Key Takeaways
- Demand for Coding Bootcamps Has Grown: Coding bootcamps have become a popular alternative to bachelor’s degrees, offering an accelerated pathway to meet the rising demand for software developers and web developers in a rapidly expanding tech market.
- Bootcamps Provide Marketable Skills and High Earning Potential: Bootcamps equip students with in-demand technical skills like Python, SQL, and JavaScript, with the goal of putting their graduates on the fast track to securing well-paying jobs with median salaries often surpassing $130,000 and specialized languages like Go commanding even higher earnings.
- Networking Opportunities and Career Support Are Added Benefits: Many bootcamps foster professional connections through alumni networks, collaborative projects, and job placement services, making them a valuable resource for career advancement.
- Employers Have a Positive Perception of Bootcamp Graduates: Employers increasingly recognize bootcamp alumni as capable professionals, with some even earning higher salaries than college grads in their first few years. Many employers value the practical skills gained from bootcamps over a traditional computer science degree, although an impressive portfolio remains essential for standing out in competitive job markets.
Are Coding Bootcamps Worth It?
As new technologies emerge through AI, cloud computing, machine learning, and other innovations, it’s estimated that the job demand for software engineers and other tech professions will total nearly 28 million by 2031.1
In recent years, coding bootcamps have become a popular and effective way for an aspiring professional software engineer and other individuals interested in coding and web development to launch a career in tech. Bootcamps are intensive, accelerated learning programs that typically span an average duration of 12–24 weeks and provide students a more flexible pathway to learning technical skills. Often costing less than a more traditional educational program like a bachelor’s degree, which can easily cost over $100,000, they aim to offer aspiring tech professionals a more affordable option than a four-year CS degree. And this alternative path has been increasing in popularity—by 2030, coding bootcamps are projected to be worth $2.4 billion.2
Due to the success of bootcamp programs in enabling graduates to become software developers—a field which can earn a median salary of over $130,000—interest in learning to code shows no signs of stopping.3 In fact, according to a January 2025 Technavio report, the coding market size is forecasted to experience a growth rate of 30.3% by 2029.4 With this expansion, more and more education companies are seeing the value that teaching coding at scale can provide students and the global economy at large.
As the demand for tech professionals grows higher and the availability of coding bootcamps increases—both in-office and remotely—coding bootcamps are being recognized as educational investments that can afford individuals flexibility, convenience, and opportunities for professional advancement. Yet, a common question still gets asked: “Is attending a coding bootcamp worth my time?”
Bootcamps were created to address the talent gap in the tech sector
Advantages Of Attending a Coding Bootcamp
There are several distinct potential advantages to attending a coding bootcamp. Some coders are looking to build on their existing skill set through continuing education. Others are looking to gain an entirely new set of coding skills that they’ve never worked with in order to make a career change. Coding bootcamps lower the barrier to learning popular coding languages like Ruby, SQL, and PHP and help meet the demand for web development jobs in the United States (projected to see an impressive 8% growth between now and 2033).5 There’s a significant upside to pursuing new tech and data science skills through a coding bootcamp, including:
- Chance to Gain Highly Marketable Skills: The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reports that openings for software developers is projected to grow much faster than other occupations over the next decade.3 An aging labor force paired with an inadequate supply of early-career individuals with STEM experience, drives the supply and demand for tech professionals. Companies with some of the largest market caps in the world are looking for individuals with backgrounds in computer and information technology to grow, build, and lead product development.
- Smaller Financial and Time Commitment: The cost of getting a tech education can vary widely, but as of 2025, the average tuition of a coding bootcamp is roughly $14,000—significantly less than it would cost to get a college degree in computer science.6 And with their focus on accelerated, hands-on, practical education, you can finish a program in a few months as opposed to years.
- A Hot Market for Coding Professionals: The BLS projects that by 2033, nearly 328,000 new jobs will be created for software developers, quality assurance analysts, and testers.7 To put that into perspective, with an average of 140,100 job openings expected year over year, there’s a forecasted 17% growth for the next decade, as compared to the national average of 4% across all industries.
- Meeting Like-minded Individuals Interested in Gaining New Skills: Learning alongside smart, driven people is advantageous. Many coding bootcamps include interviews and skill assessments as part of their application and are selective based on the interests of those applying, so the process acts as a natural filter to connect you with other aspiring web developers, software engineers, or whichever field you’re pursuing. While earlier weeks of a bootcamp often feature solo projects that enable you to ramp up your knowledge of programming languages, the latter half of programs commonly feature group projects that foster relationships with your cohort. Bootcamps can also provide access to opportunities for other students who may not have access to traditional higher education, making tech careers more accessible to a wider range of backgrounds and diversifying the field.
- Building a Network of Professionals in the Field. It’s not a surprise that a personal network is a gateway to career opportunity. Research indicates that up to 70% of job openings are not advertised, and anywhere from 50–80% of jobs are filled through personal or professional connections.8 Coding bootcamps can facilitate a network of not only those in your bootcamp course, but also the alumni network of those who completed the program before and after you do. Alumni networks are only as strong as your ability to tap into them, so make sure you build friendly and collaborative relationships with the people you meet in the classroom.
- Job placement. Most bootcamps also offer job search assistance such as resume reviews and mock interviews during and after the program, and some even offer job placement guarantees—however, you’ll want to pay careful attention to the details of any such guarantee, such as how they define “job placement,” if there’s a minimum salary associated with the guarantee, or any other requirements they take into account to consider students eligible.
How to Ensure a Successful Coding Bootcamp Experience
The first step to attending a coding bootcamp is also the first step to doing anything the right way: preparation. Learning to write code doesn’t require a bachelor’s degree in computer science, but you may find it’s useful to have a foundational understanding of how software works, along with knowing how basic code functions. Having some prior coding experience—either self-taught or through a training program—will help ensure you can keep up with the curriculum and succeed in more advanced courses. And many programs will require that students are fluent in the rudimentary aspects of coding prior to enrollment and a full immersion into Javascript-based frameworks. Students usually complete an assessment to ensure they’re prepared and making a sound investment in their future with their coding education.
Brushing up on your previous knowledge of Javascript, Python, and HTML using free tools from Coursera, Codeacademy, and Khan Academy will help prepare less experienced or aspiring programmers for the assessment. For example:
- Coursera: The University of Michigan sponsors a free course for learning Python. Students will learn to install Python; be able to describe the purpose of the Python language and what it does; and understand functions and loops. Coursera is a massive open online course (MOOC) with modules that can help aspiring programmers, data scientists, and UI/UX practitioners learn the basics before applying to a bootcamp.
- Codecademy: Codeacademy offers free coding language courses (e.g., Java, HTML, CSS) as well as a professional course option for learning Python 3, front-end engineering, full-stack engineering, and more.
- Khan Academy: Sal Khan’s famous video courses evolved into a full-suite of free learning courses that includes Javascript, SQL, HTML, jQuery, and more.
No matter if you have an existing background in the field, or if you’re dipping your toes in for the first time, free courses and practice modules are good ways to both learn and refresh coding skills and software engineering basics. As such, prospective coding bootcamp students should take advantage of these free tools if they’re confident they want to apply to a bootcamp.
Prepare to Apply to a Coding Bootcamp
Choosing the right coding bootcamp is a significant decision, and one that requires careful consideration not only of each school but also of your own goals, strengths, and circumstances. To make the most of your investment, consider the following:
- Know the Coding Skills You Want to Gain: It’s important to have an idea of what you want to learn in a coding bootcamp. Start with the job you plan to land after you complete the bootcamp. For example, if you want to be a data scientist, be sure that the coding bootcamp you’re committing to has significant exposure to Python, SQL programming, statistics, and any other programming language you may need. If you’re looking to be a web developer, decide whether you want to be a front-end, back-end, or a full-stack developer. Research coding bootcamps with your desired role in mind.
- Perform an Honest Self-assessment: Consider your internal motivations for joining a bootcamp. Perhaps you’re a highly motivated front-end developer and want to explore the server side. Maybe you’re a cyber security professional who wants to learn a bit more about data science. Building competency in a secondary skill takes significant dedication, so be upfront with yourself about how much you really want to level up your skills and how far you want to advance in your career.
- Consider Your Working Style: Are you someone who is better equipped to work as an individual contributor or on a team? Do you need to work and learn in-person, or would you prefer an online program? Is collaboration a key feature you want out of the learning experience? In many cases, coding bootcamps work to teach not only hard skills but also soft skills such as communication, adaptability, and collaborative problem solving.
- Assess Your Free Time: Full-time coding bootcamps may be completed in as little as 12 weeks, while part-time bootcamps may take up to six months. Take inventory of the available time you have, and don’t forget to factor in personal commitments, hobbies, and workplace responsibilities. Also, assessing your learning style along with any other time commitment will help you determine which format—online, in-person, or hybrid—works best for your schedule and desired work-life balance.
Earning Potential for Coding Bootcamp Grads
One of the most important reasons for investing in a coding bootcamp is increasing your personal value and realizing a return on the investment on your education. According to Course Report’s 2024 review, survey respondents noted a roughly 51% average salary increase for bootcamp graduates.9
There are also certain programming languages that are so in demand, the earning potential for them is often much higher than the more popular languages today. For example, a Ruby software engineer can expect an average salary of nearly $122,000, while one fluent in Go makes on average almost $148,000 per year.10,11 Depending on your interests and where you want to work, this may be advantageous to your long-term earning potential.
As a coding bootcamp graduate, there are a couple of ways to increase your chances of achieving the salary you want after you complete the program:
- Make Sure Your Portfolio Is Updated: Your portfolio should reflect the type of work, as well as the coding skills and thought processes that went into it, that software engineering hiring managers are looking for in a candidate.
- Apply Where Demand Is High: If able, search for companies in areas of the country that have a huge demand and not enough programmers to meet that demand. And you don’t even need to stick to the cities traditionally considered “tech hubs.” In fact, you’d be surprised how many companies and startups exist outside of the traditional development communities in New York, Chicago, and San Francisco—as well as the quality of life experienced by skilled professionals living in these areas across the country.
How Do Employers View Coding Bootcamp Students?
As more and more employers place a higher focus on practical skills over degrees, they’re seeing bootcamp graduates as viable of candidates as those with traditional bachelor’s degrees, as the former are increasingly landing jobs with comparable salaries compared to the latter.
Still, bootcamp graduates face formidable competition when they are head-to-head with traditional candidates with CS backgrounds. Having an impressive coding portfolio from your bootcamp and/or an existing CS background could help differentiate you from a host of other applicants.
The good news for learners everywhere: More and more traditional colleges and universities are partnering with bootcamps to bring their students coding education. Universities are investing in partnerships with companies like Fullstack Academy (e.g., Cal Poly and USD) and Quickstart (e.g., Hofstra and UC Santa Barbara) to bolster their coding curriculum.
Will a Coding Bootcamp Get You a Job?
Coding bootcamps are an important step in landing your next gig, but simply completing a course doesn’t make you an automatic shoe-in for a web developer or software engineering job. Beyond making sure you choose a coding bootcamp program that has the right curriculum, learning environment, and support network, after you graduate you’ll need to continue to work on coding projects that allow you to hone your skill as well as show future employers that you’re a continuous learner. When thinking about the question “Are coding bootcamps worth it,” the answer will ultimately come down not only to finding the right school, but also your own commitment.
Demonstrating that you not only completed your coding projects in a bootcamp, but also remain committed to the field, is important. While employers have different hiring ideologies when it comes to staffing up teams, with some preferring traditional candidates who have computer science bachelor’s degrees and even computer science master’s degrees, many successful startups as well as an increasing number of major corporations look for the “self-starter” who learned to code and showed a material understanding of software development.
Big Tech employers, traditional corporations, Fortune 500s, as well as early stage and seed startups are looking more and more to coding bootcamp graduates to fill out their engineering and coding teams. For many, they see the high selectivity and caliber of the graduates produced by the top coding bootcamp providers as a good option for sourcing their web developers and diversifying their talent pool beyond the traditional CS graduate.
If you’re looking to deepen your coding skills and advance your career in web development or software engineering, explore coding bootcamps and find one that is tailored to your interests and goals.
Sources
1https://www.skyquestt.com/report/coding-bootcamp-market
2https://technical.ly/workforce-development/coding-bootcamps-2024-worth-it/
3https://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/software-developers.htm
4https://www.technavio.com/report/coding-bootcamp-market-industry-analysis
5https://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/web-developers.htm
6https://www.learningrevolution.net/bootcamp-market-statistics/
"Career Karma entered my life when I needed it most and quickly helped me match with a bootcamp. Two months after graduating, I found my dream job that aligned with my values and goals in life!"
Venus, Software Engineer at Rockbot
7https://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/software-developers.htm#tab-6
8https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/27/how-to-get-a-job-often-comes-down-to-one-elite-personal-asset.html
9https://www.coursereport.com/blog/are-coding-bootcamps-worth-it-in-2024
10https://www.ziprecruiter.com/Salaries/Ruby-Software-Engineer-Salary
11https://www.ziprecruiter.com/Salaries/Golang-Software-Engineer-Salary
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