Hi! I did a front end bootcamp in 2016 and I also have ADHD. And I tutored a young mad who also went through the same bootcamp a couple years later. I get the whole “structure” thing ESPECIALLY when it comes to development because there’s so much to know out there.

My bootcamp experience was pretty good. I still had issues, even with the structure but I did learn enough to get me a good job right afterwards. BUT I got a job at my company. It was easier to move around instead of getting a job out in the wild.

I’m going to address the AI component first. AI will make coding easier in the future by getting rid of the repetitive tasks that devs don’t like doing (unit testing, generic models, pattern implementation). It will probably make it easier for smaller companies to create their own websites for routine things like scheduling and smaller shops. There’s a lot of use for AI but it will be a tool for programmers, it can’t take over everything.

Also, with every new technology that ends one job, another is created. Shopify and the like pretty much killed off the free lance small business website builders. I’d love to go freelance but who needs a custom website for $1000 when they can use a service and only pay $10 month? But now there’s a whole new field of people who know how to utilize Shopify and do the marketing stuff. My specific niche is to take manual office processes and automate them. Less people needed to do paperwork, but I’ve got 10 people on my team doing just business automation for one department.

And if AI can build it, AI can hack it. There going to be tons of work and technology built to help mitigate those types of attacks.

We’ll need applications to detect plagiarism. We’ll need applications for the new wave of AI created art. We’ll need applications for artists who’ve sworn off AI. We’ll need applications to help the small business owners creat their own websites using AI.

And also, AI can’t generate its own ideas. It’s simply a model that learns from ideas already out there. There will still be a market for innovation.

As for the bootcamp. The most important thing is to creat projects, put them online, and be nice during interviews and never turn down an interview. Be honest about your skill set and curious about the company. Online it seems like every tech bro works at FANG but most dev jobs are just regular people jobs. Hospitals, credit unions, colleges, government, non profits, all of them want and need custom applications. And NOONE WANTS TO WORK WITH A SMARMY TECH BRO! I swear to god I see all these posts about dudes bemoaning a woman getting a job or a raise over them but I’ve worked with enough douch canoes to know that most companies don’t need a guy with a god complex, they just need someone to update their database and is nice about it.

Anyways, I could go on. Please PLEASE reach out to me if you’d like to chat more. I actually sorta love mentoring.

I don't know about boot camps. But there is so much knowledge online these days I think you probably don't need it.

When I was small almost everyone was learning some simple programming with BASIC. That wasn't ideal because knowing how to do that was not a career route into something more useful. But nowadays the "introductory" programming language is Python. I have worked my way through writing some programs in this and it is very intuitive to get started and understand how to structure things. Also there are companies in the real world who are using Python for serious applications so it could be a career route.

The very best language I think at the moment career wise is JavaScript. I don't know this very well but so much of the Web is written in it, and it's the only language that is running in browsers, so there will be work for this for a long time.

Just make yourself a project with some fairly clear end goals and look up all the ways you need to make it happen online. It will take time but it won't cost you anything.

You could check to see what coding-related classes you can find at nearby community colleges. Some have pretty good programs. Also, a lot of colleges & universities have different rules for "adult students" (older than typical college age), and they might allow you to just take the few courses you're interested in at a lower tuition rate.

As far as "AI-proofing", my instinct is that having another field to combine your coding skills with will help a lot - as in, studying coding & communications such that you can call yourself a "customer experience engineer" or some such, or coding & design to work in UX, which I hear people talk about a lot. Sort of making yourself seem like someone who can do interesting & creative things with coding, rather than just someone who knows how to code.

A caveat though - almost everyone I've known who followed through on learning to code has pretty quickly found a niche where they can make an independent living without a traditional "job", and as a result they're now happily self-employed. It'll happen to you...

I also did a in-person coding boot camp around 2016, after having taught myself html/css, php, and Javascript from textbooks. I vetted the boot camp pretty hard, and didn't expect them to perform miracles. The biggest benefit I got from the boot camp was that they gave us project requirements, and supported us as we did them on our own. I ended up with a lot more completed projects and confidence, as I also got a chance to assist my peers in the classes with their work.

However now with my current experience, I don't even bother to list the boot camp on my resume, at this point it would be like putting in my high school GPA, nobody cares and it would look... odd.

I've been doing full stack for 5 years now, and really, AI is not a thing I worry about. It has some great and clever applications right now, but is not going to be able to reliably do what I do for a century, if at all. Asking AI to write some code is one thing, asking it to bug fix and also make it look pretty (depending on what "pretty" is to the client) is a total other ball of wax.

If you're interested in doing work with AI though, there's not really a boot camp for it. You'd be looking at computer science with a hard side of data science. Traditional university would be your best bet.

I'm currently trying to make the leap from development to software engineer and it's challenging. If you do want to do engineering I would strongly suggest you look into university courses.

If you want or need any help in getting together projects or a resume, please feel welcome to reach out, I'm super enthused about the career and have mentored people into junior positions in the past.

I am not extremely knowledgable about this but Ill share the bit of experience we dealt with. My husband almost enrolled in one of those bootcamps, it was advertised as being part of a major state university and the person he talked to told him he could use his GI Bill (veteran). Well it seemed a bit off so he called the VA. Turns out the dude lied to him. So husband digged deeper, found out the company basically pays to use the universities name or something like that, so it isn't really through the university, just has its name tracked on. And it is hella expensive for creditentials that really won't get you far. He ended up doing a certificate thing with a legit cyber security school through a program for veterans. I'd just advise be careful, research very throughly on the boot camp. Maybe look to see if there's free courses through colleges first and go from there. I think AI is scary but interesting, and it'd be very handy to have those skills and understand how it works.

Get a certificate, specifically go for what's necessary in that field. Build up your skills, work on open-source coding so you have something to show. Build a website, do things that are tangible and show your skill.

You could also look at apprenticeships! I know spotify has one and pinterest as well as google!