I think you're better off working on some projects by yourself. Boot camps can give you an impressive list of projects, but it's also highly likely that you were spoon-fed to a certain extent working on them. After all, if you're thinking about working as a data scientist, you better like working with data enough to motivate yourself.
Look up online courses, do well on a few Kaggle competitions, learn new technologies, and play with datasets available online (I highly recommend looking at enigma.io).
Companies I can confirm that have hired individuals directly from a data science training program: Tesla Motors, Facebook, Square, Yammer, Tagged, Change.org, Twitter, Airbnb, Netflix, Groupon, YouTube, Apple, Adobe, Palantir
Absolutely! Here at Zipfian Academy, a little more than 1/3 of our hiring partners are smaller data-driven startups. In general, they're working on really interesting problems and look for full-stack data scientists with strong coding skills. If you'd like to hear more, feel free to drop me a line at 'ryan' at 'zipfianacademy.com'.
Note: I am not directly responsible for hiring people at the company I work at.
Perhaps I am jealous of not having these opportunities (or being able to afford them) where I am from but I feel like hiring a bootcamper can be extremely dangerous, I am not sure if I would hire someone into a blue chip company who has only done a bootcamp. Maybe I am selling the individuals too short but I feel like a solid foundation in CS (data structures, algos, programming languages, distributed systems) and maths (stats, numerical optimization, real analysis) is the most trustable foundation for a young analytics professional. When combined with good work experience (or commerce breadth) you have the perfect entry level employee.
If you're interested in Zipfian definitely check them out. I'm a former student and can assure you that they really know their stuff. I got hired directly out of the program and will easily repay the cost of tuition within this year. If you want some more info on it let me know!
I'd be interested in developing algorithms and general systems building. More than systems engineering for stuff like this but still enough that I can get a system together including algorithms for people.
Not many in the bay area (or on earth for that matter) but it seems like an area heating up.
Notably, in Palo Alto there is Insight. They are starting a data engineering program this summer. There's Zipfian academy in SF full time and assembly in the city as well.
Co-founder & CEO of Zipfian Academy here. I'm happy to answer any questions you might have about the program. We're also hosting a virtual info session tonight if you're interested in learning more: http://www.zipfianacademy.com/events/2014/4/14/zipfian-acade...
I so want to do Zipfian but I can't afford relocating to San Fran at the moment. It would be great if you offered an online version of the bootcamp, there aren't any online data science bootcamps at this point (if you don't count MOOCS) and I think that a lot of people are in the same boat as me.
We're working on some exciting new projects that will make some of the curriculum available online. Getting the format right for online learning is a challenge -- we've found that nothing beats the in-person experience with access to instructors and like-minded learners to provide help with troubleshooting, teach good habits, and help overcome stumbling blocks.
