A coding bootcamp is a short, intensive course, usually three to nine months long, that trains a person for one tech job, such as full-stack web developer or data analyst. Most bootcamps also give interview practice and help with job applications. They are sold mainly to graduates who finished college without a job offer, and to people who want to switch careers into software.
A bootcamp differs from a college course in what it leaves out. It does not teach a broad syllabus. It teaches only the tools that one job uses, and it judges itself by how many of its learners get hired.
Take, for example, a mechanical-engineering graduate in Nagpur who wants to become a web developer. She joins a six-month full-stack bootcamp. Full stack means both halves of a web application: the front end, which is the page the user sees in the browser, and the back end, which is the server and the database behind it. For the first four months, she attends live online classes for three hours every weekday evening. Between classes, she writes code, and an AI tutor checks her code and answers her questions at any hour. In the fifth month, she builds three projects that she can show to employers, such as an online shop with a working cart. In the sixth month, the bootcamp runs mock interviews with her and sends her profile to the companies that hire from it.
How does she pay? Say the fee is about ₹2 lakh. She can pay it up front, in monthly instalments through buy now, pay later (BNPL), or with an education loan. Several bootcamps offer a third way, the income share agreement (ISA). She pays nothing until she gets a job, and then a share of her salary for a fixed number of months.
Hiring usually begins with a test on a coding assessment platform. So bootcamps drill their learners on timed coding problems of the same kind. Some also list their learners on a campus recruiting platform, so that companies that hire freshers from colleges can find them as well.
How is a bootcamp different from a tech-led college? A tech-led college also teaches through projects, but it runs a full four-year degree, and students join it after Class 12. A bootcamp gives no degree. It is for people who already have a degree, or who need a job sooner.
Bootcamps now face a new problem. AI models write much of the simple code that junior developers used to write. So bootcamps are adding more training in reading and testing code, and in working with AI coding tools.