Which Tech bootcamp skills course would you choose please?

Which Tech bootcamp skills course would you choose please?

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Cobwebs5

Original Poster:

4 posts

24 months

Sunday 20th November 2022
quotequote all
Good morning,

Could I have some advice from people in the Tech industry please ?

So I want to move into Tech. I think I’ve decided that I’m going to do a bootcamp, probably coding although I’m possibly more suited to business analysis or project management. I have A levels and a Business degree a looooong time ago. Since then I’ve been self employed.
Long term, I would probably like to work from home, contracting. I’m a single mother, so money is very important.
I’ve found a free course, that is for 13 weeks 8.30am to 5pm. This is just about doable, but obviously a big commitment. To put in that amount of effort, I need to be sure that this is absolutely the best course for me.

I’m in the West Midlands

www.gov.uk/guidance/find-a-skills-bootcamp/west-mi...

northcoders.com/our-courses/coding-bootcamp

Introduction Week

We'll begin by helping you build your confidence with JavaScript, laying the

foundations for you to be able to handle data and create interactivity on websites and apps. We'll also provide you with resources to help you build your HTML and CSS skills.

Fundamentals

First things first. We’ll give you a solid understanding of the fundamentals and best practices of programming. We'll cover test-driven development, pair programming, object-oriented programming and a range of other core tools and workplace practices through the medium of JavaScript.

Back End

JavaScript is the only language that can be run both on the front and back end. Once you’ve mastered the fundamentals of coding in JavaScript, we show you how we can use use Node.js to run code for the back end, and focus on ways of dealing with asynchronous programming. We'll look at APIs and databases, and cover Express and SQL. We’ll also work with some pretty cool third-party data sets and APIs, and help you deploy applications to the cloud!

Front End

It's front end next - you'll learn all about the DOM (Document Object Model) and how to make accessible websites with semantic HTML and responsive CSS, and we'll introduce you to UX. React is the most in-demand front-end framework. We'll teach you to use it in-depth - but we don't stop there. We'll introduce you to its key peripheral technologies, and teach you all about testing front-end applications.

Project Phase

There's no better way to consolidate and extend your knowledge, and prove what you can do, than to get hands on with a real, green-field team project. With previous groups exploring Virtual Reality, Machine Learning, image recognition and blockchain (to name a few!); what you create is limited by your imagination. Curious as to what our previous graduates have created?

Or this one by the same company, same hours. northcoders.com/our-courses/data-engineering-bootcamp5

Introduction Week

We’ll begin by helping you build your confidence with JavaScript, laying the foundations for you to be able to handle data and functions.

Fundamentals

First things first. We’ll give you a solid understanding of the fundamentals and best practices of programming. We'll cover test-driven development, pair programming, object-oriented programming and a range of other core tools and workplace practices through the medium of JavaScript.

Back End

JavaScript is the only language that can be run both on the front and back end. Once you’ve mastered the fundamentals of coding in JavaScript, we show you how we can use use Node.js to run code for the back end, and focus on ways of dealing with asynchronous programming. We'll look at APIs and databases, and cover Express and SQL.

Python


Python is a popular a programming language used in machine learning, artificial intelligence, web development and data analysis. Fortunately it is relatively easy to learn when compared to pretty much any other programming language, due to its simple and easy-to-use syntax. After getting to grips with the basics, we’ll learn how to use Python's extensive suite of data libraries to automate complex management tasks.

SQL and Data Modelling

Using SQL we will learn how to turn raw data into easy-to-consume data sets. Data Models ensure consistency in naming conventions, default values, semantics, and security, as well as optimising performance and data quality. We'll start to learn the fundamentals of data warehousing and how to deal with different file data formats like JSON, XML and Parquet.

DevOps

DevOps is a combination of the two words “development” and “operations” - it's an umbrella term that describes how a development team manages the transition from writing software through to deploying a live, working application. Using Amazon Web Services, we will discover how to deploy applications and data infrastructure in the “cloud”.

Practical Infrastructure Tasks

This is where we take everything we have learned to deploy a Python ingestion function on an EC2 instance with database source, deploy a Python transformation function on Lambda and populate a data warehouse from refined data.

Both of these courses seem quite broad. Would I be better to do something more focused like a Python, AI, Data Analysis, Web Design ?

Any help would be very much appreciated.

Thank you.

lambosagogo

313 posts

151 months

Sunday 20th November 2022
quotequote all
Pick JavaScript if you want to focus on front end web work, pick Python if you’re more interested in data-related work.

Python’s the rarer skill so potentially more valuable in the longer term. Maybe look at a few course videos on YouTUbe first to see if any particularly speaks to you

InformationSuperHighway

6,484 posts

191 months

Sunday 20th November 2022
quotequote all
Sounds like you want to move to a technical role? Are you sure that’s the route you’d prefer?

There are many many roles in Tech that are non-technical including sales, marketing, product management etc. if you don’t feel technical enough I would suggest following those paths instead your business degree will help you a lot here.

One compromise role between sales and technical for great money is Sales Engineering (aka solutions consulting or pre sales) check out the Presales collective for entry courses and background reading.

Ynox

1,728 posts

186 months

Monday 21st November 2022
quotequote all
Sorry if this sounds a bit pessimistic, but the tech sector is a little turbulent right now. A lot of companies are laying off (Twitter, Facebook, Amazon to name a few). It's worth considering that after a bootcamp you may struggle to find a role as you may be competing against experienced staff who are looking for a new role.

That said, of these two I'd be doing the data engineering one as it also covers some database stuff, although it's covering a lot in 12 weeks. You'd likely need to do a lot of self study also to get up to a reasonable level to get an entry level role - and not many of these will be available as a contract role (companies usually want an experienced hire to hit the ground running to fulfil a contract role).

What makes you want to get into a tech career? As said above, there's other roles rather than being a dev. I've been a developer for the past 16 years and whilst it pays well, it can also be long hours and somewhat stressful at times. You'll also end up having to constantly learn to keep your skills up to date.