There is something that is important to realize: there is no shortage of software engineers. Unfortunately the expectation that once you finish the software Bootcamp you will be in demand is misplaced (as you found out).

I have decades of software development experience. I designed and built nderground.net, a social network built for privacy. I have a great deal of experience with Amazon Web Services (which hosts nderground and other web applications I’ve built). Despite this experience, I still get turned down for jobs. Some of this is because I do remote work and this is more difficult to get than in person work.

Here’s an example: I recently applied for a remote job at a mid-west retail company that has no particular reputation in the technology community (e.g., they’re not Amazon or Netflix).

In order to apply I had to take an on-line test with nine programming problems. The test had to be completed in an hour. I finished four of the nine problems (I’ve always sucked at timed tests). I later got an email that stated that I did not have a high enough score on the test to proceed with their interview process.

One way to interpret this experience is that this no-name retail company has so many software engineers applying that they can turn down applicants who might do well at their company on the basis of a timed test. Or maybe their business involves their employees constantly solving small programming problems within a constrained amount of time.

I viewed this as proof that there is not shortage of software engineers, even for a no-name retail company.