@Miniature8
what are the salary expectations for somebody after finishing a tech bootcamp? Also, are you able to give a realistic potential salary trajectory for a person like you who entered the industry without a degree in the relevant field?
When I did my bootcamp (Summer 2019) we were told to expect/aim for > £25,000 with £27,000 being the average first salary. In reality most people in my cohort who I spoke to about this expected more (around £30,000 as a minimum) and it was the general consensus that the figures told to us by the careers team were low balled to manage expectations. I had no idea, being in the unusual (even by bootcamp standards) position of never having had a salary at all. The most I had ever earned was £9.65 per hour as a restaurant manager. My bar was therefore very low as I secretly expected that I would be laughed out of the room when it came to actual interviews and the real world of work as my CV was just so flimsy (university drop out, no job longer than 6 months). I didn't really believe people when they told me that this didn't matter in the tech world like in other industries. I went along with it as it was my only hope but deep down doubted it was much more than bootcamp propaganda.
So I was completely and utterly flabbergasted when I got my first job offer from one of the very first jobs I applied to and the number put forward during the "negotiation" was £45,000 + 10% bonus. I had very boldly gone in and said I expected £30 and I thought that was pushing it...
I will say that this wasn't the norm. I got extremely lucky as I am not some kind of coding whiz kid/ genius type but just got hired by a massive American company that pay extremely well. Most of my fellow bootcampers (who did well and took to coding and went on to job hunt seriously) probably averaged something more like the £30 that we were expecting.
It's famously true that junior developers don't stay in jobs long though and that is because this number will get a lot higher very quickly if you work hard but only if you move jobs. My yearly income including bonus is around 60 now and I would expect most to be earning something like that at 4-5 years. Some more and some (the ones who don't care or don't really like the work) never more then ~40.
Eventually, if you carry on progressing, want to work your way up and stick at it you will move from mid level to senior roles and you will be on 70-100 (or much higher if you get a job at Google for eg). This could take anywhere from 5-10 years I would say (though I'm sure there are many exceptions to that). And then there are more senior roles and more specialist roles and roles with silly names like "technical evangelist" and you can move up or to the side and be earning six figures. Or of course, you may end up somewhere earning a lot less but in a company that you really like or on a product that you're really passionate about.
This is of course all very approximate and there is a massive amount of variation depending on a myriad of factors but will hopefully give you some idea.
Sorry - that ended up much longer than I was aiming for!