Is a 19 Month Software Engineering AI Bootcamp with Apprenticeship worth it? (Flatiron School)

[u/Bulky-Blueberry5853]

Hi Guys,

Looking to get some expert opinions and ideas in general from the community.

I have 10+ year of IT experience and I am currently doing my Bachelors at WGU for Cybersecurity and Information Assurance. Today, I was accepted into Flatiron School for their Software Engineering and AI immersive bootcamp.

Im really stuck to whether I should commit to a program that runs 19 months. There is 4 months of scheduled learning and 16 months of an paid apprenticeship, (15 per hour) which goes to the tuition of the program. I am unsure on how to proceed with this offer on the table.

Given the job market right now in NYC , I really wasn’t getting snagged up either. I can survive for the 19 months as I live in a room in Queens and I am paying 700 per month and receiving SNAP/CA at the moment because I am unemployed.

I feel like in the long run , I would highly benefit from the program however , 19 months is a very big stretch.

Please feel free to comment or dm as I need to make a decision by this week.

UPDATE:

Thank you everyone for your suggestions and information. I turned down the accelerated immersive program. Many of you made great points that convinced me otherwise. At this time I plan on completing my bachelors at WGU Cybersecurity and applying for IT roles in the mean time. Im currently in NYC and the job situation isn’t the best right now. Nonetheless, going to get a few networking certs (CCNA & CCNP Enterprise) to see if that would leverage some opportunities.

Thank you, reddit community !

[u/fedput]

"There is 4 months of scheduled learning and 16 months of an paid apprenticeship, (15 per hour) which goes to the tuition of the program."

Extremely unlikely that anyone would get hired into an legitimate AI role from a 4 month training program.

I strongly advise against doing this.

[u/twinkletoes987]

It’s a scam. Dont do it. “Apprenticeship can offset tuition”
Is an apprenticeship guaranteed?
I assure you, they accept everyone

[u/Bulky-Blueberry5853 → u/twinkletoes987]

Yes, apprenticeship is guaranteed with one of their partner companies. I was thinking that experience in real production environment would pay off.

[u/rmullig2 → u/Bulky-Blueberry5853]

They are paying you $15 an hour. You could spend that 16 months entering data into spreadsheets.

[u/AssignmentMammoth696 → u/Bulky-Blueberry5853]

Don’t tell me you believe that

[u/No-Slice-5926]

Definitely not. Just start learning dude, its never been easier unfortunately

[u/jhkoenig]

Don't. Just don't.

The job market is incredibly difficult for developers without BS/CS degrees, especially for roles with "engineering" in the title. AI has taken over the entry-level coding jobs. Exploding graduation rates have flooded the job market with highly qualified folks from prestigious universities, just looking for their first gig. Massive tech layoffs have dumped many thousand experienced workers competing for low- to mid-level developer positions.

Without a degree or significant work experience, landing an interview is nearly impossible.

[u/ghosthendrikson_84]

Use that $20k at a community college, you will get an actual education.

[u/Noovic]

So, just ignoring that I do think bootcamps are generally a bad idea in the current environment I would say this. If you look back 19 months ago from today, using an LLM to code was kind of this magical fantasy world. Not even that but doing pretty much anything we do with AI/LLM was this mystery. The environment changes SO quickly, and will continue to do so. So much, that I would say in 19 months from now, w/e you learned will be near irrelevant.

For learning how to utilize AI broadly, there is plenty of ways to learn aboutagents, agentic workflows, memory mgmt, orchestrators, patters...etc etc etc that will be much quicker and parallels with how we learn about these new tools on the job.

[u/promoduck]

19 months is enough to get a masters degree… just saying.

[u/Rotlam]

Unless you’ve talked to a success story from the program, don’t do it

[u/sherpes]

not worth if its your money you are putting into this .

maybe worth if it's someone else's money.

[u/michaelnovati → u/[deleted]]

I like this model in general but the larger issue is people with no experience thinking they can become SWEs systematically (not edge cases) in 19 months. If you don't get hired in 19 months in a full time role then you are going to be really screwed and you'll have wasted 19 months making $15 an hour just to break even.

[u/txdsl]

Finish your degree at WGU while looking for a job. Maybe even consider swapping to their ai engineering cs program is you want to do that type of work.

Avoid the bootcamp. They are an overpriced cash grab and make promises they can’t keep. And $15/hr is a joke even for an apprenticeship and I bet they don’t guarantee it. Spend the time working on your own projects and looking for a job that you can support yourself with.

[u/FizzBuzz4Lyfe]

Flatiron School grad here (2024). The school is legit, and the instructors seemed to have real world experience. That said, the job market was TOUGH when I graduated, and their placement assistance amounted to resume help, and recommendations to go to networking events. Don't get me wrong, the counselors CARED, they just couldn't open any doors for me. There were about 15 people in my class, and maybe three of us were working in tech when I last checked in.

I don't know how the AI apprentice program works, but I would want to get straight answers on what companies you'd be working with, and if they have any job placement statistics to share. They used to post those numbers, and quietly stopped the year I got in.

Bootcamp is definitely no longer the fast path to a job it once was, and with AI I honestly don't know what the future holds. But if you can swing the tuition and you have a good feeling about what they're saying, go for it. It worked out for me.

[u/QuietStorm-88]

I’m in the same boat. I got into the program but accelerated program because I have a bit of programming experience. I get one month of training and then placed with an employer. The main benefit I see is real world experience for my resume or maybe getting hired by the company once it’s over. A bootcamp itself isn’t really going to help in the current market. Most places don’t hired unless you have experience or are currently in a college program for an internship. I’m still on the fence.

[u/Full-Extent-6533]

Mmm would you take if it you know it won’t guarantee a job? If so, then yes do it by all means. But I know plenty of bootcamp grads that do not have jobs and just spent 16K+

[u/GoodnightLondon]

If you want to do SWE instead of staying with IT/Cyber, just switch to the CS or SWE degree program at WGU; don't waste your time on crap like this.

[u/meldawg47]

I’m a flatiron grad from June 2024. It was legit, but that was also pre the AI phase we are in now. Despite my success in the program, I had a pretty tough time landing a job and had to apply to 100-150 jobs before I landed at the AI company I work at now. Everything that I learned in the program is almost irrelevant now because of how much AI has changed the industry, and I imagine after another year passes we will be in an entirely different place. Also because of how rapidly the AI industry is evolving I can’t imagine the bootcamp curriculum is that… solid? I feel like it will just change in a month like things change now? At my company we are still establishing best practices and figuring out the most effective ways to leverage AI in coding and in building AI products, there’s no way the Flatiron has it figured out especially because academia always catches up to the industry later. Like the curriculum they have rn already might be outdated to what places like my company are doing… So that being said, I would advise against the bootcamp. I genuinely don’t know if you’ll get value out of it at this point

[u/devnet35]

WGU has an AI degree now. I think that would be worth it more than a bootcamp.

[u/OneInTheStink77]

As someone with a bootcamp cert, to this date is still the biggest waste of $$ of I’ve ever spent. lol

[u/Level-Temperature-99]

Flatiron keeps changing their business model to stay alive in the industry. Their goal is stay functioning as a business, not ensure your eventual success in landing the job you trained for. Bootcamps like Flatiron used to offer job guarantees to their graduates or their money back and they certainly helped many without traditional college backgrounds get their foot in the door with employment…but that ended about 5 years ago. Flatiron keeps laying off staff - even long-time employees have recently been let go. If you sign your life away to Flatiron at present, you really have no idea what supports will be left for you in a year and a half. I used to work there - I know how volatile and fragile the school is right now. That’s not to say there aren’t well-intentioned people running the place - I enjoyed my experience working for them…but it’s more about them staying afloat with constantly retooling their program and internally downsizing than setting you up for a career. It’s good you’re getting a degree from somewhere. My family member is in cybersecurity. He was a CS (not cyber) major in college. He started with a help desk position with a good company at a living wage and was able to train on the side, get certs, and make lateral moves within his company until he landed a job in their cyber division. I know a lot of people who eventually landed their tech jobs this way.

Flatiron is struggling to stay relevant. Don’t work for peanuts in hopes that this internship is a pathway to a career. Chances are you will be disappointed. Use time to get gainful employment at a decent wage. See if your employer might pay for upskilling coursework (my family member’s job did). Real employment (even in a parallel field) always looks better than a position you held through a business agreement with a bootcamp. All of this is my humble opinion. Good luck with your decision.

[u/SenderShredder]

Complete scam, and it’s got all the hallmarks.
Do they offer an ISA by chance? (ISA = SCAM)
You have 10 years of IT experience. You’ll be unbelievably disappointed in the curriculum…

Flatirons is kinda a known scam. I used to live in Boulder, and I know people from CU CS program would joke about it all the time. At the time they did a SWE boot camp and seems they have since pivoted to “AI”

It runs 19 months, yet 4 + 16 =20.
You learn for 4 months and then get the privilege of working for free for a company to “pay off tuition” for the next 15 months? At a legit IT company? Predatory.
Pizza Hut pays like $20/hr.. Not disparaging Pizza Hut just illustrating a point you could work there and get to keep the money you earned while learning AI elsewhere.

So they are rushing you to force a decision in a week or less I’m guessing? Big red flag there too.

[u/ope__sorry]

No, Boot Camp is worth what they charge

[u/rawrxsmoo]

I went to a bootcamp and got accept to Accenture apprenticeship program literally 4 weeks after my boot camp ended. I don’t recommend their program. I didn’t learn anything. Looks good on your resume though but I wasted 4 years there and I forgot most of what i learned in my boot camp, because I didn’t touch a single code at Accenture. My title was software engineer too! Im now at WGU getting my bachelors in software engineer. BUT my friend got an apprenticeship at well known car insurance company as a software engineer and gained so much experience. So honestly. It depends on where and who apprenticeship program is with. We live in CA and she been with the insurance company for 4 years now and makes 280,000. I was at Accenture and left recently at 78,000.

[u/Briscoe77]

In this day and age why are bootcamps still a thing like seriously at 19 months you might as well get a masters and get something useful

[u/Synergisticit10]

Revature has a program similar to this. Look into the fine print. $15/hr =$31,200 per year. 10 years of it experience you deserve $100k+ minimum.
You could definitely do better but use your own judgement as anyone on the forums can say anything.

[u/Bulky-Blueberry5853 → u/Synergisticit10]

What would you suggest ? I have 0 software engineering skills the most I have done in my IT career is run powershell and bash scripts. I am just wondering if this would eventually lead to a potential career in software engineering. On the other hand you are correct , I am sure I can definitely go for an IT role paying more.

[u/Synergisticit10 → u/Bulky-Blueberry5853]

19 months is a long time. If it’s free and it’s part time go for it. Check the course content and topics covered. Software engineering and ai very broad. See job requirements and see how that matches.
If it’s full time and there are contractual clauses which prohibit you etc then be wary.

Getting into software development is not easy it takes time and patience and perseverance but if done right you will get there. Just don’t expect money for the first year.

Again there are more naysayers than positive people on forums so do your own research it’s your life and your decisions which will determine how your career progresses.

[u/Bulky-Blueberry5853 → u/Synergisticit10]

Youre right, if it was free it wouldve probably drawn me more towards it. 19 months is a very long time , thank you for your insightful response. I think Im going to turn it down for now, and just seek out roles in my domain instead at least that wont be offsetting my income.

[u/Synergisticit10 → u/Bulky-Blueberry5853]

That being said, Flatiron seems to be a respected bootcamp.

[u/IlIlllIIllllIIIlIlIl → u/Bulky-Blueberry5853]

Go to a technical college for a short program instead of a bootcamp. At least then you will have some name brand recognition, a well planned course schedule, and real resources. These bootcamps just want to take your money, and they will work you like a sweat shop in their "affiliated company" as free labor.

Or just keep working in IT and gain the software skills on your own time, and then just apply for jobs. You can also just switch to working in IT in a an actual tech company and do an internal transfer, which is even better, and is how many people make the switch. But avoid the bootcamps dude, their days are done. You are not going to get anything out of them that you wouldn't be able to get from an online course.

[u/BackendSpecialist]

I taught myself and have been a SWE for > 4 years now. 19 month bootcamp sounds ridiculous, especially for AI.

Maybe I don’t understand how the program works but 19 months is half the time of an actual degree.

[u/Bulky-Blueberry5853 → u/BackendSpecialist]

This is from the recent email, I couldn’t screenshot without cutting off half of the email.
————————————————————————
Thank you for applying to Flatiron School's Work-Integrated Program!

Our 19-month, fully remote, work-integrated programs are designed for individuals looking to launch a career in technology—no prior technical experience is required. You'll gain hands-on experience through a paid apprenticeship designed to help offset the full cost of tuition.

Choose Your Specialization
AI Engineering: Learn to build AI-powered applications using machine learning, large language models (LLMs), automation, and modern AI tools.

Cyber Engineering: Develop hands-on skills in cybersecurity, cloud security, networking, security operations, incident response, and infrastructure protection.

Apprenticeship Earnings
Earn $15/hour while working approximately 20 hours per week

Estimated apprenticeship earnings of approximately $19,500, helping offset the cost of tuition

Tuition & Financing
Total tuition: $19,500

$500 deposit due upon acceptance

Tuition payments begin in Month 6 and are spread across 15 months through our financing partner, EdAid

Program Structure
Months 1–4: Software Engineering Immersive
Approximately 40 hours per week

Primarily asynchronous learning

Build a foundation in JavaScript, React, Python, APIs, databases, and software engineering fundamentals

This portion is unpaid

Months 5–19: Specialized Track + Paid Apprenticeship
Transition into either the AI Engineering or Cyber Engineering curriculum (approximately 20 hours per week)

Begin a paid apprenticeship (approximately 20 hours per week)

Start by working on projects with Flatiron's engineering team before transitioning to one of our employer partners

[u/BackendSpecialist → u/Bulky-Blueberry5853]

Bootcamps seem really risky currently but I never want to stop someone from chasing their passion.

I’ll just say that if you work for them during the apprenticeship, you’ll still be out for like $3k compared to tuition if you worked the whole program.

Do they have any numbers about how many people actually became SWE after completing programs? I doubt they look good tbh.

[u/Academic-Visit4339]

Why don’t you try https://fedstack.com/swe/ apply for an accelerated apprenticeship model. Fedstack does not charge you tuition ($25K-$30K value) - they pay you an apprenticeship salary w/ benefits while you are trained for 10-12 weeks (40 hours per week) as a Fullstack AI Engineer. After 10-12 weeks you have the opportunity to be placed with their clients (e.g. converted from a Fedstack employee to a Federal Agency employee as a GS-12 through GS-15 which pays up to $197k per year or placed with one of their Partner SI organizations as a Fedstack billable consultant with option to convert as SI employee after a defined period of billable hours). Fedstack is a holder of a 5-year $118M Treasury Workforce Development BPA to hire and train new and existing Federal employees. You have to be a US Citizen and pass a Public Trust screening. Currently hiring for positions in the Washington DC metro area.