Skip the Coding Bootcamp: How I Learned To Code & Got a Remote Full-Time Development Job in 5 Months
This is my story on how I learned to code and got a job as a full-stack developer without attending a coding bootcamp.
With this post, I hope to encourage anyone currently on their journey to becoming a developer. I’ve given this exact blueprint to a lot of my friends and I’ve gotten feedback that it was immensely helpful so I wanted to make it available for anyone looking to do the same with no experience and without attending a bootcamp.
Learning how to code was definitely one of the hardest things I’ve ever done so my goal is to provide a roadmap and some inspiration to help anyone who’s on the same path as I was.
I should add that I’m not inherently against bootcamps. I think a structured program with mentors is extremely valuable for the right people, it just wasn’t something I could personally afford at the time.
If anything, I was able to land a programming job by carefully reverse engineering a bootcamp’s curriculum and mimicking its program.
If you want to get into the how to skip this next part and dig in.
(TLDR at the bottom).
My Background
Let me start off by mentioning, I didn’t do well in high school and I have less than 2 semesters of community college under my belt.
I wanted to include this because a lot of what held me back initially was self-doubt wondering if someone “like me” could actually learn how to code.
I viewed a lot of programmers as genius-magicians that all sort of had a knack for numbers or science. Not to hate, but a lot of the success stories I was reading back in 2017–2018 were of electrical engineers, mechanical engineers, or data scientists sharing their stories about how they learned to code and made a career change.
I couldn’t help but compare my background to theirs. Everyone seemed to have a strong foundational education that gave them a base of knowledge that they could build off of.
Up until this point, most of my experiences were in sales and marketing. I had mostly bounced around various sales jobs and digital marketing work.
Nothing inherently too technical.
I want you to know that if I can learn to code so can you.
Follow me on Twitter for more information about self-learning, wealth building, and lifestyle design. ➡ https://twitter.com/TimKimMe
The Why
There is often an important part of learning how to code being left out of these types of posts and that’s the mentality and intrinsic motivation it takes to prep yourself to accomplish such a daunting task.
Even if you have a strict plan and guideline, without being able to refer back to why you’re doing what you’re doing when things get hard you’re going to give up.
Your why has to be bigger than “make more money” or “get a better job”.
Self-awareness is extremely important here. For instance, I’m motivated by freedom and being a part of a cause or mission. Money might be a good enough motivator for some people, but for me, it wouldn’t have been enough.
When you’re tired and your back and eyes hurt from sitting and staring at your computer for 10 hours a day, the thought of making a little more money will not be enough to keep you going.
For me, it started with the fear of missing out on a future that seemed to be moving faster than we anticipated. I also saw that the entrepreneurs I looked up to and wanted to emulate were all techies or developers.
I read a lot of sci-fi and watched a lot of anime growing up and I couldn’t help but notice the amount of amazing technology we were starting to get. The promise of VR and the metaverse, blockchain and the decentralization of money, AI and robotics, every day I would read more about this type of innovation and I felt left out.
I remember when I came across the Bitcoin white paper in 2013 and being excited about the concept but also feeling extremely inadequate because most of it went over my head. I wanted a seat at the table and somehow have a hand in building these technologies that could change our world.
My Why:
Build companies + technologies that could advance our civilization.
How?
- Learn to code
- Build my own tech company someday
- Invest in tech companies
Defining this was important because when doubt would set in or I felt unmotivated I reminded myself that my cause was about more than myself.
The thought of not being able to contribute let alone not understand the impact of technologies like blockchain and AI gave me the fear of missing out.
The Research & Revelation
Coding bootcamps (the good ones) have a track record that speaks for themselves.
The ones I was researching had an 80–90% graduate hire rate within 6 months of graduation. I reached out to the top 5 remote bootcamps at the time to try and get a sense of what to expect and the costs.
During this time, I was a digital nomad mostly freelancing marketing jobs online so I had to figure out an efficient and cost-effective way to approach my learning.
The average cost of a bootcamp was anywhere between 15–30k for tuition not including living expenses. There were many payment deferring options but I had pretty bad credit at this time because of my lack of consistent work and working on businesses of my own.
Something else that I didn’t anticipate was that a lot of these programs were full-time anywhere between 3–6 months. Luckily around this time, I had become extremely meticulous about my finances because I was traveling and working online so I knew exactly what I needed to survive on a monthly basis.
Side note: Let me know if you’re interested in learning about tracking your finances + personal finance tips.
I ran some rough estimates.
Potential Scenario for a 4 Month Bootcamp:
- Tuition Cost: $18,000.00
- Rent: $1,000.00 * 4
- Monthly Living Expenses: $2,000.00 * 4
- = Total: $30,000
I also saw that the average time to find a job upon completion was 3 months.
So let’s add:
- Rent: $1,000.00 * 3
- Monthly Living Expenses: $2,000.00 * 3
New Total:
- Projected Total Expenses: $39,000
I did not want to spend everything I’ve been saving and investing diligently.
Out of the $39,000, 46% (roughly) was the tuition. This is when I started to wonder if I could learn the bootcamp’s curriculum on my own.
I messaged the remote bootcamp I was interested in to get a better feel for how the lessons were prepared, how the classes were administered, and I pressured the sales rep to get the details I needed about the program.
A couple of key features the rep kept highlighting:
- 1-on-1 time with an experienced developer 2x/weekly
- Accountability from instructors
- Job-ready portfolio with real projects you could showcase
- Mentorship to get ready for the job market + connections to companies that are hiring
This was when it hit me, I’ll essentially be paying for someone to keep me accountable and to review my work.
One of the things I’m proud of is my ability to research products before I purchase them. Even before I bought my travel backpack I looked at like 10+ other products on Amazon and built a spreadsheet to objectively choose the best product. I account for things like features, quality, and price.
Also, I hated my brief college experience.
I hated the environment, I hated the schedule, I hated that I had to take many irrelevant classes to fill up my college credits.
I started questioning if attending a bootcamp was my best option.
Admittedly, I had failed at all of my previous attempts to learn how to code. I had many unfinished Coursera courses and programming books that I barely touched.
What would be different this time around?
I decided to design my own bootcamp like environment.
NOTE: If you want the specifics of exactly what I learned and how I designed the curriculum I put that in a separate post here:
➡️ https://realtimkim.medium.com/the-curriculum-i-learned-to-land-my-remote-full-time-job-as-a-web-developer-d2dab14a2ecc.
I wanted this post to focus on the overall process of how I learned and the journey itself.
The Plan
I decided to find and build everything a bootcamp could provide for me but on my own through more cost-effective means. A bootcamp is a business and I didn’t want to pay retail.
Now that I knew what I was supposed to learn I started to source the other important parts of what a bootcamp would’ve provided me.
The course said that they would provide me 1-on-1 time with an experienced developer twice a week, around hour-long sessions to help me overcome any obstacles and give me some guidance.
I was watching a lot of videos around learning how to program on YouTube and I happened to come across a smaller channel that in the end offered tutoring for programmers of all levels.
I reached out and after telling him my plan he offered me a rate of $50/hour plus he would also give me an additional hour if I purchased 10 hours upfront so $45/hr.
Over the course of a 4-month bootcamp (16 weeks) at 2 lessons a week that would be a total of 32 1-on-1 lessons, at this instructor's rate it would $1,440 for the same amount of lessons.
The instructor told me that he was also a self-taught developer so he would hold me accountable during our lessons to make sure that I was progressing on the curriculum.
Also, since I wasn’t going to be in a cohort with other students I could skip over any material that I already learned on my own and focus my time on the subjects I was weak in.
I also wasn’t worried about the portfolio for applying to jobs because I specifically chose highly rated Udemy courses for my curriculum that worked on real projects.
The only piece I would be missing out on by not attending a bootcamp was their connections and mentorship to get you ready for the job market. This was the piece that I was least worried about because I knew if I actually learned job-ready skills and had a portfolio to showcase I could get my foot in the door of a company. I could rely on my sales and marketing experience at this point to market myself.
New Estimates:
- Total Expenses: $39,000.00
- Minus Tuition: — $18,000.00
- Add Tutor Fees:+ $1,440.00
- New Total: $22,440.00
I also deducted a month of total expenses since I was going to be working at my own pace and not following a group curriculum.
- Minus 1 Month of Expenses + Rent: — $3000.00
- Updated Total: $19,440.00 | 6 Months
Then I started to think about where I could go to further decrease my expenses. Since I wasn’t going to be working I could be anywhere in the world.
I started to brainstorm where I could live comfortably for 5–6 months. I considered living expenses, cost of rent, climate, visa restrictions, and extracurricular activities.
Around this time my grandfather was admitted to a nursing home in South Korea because his Alzheimer's was getting worse and it became too much for my grandmother to handle on her own.
While speaking to her, my grandmother in passing asked if I could come to visit her soon if I had time. The circumstance was unfortunate but the timing was perfect and I’m forever grateful I decided to do this right around that time because I was able to see my grandfather in person before he passed.
Without providing too many details I told her that I could actually come for 3 months if she was okay hosting me. She was ecstatic.
It was decided that I would make S.Korea my temporary home for my learning period. I also calculated that I could cut my personal expenses down even further since I was going to be eating at home with my grandmother and I could also remove 3 months of AirBnB rent costs.
Total: $19,440.00 | 6 Months
- Minus 50% reduction in expense for 3 months: — $3,000.00
- Minus Rent for 3 months: — $3,000.00
Updated Total: $13,440 | 6 Months
Side Note: Had I not gone to my grandmother’s in S.Korea I would’ve gone to Chiang Mai, Thailand to bring my total expenses down to $1500/month + rent.
Initial Prep
A part of the curriculum I decided to work on my own part-time to prove that this was something I really wanted to do. If I couldn’t learn even that much by myself there was no way I was going to trust myself to learn on my own full-time for about half a year.
I spent around 3 weeks knocking out some preliminary work one of the bootcamps I considered attending sent me. It included basics like HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and web fundamentals while I prepped for my trip to S.Korea.
I gave my 2 weeks to my marketing clients and referred them to other capable digital marketers to match up my last day with my departure flight.
Tools For Success
1. Keep a Schedule
When I first got to my grandmother’s place in Korea I thought that I could just study at her apartment, it was a humble little space with decent lighting and I decided to study at the dining table.
This lasted about 5 days. I love my grandmother, and because we hadn’t seen each other in a while up until this point she wanted to feed me every 30 mins so she became an obstacle. If you know anything about learning, you need long focused sessions without any distractions to try and get into a flow state to work through hard problems.
I’ve been working since I was 15 so this was the first time in my life I didn’t have any specific time-based responsibilities so I started to stay up late on my laptop and wake up later in the day.
This started to affect my overall productivity and the number of hours I was able to dedicate to learning.
2. Find a Dedicated Place To Learn
To put some pressure on myself and to fix my routine, I found a co-working space nearby about 20 mins away by train. After doing the math, I figured it was worth paying the $250/month because my only other expense was giving my grandmother a weekly allowance for the additional food costs, I chipped in a little extra as well so she could enjoy the spending money.
The co-working space was perfect because they would give you a free coffee if you came in before 9 AM which was all the incentive I needed. They also closed around 7 PM so to maximize the hours I would have to wake up at 8 AM the latest to arrive by 8:55 AM.
3. Take Breaks
Your brain needs time to recovery just like your muscles. At first, I had this visual image of myself studying 10–12 hours a day but after the first week, I realized that I had about 5–6 productive hours in me, and after that my brain was toast and I would catch myself on YouTube or being distracted.
Even if I did push one day to 7–8 hours I would be less motivated and focused the next day.
My favorite tool that I still use today to help me with focused learning and taking dedicated breaks is a Pomodoro Mac app called Be Focused.
The app will also track how many sessions you’ve done so it’s a great way to keep yourself accountable.
I also started to force myself to leave the co-working space by 6 PM at the latest and I started to hit the gym 3 times a week.
4. Get Ergonomic Gear & Take Care of Your Health
Being on your laptop for 8–10 hours a day can bring other challenges.
For me, I started to get some neck strain, wrist pain, and lower back soreness amongst other things.
Here is a list of products you should consider purchasing.
- Portable Laptop Stand: This will raise your laptop up so the top of your screen can be eye level.
- Bluelight Blocking Glasses: The blue light from your laptop can make you strain your eyes and harm your vision long-term.
- Vertical Mouse: This product can help your shoulders and your wrist stay open in a more natural position.
- Workout Bands: I would take small breaks in the middle of the day to do chest opening exercises to prevent rounded shoulders.
- Bonus — Standing Desk: The back room of the coworking space had nice tall desks that were the perfect height to work standing on. I would start my day off here and switch to a normal sitting desk after lunch.
I intermediate fasted because I noticed I had a better focus in the mornings if I skipped breakfast.
5. Consume Programming + Tech Content
There is no better way to learn than immersion.
I started to read books and watch shows about programming and tech-related topics. On my way to the coworking space, I started to listen to the Software Daily Podcast.
I started to watch Silicon Valley and Mr. Robot.
I also started to read a lot of posts on HackerNews — https://news.ycombinator.com/.
Here are some books I highly recommend:
- “Hackers & Painters” by Paul Graham
- “Zero to One” by Black Masters and Peter Thiel
- ”Program Or Be Programmed” by Douglas Rushkoff
- ”The Art of Computer Programming” by Donald E. Knuth
Each one of these books played a crucial role in further affirming my belief that learning how to code was a worthwhile endeavor and that anyone who really wanted to could do it.
I especially want to thank Paul Graham for “Hackers & Painters” which really helped me break the mold I had in my mind of what a software developer is.
My Typical Schedule:
8 AM: Wake up
8:30 AM: Head to train station
9:00 AM: Arrive at coworking space
9:15 AM: Coffee + journaling/review curriculum
9:30 AM — 12:30 PM: Study session 1, 30-minute Pomodoro increments
12:30 PM — 1:30 PM: Eat lunch, take a small break
2:00 PM — 6 PM: Study session 2, 30-minute Pomodoro increments
6 PM: Head out
6:30 PM — 7:30 PM: Gym session 3/week
8 PM — 9 PM: Dinner with grandma / help her clean
Then 3–4 times per week I would head to the local PC Bang to play some games until around 11 PM. (True Korean I know…).
I maintained this schedule Monday thru Saturday for almost 3 months straight. On Sundays, I spent the day with my grandma or went out to check out the city.
In under 2 and a half months (14 weeks) I completed the whole entire curriculum I had designed for myself.
Land The Job
In sales, there is a very famous concept called the law of averages.
My favorite explanation of this is by Jim Rohn, not to butcher his eloquent explanation on it but he essentially says if it takes him talking to 100 people to close 1 deal, he’ll talk to 1000 to close 10.
The great part about finding a job was that I only needed to find 1 offer.
I treated my job hunt like a sales funnel.
Step 1: Define the job you want.
Beggars can’t be choosers but I had been traveling the world working remotely there was no way I was going to head back into an office somewhere so the job had to be remote.
Also, I just spent almost 3 months not making any money I wanted something that was consistent and full-time, so no hourly jobs, and no freelancing gigs.
The main point of finding a job was to:
1. Gain real-world experience.
2. Continue to learn and fill gaps from my personal learning journey.
Step 2: Find the leads.
Since I was looking for a remote position I started to scrape all of the JavaScript, React, Node related jobs into a spreadsheet off of the following sites:
WeWork Remotely
RemoteOk
I did some digging and grabbed the following pieces of information from LinkedIn and GlassDoor:
- Company Name
- Company Website
- Contact Information / Email
- Potential Salary
- Employer Rating
- Job Role / Title
I ended up finding around 18 jobs total that was US-based (for US pay), full-time, salaried, and hiring for the technology I had experience with.
Step 3: The Pitch.
My original estimate for how long this would’ve taken was around 5 months. I had just spent 3 months learning and building projects.
I had originally budgeted for around 5 months I figured I could afford to even work for free or intern somewhere to gain the experience to increase my chances of getting a real job.
I knew the companies I grabbed all hired remotely and were looking for developers using the technologies I studied so I thought maybe they’d be willing to take me on as an intern or get some free labor.
I knew as long as I got my foot in somewhere I would be able to validate my worth to them but more importantly, I was ready to do any and all work that would help me advance my knowledge and grow.
I carefully constructed an email that expressed that desire and I covered everything I had learned up until this point and linked all of the work I had put in.
I sent a version of the above email to all 18 companies adding some minor personalization about their company, product, or mutual connection on social media.
I had no expectations.
My original estimation was that I was probably going to have to send out around 50 emails.
I just wanted to gain experience and continue to learn and work in tech and I was honest about what I was looking for but…
I didn’t expect the number of positive responses…
Sample replies:
Even though some of the jobs stated that they wanted someone with 2–3 years of experience what they were really trying to say was that they wanted someone who could start working on projects right away.
I was extremely transparent about my capabilities and what I could do from day 1 and that vulnerability mixed with the desire to work hard and learn really left an impression on everyone I spoke to.
Even though I offered in my email to intern or work for little or no pay after the interview process I received 3 legitimate job offers!
Cold Email Job Campaign Stats:
- 18 Jobs Found
- 18 Emailed
- 6 Responses
- 4 Interviews
- 3 Offers
Needless to say, after accessing the offers I ended up choosing the company that offered me the greatest opportunity to learn that also happened to be the most lucrative compensation package as well.
In Conclusion
I truly believe that anyone with a passion for learning can achieve similar results in any field. I do believe that tech is more of a meritocracy and cares less about credentials than the financial, law or, medical industry but with the amount of amazing quality information available online and you’re not happy with your current situation I believe you can definitely learn the prerequisite skills to find a new opportunity.
I had a lot of help though.
I was able to stay at my grandmother's to cut down on expenses and I reached out to one of my developer friends along the way to ask for advice and help.
Don’t be afraid to ask for help or go “backward” temporarily to advance in your career. I gave up some hard-earned online marketing clients who were paying me pretty well and went into a little debt to support myself during my learning journey.
I also got lucky with a great teacher (shout out to Stephen).
He’s no longer tutoring apparently so if I was starting up this journey now I would use resources like:
CodeMentor.io
MentorCruise.com
I will write up the exact curriculum for anyone that is interested in making this move themselves. Also, this system can be applied to any new career move you’re looking to make. I’ve helped both of my sisters change careers and find remote working jobs since and multiple other people shift into different careers more aligned with their values and the way they want to live their lives.
What’s Next
Working as a full-stack developer and learning how to work with a team on real projects gave me the confidence to build something of my own. After working there for 13 months I felt like I had enough experience so I left to co-found and develop my own SaaS company.
I plan on writing more about my journey in tech, building a company, learning, and lifestyle design as I continue towards my lofty goal of helping advance our civilization through technology.
Please let me know in the comments if you have any questions. I’d be more than happy to help you if you’re planning on doing something similar.
Much love.
Follow me on Twitter for more information about self-learning, wealth building, and lifestyle design. ➡ https://twitter.com/TimKimMe
TLDR;
- I defined my goals ahead of time and created a strong reason to see them through.
- I calculated the costs and went all-in on studying to build the foundational knowledge I needed to get my foot in the door of a company.
- I focused on a proven curriculum that I was not going to veer from.
- I found a mentor + tutor to accelerate my learning and hold me accountable.
- I went to an isolated environment where I could immerse myself in the study and not be distracted.
- I followed a strict schedule and armed myself with tools to be successful.
- Once the curriculum was completed and I had real projects to showcase I aggregated a list of potential jobs by defining characteristics like remote work.
- I offered to work for little to no pay in exchange for experience.
- The work I put in was enough to land me an interview and pass the necessary tests to get me an offer to work as a developer.
