Because going to a 'bootcamp' for a couple of weeks doesn't make you anymore of a 'developer' than playing operation[0] makes you a surgeon.
Bootcamps did explode in popularity, a lot of them are crap, and more people than ever see it as the fast lane to easy street. But to equate going to a bootcamp to a surgeon playing operation is really ignorant.
Writing some CRUD apps around a database (which lets face it most of us are doing that most of the time) is by no means as important or a life changing/ending action as performing surgery.
Bootcamps, self-education, go to school for it, internships; a combination of things. There are plenty of ways to get started and keep progressing.
…which is why “developer” is not a good job-description. I suppose it’s as if both a bricklayer and a civil-engineer referred to themselves as “builders”.
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I think you meant to ask “how does someone become an SWE?” - in which case (because we don’t have professional licensing for SWE compared to civil-eng) it’s somewhat vaguer and, in my opinion, more based on the opinions of those around you. I suppose a succinct definition is “applies engineering principles to a problem-solving project” - and one can argue that being self-taught or a coding-camp attendee - or even an AS graduate - will very likely lack exposure to training in engineering principles that they can apply to their work.
Honestly, it seems like a bootcamp is a great way to get introduced to the possibility of an entry-level job as a developer but not an SWE.
I'm sure this isn't a good answer but I'd written tons of hobby programs before I got my first developer job. Not because someday I wanted a job but because I actually enjoyed programming and creating things on the computer. If you don't enjoy it or do enjoy it but don't have the time to do it outside of work I don't know what to suggest.
I get that might be considered "no fair". I guess maybe you can become a doctor or lawyer without doing doctoring or lawyering in your spare time? But can you become an artist? I feel like most successful artists (video game artists, fashion designers, graphic designers, motion graphics editors) won't get the experience and job by just taking a crash course and then applying. You get in by showing a portfolio of art you've created.
Programming might not be similar to art but it feels like getting in is similar, you show a portfolio of stuff you've created. And via this creation you learn much of the stuff you need to pass the interviews have stuff to show.
Isn’t this just based on your own experiences and biases and the way things have been done historically because developers have mostly been people who had access to computers as kids/teenagers/college students?
> If you don't enjoy it or do enjoy it but don't have the time to do it outside of work I don't know what to suggest.
Maybe a bootcamp to get the basic skills and then seek out an entry-level job?
A dev-ready laptop can be had for less than $300; significantly cheaper than any bootcamp or university. Why would you attempt to invalidate another’s success by insinuating that it’s due to gatekeeping or privilege that just isn’t there?
I was extremely underpaid (I set the prices, and at 16 a thousand bucks looks like a lot of money), but by the time I was 19 I had a good chunk of experience, that was even before university.
There is room!
I was asked to hand over the stuff that I was working on, when I left a job. It was interesting to find out the girl I was supposed to train, didn’t know even the absolute basic programming stuff. She had been in the company for five years and was well liked. She was doing just one specific thing all those years, and she was very good at it. She got raises every year, the company had a perverse interest in keeping her that way.
I have worked in a dozen places in my life. Though tall promises are made during interviews, not one of those companies gave a shit about employee growth etc. only way to do something interesting was to leave and find another job - rinse and repeat.
It is not just the employees fault their skills stagnate. Employers also contribute to it.