be better than that LinkedIn, for example. But yeah, I think that's all I have. Hopefully that gave you a better mindset to go into the job search with, because I know a lot of you can get discouraged and you know the rates for placements are going down with coding boot camps and they're lengthening. It's taking coding boot camp graduates longer to get a job. But I can tell you for certain you stand a better chance if you don't quit than self taught devs.